I’m doing nearly nothing

Ab Har Ho Bhola Nahin Bane - Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur

Fourth day of dreamily

listening to Mallikarjun Mansur -

always the same songs.

Nothing much is happening – 

I’m not listening attentively.

The music is flowing into me.

It feels like a conspicuous momentary

constellation – Mallikarjun Mansur singing

and me doing the equivalent of happy nothing.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

A mostly stolen haiku

In the box
nothing
laughing

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
What happened here is that I read someone’s haiku, which had something (some object I can’t recall) in place of the nothing and seemed quite flat. So, to pep things up a bit and introduce some leaping* element, I used nothing instead. Try to imagine nothing laughing. What would that laughter look like/sound like? Nothing has no face, no voice. Quite apart from the fact that this haiku is seriously underfilled by common syllabic standards.

* Cf. Robert Bly, Leaping Poetry

The no idea haiku

This one has not a
single idea. It lives in
things, in things only.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2014)

Note
This one toys with the well-known and often quoted William Carlos Williams’ statement “No ideas but in things.” Actually, it fails on both accounts – it has neither ideas nor things... It is a very reticent poem, one might say.

Recommended viewing: Poets United.

The rear gear haiku

I’m in backwards mode
again today, where I want
nothing of this world.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2013)

Note
Do you ever go through these moods where everything seems futile? Where cell phones, movies, social media hoopla, poems, paintings, consumerism and poop seem all the same? Where you sort of feel like Buddha, wanting to spend the rest of your life sitting at some intersection somewhere in Bihar, having nothing and wanting nothing? You do? Then you know what this haiku is about.

Niente

Nothing in a long time. 

Only living. No writing.

– Leonard “Has Been Living” Blumfeld

A truthful report. Hadn't written a thing since going on a trip to Italy on June 24. Got back on July 10, but still did not feel like writing.

For those who don't know: niente is Italian for nothing.

Looking around collage

The people across from the office have two yellow and one blue plastic flowers attached to their bathroom window. It is the bathroom window because it is made of that rough-textured glass that is no-see-through.

I'm sure the whole wide world has been waiting to read this.

On to other, equally notable things.

On my absent colleague's cabinet there are two miniature Mercedeses, one maroon, the other silver. One's stuck in sort of a tupperware bowl on a sheaf of papers, the other one on what looks like some sort of ramp. Black plastic. Neither Mercedes looks very happy.

The subprime rate mortgage crisis keeps throwing its weight around. Now it turns out that even the oh so successful on their own Chinese were hoping to make a fast buck on another bubble that was supposed to keep growing forever and that was mostly based on loans that should have never been given in the first place. Idiocy thy name is banking.

Darshini David wore bright orange yesterday. Big buttons again, even though the collar was less pronounced than usual. Made her upper body look humongous. I'd been looking forward to her daily appearance, but BBC did not put her on. Rico Hizon from Singapore, a man of vast knowledge, enigmatic smiles and succinct wording (albeit also guilty of some overuse of personal address interjections), was left out as well.

BBC World News has been showing the same AT&T formula 1 whine car racing commercial for weeks. Something about "ultimate speed," "enhanced performance" and "innovative solutions." Leaves me panting every single time. AT&T would be well advised to axe their commercial scribes for abundance of originality.

And oh the big business world is still complaining about the credit crunch that prevents them from sinking trillions into questionable megadeals.

In Bangladesh the police is sent after students that have been proclaiming loudly what everyone has known forever – niffy, inept, self-serving government. Not so different from most governments. More about this on Global Voices.

Oh well. Time to get on with work.

The final there's nothing to say fib

When
there
is noth-
ing to say,
there is nothing to
say, and that's final. That's it.

– L. Blumfeld

Need I say more?

Blank

Blank can be safely
said to be less
than blabla

But blank is
not nothing
it is space

Variations on nothingness

More than this - there is nothing
More than this - tell me one thing
More than this - there is nothing

– Brian Ferry (Roxy Music)

Brings up the question of what this is
beyond which there is nothing
and what that one thing is
that needs to be told.

Your true subscriber to somethingness,

Leon Blumfeld

There's nothing to say no. 2

The only proper solution
to this condition
would be silence,
but that would be difficult,
wouldn't it?

It's good that we drink
from the well of loneliness
now and then,
how else would we
appreciate company?

(The above link is to give due credit to the inventor of the turn of phrase.)

PS: Can I ever avoid saying something?

PS2: Who gives a shit?

Let there be light

Let there be light,
let there be an invasion of light,
light to inhale, light to store,
light to shower
on our surroundings

– Louis Green

In response to a friend ...

with somewhat far-eastern leanings, who told me, in a heated discussion:

You better face it: it all boils down to nothing

I said:

Let me tell you, there is PLENTY!
And if only it’s the appearance of something.

Shall the twain ever meet?

Another one of Blumfeld's unnumbered wisdoms.