The loud neighborhood haiku

Joy enjoys the joy
of her own noise, much more than that
of the neighbor boys.

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2012)

Posted for Haiku Heights and Joy.

Proverbs from the Chinese IX

Jingle does not vindidate error.

This piece of wisdom from a fortune cookie is typically cryptically Chinese once again and fits in perfectly with 3WW and the current choice of words to write about: error, vindicate and jingle.

What does it mean? What kind of jingle would be likely to vindicate anything in the first place? The situation presented appears to be preposterous.

Oh well, there's always a chance the Chinese original actually made sense and was translated using Google Translate...

Yours sincerely,

Leonard Blumfeld

Last day in May, 2012

They're certainly chirpy out there,
sitting on their branches
and communicating for the sheer hell of it
(or so it seems to one
who doesn't speak a word
of their language),
while there's no communication at all
in this office, with everyone
staring at their screen quietly
and firing off the occasional typing staccato.
I wonder what they think about us
when they peer inside.
What a boring existence, they might say,
with not a chirp or twitter.
We have no clue what it's all about,
but we certainly are fitter.

– Leonard "Impersonator of Sparrows" Blumfeld (© 2012)

Yolanda of the baffling glitter

Yolanda had a baffling glitter
around her big blue eyes.
She thought this made her fitter
than one would realize.

Most days she'd concentrate
on elegance of looks
and rather did negate
the importance of science books.

The teachers did not go for glitter,
so in her exams she fared not well.
This made Yolanda very bitter.
She told 'em they should go to hell.

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2012)

Written around baffle, elegant and negate from 3WW.

Proverbs from the Chinese V

Only those who are truly cherished can guarantee nausea.

– Leonard "Proverbially Yours" Blumfeld

The fifth proverb translated from the Chinese. It happens to hold the words cherish, guarantee and nausea from 3WW.

Proverbs from the Chinese IV

Observing the heart erodes,
observing from the heart does not.

Yet another Chinese proverb in English. A faithful translation, but again a wee bit enigmatic. But that's what Chinese proverbs are all about...

Contains the three words erode, heart and observe from 3WW.

– Leonard "Puzzled Again" Blumfeld

Proverbs from the Chinese II

Mute not the viable gasp.

This translation of another Chinese proverb includes the words gasp, mute and viable from this week's Three Word Wednesday.

Once again, the meaning is not entirely clear. Does it imply, for example, that a non-viable gasp ought to be muted? What exactly makes a gasp viable?

– Leonard "Wisdom of China" Blumfeld

Sweet Jane & Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine

When the sweet meets the not so sweet,
some drama is to be expected.
– Beaudraux Liam

But was Jane
all that sweet –
coming
from Lou Reed?

And Martha L.,
created by Country Joe –
did he know her well
to have an opinion so low?

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2011)

Nonsensical musings about sweet & not so sweet, making use of my vast but diffuse memory of rock’n roll. For Sunday Scribblings and ‘sweet.’

For those unfamiliar with the songs alluded to:

The Velvet Underground playing Sweet Jane



And Country Joe and the Fish playing Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine

Scenes from rural Minnesota I

Withergield and Freotheric were driving along the highway somewhere deep in nocturnal Minnesota, when Freotheric, who was the passenger, pointed at something through the windshield.
“See that light there, Wither?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“Don't you think it's kinda strange to have that kinda light there with the sun down?”
“Hadn't thought about it. But you're right – it's big.”
“Damn right it's big. It's HUGE. And it goes off and then comes on again.”
“Must be an airport around here.”       
“Idiot. There ain't no airport around Gopher Prairie, Minnesota.”
“Then it's gotta be something else.”
“Damn right. And I'll tell you what it is: A erratic luminous omen. From Minnehaha.”

– Leonard “Minnesota” Blumfeld (© 2011)

Written around erratic, luminous and omen from 3WW. With borrowings from Barbara Guest and Sinclair Lewis.

