The lucky haiku

Haiku! he said as 
part of a sneeze. As we all 
know, this brings good luck.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Greatly Fictionalized – an Updated Fairytale

 

My name is Cynthia McFarland, from the reputable family in the Cavendish Moors. I am better known as Cinderella, the heroine of a well-known fairytale. Some elements of the tale are true – the horrible stepmother and the envious nasty stepsisters. But I did not talk to pigeons and I never rode in an oversized pumpkin.

Even the glass slipper is pure embroidery. Perhaps someone came up with that idea because of the performance at the ball that night, where a boy artist walked across a five foot line of champagne flutes without falling off or breaking any of them. Something else that also happened was that my stepsister Metallia got so drunk that she asked for more champagne to be poured in the slipper she had removed from her not so dainty foot. With the result that some high-price bubbles were wasted as it all drained to the floor through the openings in the slipper. Upon which she made an un-lady-like remark and put the wet slipper back on, narrowly avoiding a collision with the floor as she was doing so.

Anyway, there were no bloody toes due to one of my sisters trying out a slipper that did not fit.

It is true, though, that my slippers were involved in the story, because I left them under the curtains in the ballroom.

“How can I find you, my unknown angel?” the prince said as I told him I had to leave after our last dance. 

“If you look, you will find something of mine hidden under heavy brocade, and this will tell you.”

Two days later, a carriage bearing the royal insignia arrived in front of our manor; a uniformed servant and the prince stepped out. The servant proclaimed that His Majesty Prince Dilip requested to see the lady of the house. Who, of course, was enchanted by the visit, thinking of an impending alliance of her offspring with the royal house.

“Dear Lady McFarland, there is something I have to return to your daughter.”

“Oh my dear – what could it be? – Shall I call for Metallia or Auralia?”

“It is for your daughter Cynthia.”

The look on her face when she heard this must have been priceless.

I was called eventually, even though I had on my sports clothes, having practiced martial arts as I always did in the morning.

“My dear Cynthia, you have a princely visitor who wishes to return something to you. Even though I wonder what it could possibly be.”

On a sign by the prince, the servant stepped up to me and presented a box covered in golden cloth.

“I believe these belong to you, Countess,” the prince said, “and am returning them to renew our acquaintance.”

I had left a little note with my name in the slippers when I left them in the ballroom.

The rest is history – he asked for my hand, we had a wonderful wedding in the royal palace and lived happily ever after, as is the end of all fairytales. Even though it could be added that three semi-relatives of mine were a bit less than happy.

– Leonard Blumfeld writing from the perspective of Cynthia McFarland (© 2026)

Notes
This story was inspired by and written for Friday Writings #244: If the Glass Slipper Fits. 

My gripes with you

1. You do not rinse the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher.

2. Forks go in with the fork end up, knives with the cutting end up. You do it randomly.

3. I have a system for the plates you do not follow: the big plates go on the right, the smaller ones and soup plates on the left.

4. You teach the children how to put things in the dishwasher the wrong way.

5. You move things around the way it suits you or do not put them back in the right place.

6. This includes books on the shelves, CDs and framed photographs.

7. Your cynical remarks imply that you have a liberal view of things.

8. This includes remarks that imply that the current president is not a good choice for the country.

9. You once said that you hoped for my sake that my son would end up marrying a black or Asian girl. Later you said it had been a joke.

10. But I know it was not a joke, even though it’s true that you may have had too much to drink as you said.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Note

Written for Friday Writings #243: By the Numbers.

Disclaimer

All similarities of the people mentioned or described here with real characters living or passed away are entirely coincidental.

A contemporary haiku

 

It’s adamantly
innocuous, tangibly
delicious, munchy.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Note
This one sort of parodies the contemporary (over)use of unusual adjective / adverb constructions, which must have originated from some creative writing workshop teachings or simply is trendy. Their purpose seems to be to inject more poeticity.

Diagnosis

 I went to see the doctor.

“What are your symptoms, Mr. ... Um?”

“For a while now I’ve found it hard to enjoy myself, to see the funny side of things. Whatever the news, things are always on the sad side. Global and personal.”

The doctor took out his stethoscope and started listening to my inner workings in various places. Finally stopped to follow up with palpitation. Sat there without saying anything for a minute.

“Doctor?”

“Mr. ... Um ... Blumfeld. Your funny bone is broken.”

“And what can be done about that? A cast?”

“Nothing whatsoever. It simply takes a lot of self-healing. And the realization that both sad and humorous things don’t depend on you. It’s all about what you make of them.”

“Thank you, doctor. I could have come to the same conclusion reading Deepak Chopra.”

“That will be 120 euros. The receptionist handles payments.”

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Written for the prompt “down to the bone” at Poets and Storytellers United.

Meta Haiku

Trying to write one
based on reading one about 
writing a haiku.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Note
That’s exactly what happened here. Plain, flat truth! If we were in frog land instead of poetry land, one haiku would be leapfrogging the other.

You must haiku

Like you must see this
hyaluronic acid eye
commercial. So good!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Notes
So he said let’s haiku – too much time has passed without. Nothing but the truth as usual. Except the invented parts. 

The summer moon haiku

 

The summer moon im-
bibed God knows what and spat it
out disgustedly

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Note
Derived from today’s prompt from Daily Haiku Prompt, which was “Summer Moon” for north and “Imbibe” for south. Once again, I combined both in an entirely unhaikuistic manner.

Applied math

 

The proverb says:

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Hence, applying simple math:

Five apples a day keep five doctors away.

This is definitely mathematically correct. Right? Or did I get it all wrong?

Maybe the proverb actually says:

A doctor a day keeps an apple away?

