The John Singer Sargent haiku

John Singer Sargent, White Dresses (1911)

Two women slain in
battle? No – white dresses in
peace on parched grass...

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2014)

Note
When I first glimpsed this painting, my initial flash was that it represented an after-battle scene – bodies strewn on the ground, limbs sticking up.
The first real haiku I've written in a while ... with that sudden flash of recognition in the second half.

The butter haiku

You sweet and creamy
thing! How you get slandered as
saturated fat!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2013)

Written for Haiku Heights and butter.

Notes
No comment needed for this one.

The kitchen haiku

Smell of onions fried
last night still wafts up – open door
or not? Mosquitos ...

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2013)

Instigated by Haiku Heights and Kitchen.

Notes
If there is anything I dislike about Rome, it is the plenty of its noiseless, blood-thirsty mosquitos. These guys give you no acoustic warning.
Once again, this is an all-true, razor-edge-of-time piece of poetry. Nothing invented, no artificial ingredients. About to go down to kitchen to open that door and see if there's some fruit for second breakfast.

The filthy poor rhyme

The filthy rich get
rich by making sure
that most others
remain filthy poor.

– Leonard Blumfeld  (© 2013)

Inevitable note
Somehow yesterday's Filthy rich haiku stuck in my mind, demanding more treatment. This resulted in the above poem, which is no longer a haiku by count of syllables & lines. For obvious reasons, I'm calling this filthy poor metric companion to the filthy rich a rhyme.

The how to haiku

(a DIY poem)

Fourteen lessons a-
bout haiku: that ought to teach
even the toughest.

– Leonard “Haikai” Blumfeld (© 2011)

Chanced upon a site today that offers to teach you how to write haiku in 14 lessons (Bare Bones School of Haiku).
Skipped all 14 but wrote something I'd call a haiku, even though I'm sure it breaks at least 17 major plus some minor haiku rules.

Good-bye hello

You say yes, I say no
You say stop and I say go
– The Beatles

For her, as usual

One

We say good-bye,
each one walks on,
to meet again
and again
to let destiny
take its course

Two

you will not turn around,
I know,
tomorrow
and again,
becoming love
full circle

Three

We say good-bye, you will not turn around,
each one walks on, I know,
to meet again tomorrow
and again and again,
to let destiny becoming love
take its course full circle

– Leonard “Cleaver” Blumfeld (© 2010)


Three poems – two separate ones, which are then horizontally combined to form a third. This is called a cleave.

This cleave was written for napowrimo #14.

What is cleave poetry?

New Year’s Eve Cinquain

To A.B.*

May you
be happy with
the choices you make for
the year to come, no matter what
they are.

* whose choices most likely won’t include hers truly

My first attempt at a cinquain upon instigation by Totally Optional Prompts. The specialty of this one are a few run-on line endings. All in all, this might not be my dearest wish, but it’s wishing someone happiness by doing what she considers to be the right thing with any self-interest on my part removed. And that might not be the worst to wish for somebody.

– Len “On the Brink” Blumfeld (© 2008)

Definition of the form
A cinquain is a short, unrhymed poem consisting of twenty-two syllables distributed as 2, 4, 6, 8, 2, in five lines.
(Definition by Linda Jacobs at Totally Optional Prompts)

The King is dead rumor

It has been said
that the King is not dead.
But why, if that’s true,
hasn’t he sung anything new?

– Leonard “Messenger” Blumfeld (© 2008)

Unsuppressible notes
After a long break another poem in the venerable form of the rumor. Click here for more of/about them.

This was born as an extension of my previous post on current myths – three assorted pieces of modern mythology.

First cuneiform results

Hittite is proving ultra-resistant. I hope I didn't promise more than I can keep.

However, to give my eclect audience a foretaste, here are the first fragments of the promised pastoral elegy translated from that very old and long extinct Indo-European language:

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? bemourn ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? mourn grief ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? lament cry? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ‘is flute ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? Hattupsilitas ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? fields of barley? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? onion ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? finest of minds of his? ?
? generation? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? moan grief cry? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? so cruelly blown away ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? moan grief cry? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? bemoan oh muses*? ?
? ? ? ? bemoan? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

* “Muses” is a later Greek concept. However, the divine beings appealed to here seem quite related as far as I can make out.

Note that this is far from final. The poetics and modes of thinking and expression in this ancient language were quite different from today's Indo-European or other modes.

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!

Upside down

Narrowed-down basement search reveals:
Unguent is scarce.
Too much sci-
ence. So
be
it.

– L. B.

Note
This may be more an exercise than anything else.
My son looked at some of my fibs and called them "pyramid poems", which is straight geometrical observation based on the fact that I usually center them.
It occurred to me to do an upside down pyramid. I suppose it could also be called a stalactite.
I found this quite difficult to write, with some physical discomfort in my brain due to the required end-to-beginning thinking. In fact, the last 2 1/2 lines were what popped into my mind first. The basement at the very top is in reflection of the reversed thinking process of this inverted poetic form. This was quite different from the diamond (see There is a house), where the stalactite was predefined as an inversion of the preceding stalagmite.

Rule breakers

The
fine
weather
continued.

A
breeze
livened
up dull heat.

– Lem B.

Inevitable note
A 4-line fib double pack in contravention of the “do not a or the rule” (see previous post).
The dull heat, at this time of the year in this particular geographical region, is not reality but wishful thinking. May come to regret this wish later on in the year.

The more intricate fibonacci rules

I
read
somewhere
that fibs do
not get to start with
a or the. Well, frankly speaking,
who gives an air-borne copulation about that rule.

– Yours truculently Len B.

Read Rule breakers for fine examples.

Pretend plain silly

(instructions for use included)

Shiv-
er
and sigh!
The end ap-
pears to be near, said
the sunny pink plastic rabbit.
To be read aloud repeatedly for full effect.

– Yours silly or not so silly Len B.

Notes
This 7-line fibonacci has, of course, its reasons and associations, as anything I write. (Don’t know whether this is always reason for pride.)
The “shiver and sigh” is in assonance with Javed Akhtar’s book of poetry called “Quiver” and my recent poems written in the form of the “sigh,” as well as in remembrance of Barbara Guest, whose idea was that the lines of poems vibrate (which is why she left a lot of space in some of her later poetry). And they do; one just has to develop a sensitivity to feel it. It occurred to me just now that this likens them to atoms, around which there is a cloud of electrons in rapid motion. Also note that the first line may be construed as an appeal to the Hindu god Shiva.
The sunny pink rabbit is from a completely different memory – on my daughter’s fridge there is a cartoon showing a pink rabbit which cheerfully declares “The end is near!”
What holds the two parts together?
An enigmatic magnetic sound system of purposely chosen vowels and consonants.

Rumored beauty

It has been said
that beauty is a vessel,
but, like any vessel,
it should be filled.

Another rumor by Leonard Blumfeld (© April Fools 2007)

Another rumor

For more ample illustration of the recently invented form:

It could be said that
pineapple tastes delicious,
but you don't have to
take anybody's word for it.

– Lem Bloomfield

Another poetic form: the rumor

And here's an example:

It has been said
that Helen had beautiful red lips,
but we have to take
Homer's word for it.

– Leon Blumfeld (copyright 2007)

N.B.
Of course, everything's copyrighted here (for all eternity!), but I think I should remind of it once in a while.

If you can't quote it, wryte it yourself

By the way:
Another poetic form was born from this dyp in the poetyc fountayn – the y-based minimalist quatrain (YBMQ). It is a dystant western relative of its eastern haykoo cousyn.