Elucidatory notes
“Gopher Prairie” is the fictitious place in Minnesota where Sinclair Lewis' 1920 novel Main Street is set.
The characters Freotheric and Withergield appear in the poem “Legends” in Barbara Guest's 1976 collection “The Countess from Minneapolis.” The poem is set “in the woods near Minnehaha Falls.”

Letter to his older sister

Dear Mabelle,

I’ll order the squall jacket you recommded,
my that will be one fierce tendril less. I won’t flinch
no more with the crow at the emporium, as I used to,
and feel so small, like peppered rust reverberating.
Now there’s only one thing that remains to be said,
and that is that I dislike saffron, so contrary to your
advice I will not take those pills. CU tomorrow!

Bel-Ami

Written for napowrimo #22, in which the following words were proposed:

I dropped it, I dropped it

A tisket, a tasket,
a tiny little basket

You say: What was in it?
I say: A minute

– Leonard “Chaz” Blumfeld

Written for One Single Impression’s dropped and for Totally Optional Prompts’ song lyrics. Alludes, of course, to the Ella Fitzgerald ditty from 1938 which, in turn, alluded to a much older American nursery rhyme.

Knight on bended knees to his beloved lady

Barely a drop in the evenings now, only glad mist admidst the pallid murmurs of your dark rivulets. Oh how you make me swoon!

– Leonard Blumfeld

Nonsense ditty incorporating all nine words – drop, evenings, glad, mist, motionless, murmur, pallid, rivulets, swoon – from Café Writing.

Round

The washing machine
goes round and round.

In front of it my cat
makes not a sound.

In deepest fascinotion
her head follows the motion.

– Len “Silly Mood” Blumfeld (© 2008)

Goes with the call for ‘round’ literature from BlogFriday. Requires one of the European-style washing machines with the round glass window in front.

See you lator

I still likes my amplificator
but now also wants a magnificator
before heading down to the equator
with my magnanimator
to avoid the torpiditator
with his pet alligator,
an eradicator
by trade, a voluminator,
pollutinator,
terrificator
and terminator by effect.

– Len "Procrastinator" Blumfeld

Note
That one came out of the blue. I only felt exhausted and depleted when I started a list of words, existing and invented, ending in -ator. Now I feel much refreshed. Ain't that sumpin'!

So what fib no. 3

A
man's
climbing
up a rock
with a giant tooth-
pick. A green-headed pink turtle
with yellow spots lies
flat. So what?
is what
you
say.

– Len "No Nonsense" Blumfeld

All once again based on closer observation of my immediate office surroundings (Chris' workplace).

Do not try at home

But will it blend? That is the question.

See for yourself what the smoothie button did to an innocent I-Phone.


Isn't the networking among employees of a big corporation amazing? This video was shown to me by a colleague, who had it from another colleague, who probably had it from another one, etc.

Let's go and see if such things can be true

The Miracle Man

That doctor's amazing! They say the old sinner
Puts food in his mouth when he's eating his dinner,
And also feels hungry if starved of his bread,
And closes his eyes when he sleeps in his bed!
He walks with his feet always treading the ground,
His eyes can see things, and his ears can hear sound.
On his shoulders, they tell me, his head you can view:
O let's go and see if such things can be true!

– Sukumar Ray

(Translated from the Bengali by Sukanta Chaudhuri)

Note
Sukumar Ray (1887-1923) could be called the Indian Lewis Carroll. His nonsense verse is as known in Bengal as Mother Goose is in the English-speaking world. His son was the great film director Satyajit Ray (1921-1992), also a writer; the third generation in a family of multi-talents.

More on Sukumar Ray at At Home, Writing.

Ode to loneliness

This
is an ode
to
loneliness

It has
neither
an anode

nor, you
guessed it,
a cathode

– Leonard Blumfeld (copyright 2007)

Invitable note
Written in an attack of musing about loneliness and its pain and omnipresence even in the presence of others, and using or mis/abusing the 3-part form of the ode (strophe, antistrophe and epode), see Wikipedia.

Invitable afternote
This "ode" could be simply read as a joke, but it might possibly invite further speculation along the lines of what should preferably happen between anode and cathode and what the result is if nothing happens or if these two movers are removed. Enough said!