The cleaning lady vs. books haiku

Now that she’s dusted
them, they have been rearranged
in order of height.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Notes
Once again, the more or less poetic truth and nothing but. Even though not the whole story has been told  – as can be seen in the photo, some of them are also upside down. Fortunately, she did not have a height problem with the CDs, some of which are also present in the same piece of furniture. I dread to check what she’s done to the original sequence, though.

Aftertought
Sinclair Lewis is present three times in the picture, but World So Wide, his posthumous 1951 novel, after which this blog is named, is not among them.

The things we come to know haiku

Now that we are shar-
ing an apartment, I know
how much she does snore.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Note
I got creative in three short lines due to something I overheard at the next table in a restaurant.

It's never too late to learn some French

 

Last night, as I watched the 1st episode of Emily in Paris, which had been recommended by a friend, she was called a "plouc" by her lovely French colleagues. I had not come across that word before and looked it up - it means "hick". Wow! These French people really appreciate their American co-worker!

Sometimes it's even possible to learn something from a TV series.

Not really into that Halloween thing

Just like the ageing poet shown in this picture, I pretty much close my eyes to the batshit pumpkin craziness of Halloween.

Dreading white space

In my younger days

all it took was a pen

and a piece of paper

and some time by myself

to write something.

Some record of what

had happened during the day,

some observation, including

stuff that, when told to my

then girl friend Mary B.,

would cause a chuckle.

However, there was also

something about a dog – 

a black bulldog I’d seen

in France on a hot day,

when it had collapsed

in the gutter exhausted – 

that annoyed Mary B.

She called it a tacky story

that should neither be

remembered nor told.

So there I was – stunned;

my entertaining attempt

had been dealt a severe

blow. And it had all been

because she seemed to be

in a devilish mood, riding

the train across from me

silently and with a black glare.

Oh Mary B., what have you

done to me! Now black

glares tell me to avoid

well-meaning bulldog-in-

gutter anecdotes and best

just shut the fuck up.

I had an empty white

computer page in front

of me, dreading that

emptiness, but then

ended up filling it after all, 

with some lengthy bullshit.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2025)

Notes
All true, except that some of this happened around 2003, and that part may have undergone some memory mutations. Dreading white space is definitely a problem these days. I might suffer from something vague like writer’s block. 

To each its own

 

Complained the crocus:
Rain again! Water, water,
water – so boring!

The sardine: Feels like
heaven. My element! – I
like it, and salty!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
Today’s haiku prompt was this juxtaposition: crocus (North) and sardine (South). I decided to travel both ways.

Haiku mishap

Was going to type 
furry cricket but then wrote
flurry cricket. Brain!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2025)

Note
That’s what I did about the suggestion for 2/23/2025 from Daily Haiku Prompt.

 

Six Haiku Madlibs

In the dense mouth

these tepid lights – 

an artificial dust

– Lee Nao Doh and Basho

✧✧✧✧✧

No one bulge

along this mouth but I,

this dense light.

– Lee Nao Doh and Basho

✧✧✧✧✧

A dense tepid mouth...

A light bulge into the dust,

bellyache! Daffodil again.

– Lee Nao Doh and Basho

✧✧✧✧✧

Dense mouth,

the light

is tepid of dust.

– Lee Nao Doh and Buson

✧✧✧✧✧

Don't bulge, mouth

light, dust themselves,

must nip.

– Lee Nao Doh and Issa

✧✧✧✧✧

Bulge me,

as one who nips mouth

and light.

– Lee Nao Doh and Shiki

✧✧✧✧✧

Note
Once again I felt the urge to test the poetic vein of an artificial intelligence (even though of an apparently very lowly kind) in creating haiku out of a list of words I, Lee Nao Doh, had defined. The AI then mixed this input with haiku from the masters: Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki. Rendering poetry that is partially reminiscent of slightly surreal Chinese proverbs or fortune cookie stuff.

Feel like doing the same? Click here.

An earlier attempt, from which I picked three haiku.

Yours,

Leonard B., aka Lee Nao Doh

Any other suggestions?

What should we name the band?

Retards?

Petards, like that old British band?

Or Leetards,

like leotards?

Raise your hands!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Notes

That came seemingly out of nowhere. I was reading poems by Kenward Elmslie which had nothing to do with music or bands, put the book down, and this minipoem arrived. As I found out slightly later, The Petards was not a British band but a German one, whose lyrics were all in English. The song Lazy Moon above is from 1967.

Sub

Oh come to me!
What is sub? the Siberian said
(from what I’d understood
before he was from some place
around Lake Baikal, which,
he’d managed to tell me some-
how, was not only the world’s
oldest but also its deepest lake)

In my incorrigible tendency
to speak the many-faceted truth
whenever called for or uncalled
for, I went into the multiple
meanings of sub – and noticed,
after having said about five
words, that this was overkill
and way beyond what was
wanted or needed

I broke it off, but then added:
– could be short for submarine
– could be short for submarine
sandwich, a sandwich resembling
a submarine
– could be short for substitute,
as in subbing for a teacher who
is sick or absent for some other
reason
– could refer to ...

What was I doing? The
look in the Siberian’s face
was half pain, half wonder,
adding up to full incompre-
hension. Sub, I pointed
at the building across,
and mimicked eating.
He said Is good? Upon
which I nodded. That
should be universal
enough, right? Shook
hands and left.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
The prompt was substitutions, so a teacher would give me an F for this. Oh dear, I have been known to ramble occasionally!

What is the title of this poem?

 But, more importantly, what is its content?

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
Inspired by a similarly titled poem by Kathryn Bevis, which has lots of detailed content, I came across at the Poetry Society UK site. I decided to not only question the title of the poem but also the content, thus taking it up one notch.