The honest dog haiku

Never liked ‘em much – 
their barking, their shitting, their 
police behavior.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Notes
A poem inspired by crass reality.
Every morning there are a few new piles on the sidewalk for you to step in.
One beast is an incessant shrill yelper his owners love to inflict on everyone in the neighborhood by putting him on the balcony for hours.
And then there are the public parks that have basically become dog parks where the curs run at you barking and snarling from every direction and where their owners, if they can be bothered, assure you sweetly that they’re puppies (how’s that for a hundred pounds of aggressive snarl sprinting towards you?) who are just playing.
And last but not least there are those owners who think it's a great idea to take the poor creatures for walks in shopping malls, where they can either be frightened to be stepped on or bark at other dogs they meet.
It’s a dog’s life!

A rhyming haiku

Take time; this is it – 
flowers will wilt, blossoms will 
drop, and you will sit.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
Thinking about my recent literary productivity (approaching zero), I thought: “Time for another haiku at least!” And this is it.

The about H. haiku

Takes pictures of his
girlfriend wherever they go – 
strictly analog.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
The truth and strictly the truth about H. Only the initial was changed to avoid any risk of identification. Follows the William Carlos Williams rule of “no ideas but in things”. But are there any ideas? 

The trap haiku

The greatest trap in
haiku is to milk trite stuff
for trite symbolism.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
See thousands of haiku for examples. But is it bad to derive trite symbolisms from trite stuff? That is the question! Millions of flies might disagree.

The endless summer haiku

Oysters and summer balm
night and drunk
tequila on love

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
A permutation of somebody else’s haiku using the same words. Seemed a bit too obvious, so I moved things around. Feel free to try and reconstruct the original!

The before kissing haiku

Already thinking how
her decidedly long nose
might get in the way

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
Pure fiction inspired by a photo portrait I came across about 12 seconds before I wrote this. And why is decidedly so hard to type without typos?

The poised haiku

It is sovereign
in weight distribution, bright
ease and breeziness

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
Most haiku (at least the ones that come to my eyes) are pretentious – in insinuating they have to offer something worthwhile – as well as flat sprat on their face in attempting to create a moment of instant recognition – that special haiku specialty – that usually is neither instant nor recognition. So, once again, I decided to add to the mass with a haiku that is definitely pretentious as well as completely devoid of any instant recognition.

Edward Dorn on the need for poetry

I have no illusions whatsoever about people at large being in need of poets or their work.

Edward Dorn in Statement for the Paterson Society (Edward Dorn, Views, Four Seasons Foundation, San Francisco, 1980)

Note
Not having read much lately - due to lack of time and motivation -, I picked a book from the shelf next to me yesterday, which happened to be the one shown above, opened it and came across this devastating* statement on the need for poets and their work. Actually, I must admit to have been thinking along the same lines. According to Marx, man's basic needs (such as food, clothing, etc.) must be fulfilled before there can be any artistic impulse. Not sure it's as simple as that. I am surrounded by thousands of people - and that's just the area I live in - whose basic needs are definitely covered or more than covered, but whose artistic impulse continues to remain remarkably underdeveloped. It's hard to picture them enjoying anything but pizza, soccer, car races, their cell phones and occasional sex. In fact, they appear to be perfect implementations of Marx's materialist view of man.

*Devastating for poets and their self-esteem.

The quote haiku

Can quote Dylan. Can
quote Cohen. Can quote Springsteen.
Cannot quote myself.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
It’s true – I can quote from an infinite number of songs by the people named above, plus a zillion others, like Joni Mitchell, Richard Thompson, Neil Young, Gianna Nannini, Gianmaria Testa, Labordeta, Chavela Vargas, Amparo Ochoa, Soledad Bravo, Ralph McTell, Cyndi Lauper, etc., but I cannot quote from any of the poems I’ve written, even though they must number in the thousands by now. Well, except from one of my first ones, written in German when I was around ten, about some flower I claimed to have found deep in the forest.

The I can’t sleep haiku

Dije, dijiste,
dijo, dijimos, dijisteis,
dijeron, and snore.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
Woke up at five in the morning for unknown reasons and had a hard time going back to sleep. So I came up with the innovative solution to conjugate irregular Spanish verbs. It worked. And I even remembered ...

It is that sound haiku

With my back to the 

window I sense – I know – that
it’s raining again.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
There is no other sound quite like rain coming down. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards knew it:

All I hear is the sound
Of rain falling on the ground
As Tears Go By (The Rolling Stones) 

The more than this haiku

More than this there’s
nothing – Roxy Music – more
of this – make my day

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
The truth and nothing but. This song by Roxy Music played at the bar while I was having today’s second coffee. The bartender started singing it as soon as he’d heard the first chords. Whenever I hear this, I’m reminded of Bill Murray’s unforgettable karaoke version in Lost in Translation.

A lull haiku

Slow morning, just had
toast and coffee while watching
news on French TV.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
The plain and simple truth with some omissions for haiku conciseness. Nothing material was omitted. No people, animals or plants were harmed in the making of this haiku. How good a slow morning can be!

The who am I haiku

Who am I to stand and wonder, to wait
While the wheels of fate slowly grind my life away?
Who am I?
– Country Joe McDonald

Rediscovered stuff
I’d written and completely
forgotten. I am!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Looked at poems and stories – and the accompanying notes – I’d written in 2002 because I seem to be missing photos I’d taken that year, particularly in spring, so that a whole period of my life is undocumented, so to speak, except for the things I wrote and saved on the computer and what’s left in my memory. Oh well, even rediscovering oneself is some sort of evolution...

The tea leaf haiku

Soggy tea leaves in 
a pot will be tomorrow’s 
dried and trusted poem.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Now try and tell the future from that! This was obscurely inspired by someone else's haiku on rose petals (always a favorite poetic flavoring ingredient) in someone else's tea that were about to become a poem. What do you call that? Parasitic? Transformation? Transgression? Leap? Sorry about the extra syllable. Purists might care. Final speculation: Is this the poem now, or will it only become poem tomorrow?

The December in Rome haiku

Can’t believe I called
for air conditioning in June
now that I shiver.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
The truth and nothing but. Do you ever feel that there’s no possibility of too much heat when there’s (definitely!) too much cold? ... And Rome’s nothing compared to Moscow or Irkutsk!

The Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen haiku

The chimes of freedom
flashing and dancing in the 
dark mix persistent

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Yesterday they played something by the Boss* at the coop supermarket, which was a welcome change from the idiotic stuff they mostly play, and a few days ago I listened to some songs by the Byrds on youtube, including Dylan’s Chimes of freedom. Some time this morning I found both songs going round and round in my head in an inextricable jumble, sort of my own DJ mind mix.

What connects the two songs? No idea, but must be significant.

*It wasn’t Dancing in the dark but Tougher than the rest, I seem to recall.

The blue Spanish eyes haiku

Actually those
Spanish eyes were more likely
to be brown. Sí, sí.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Woke up with this song coming into my head in a train of thought that started with Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra singing something stupid like I love you, went on to Dean Martin and the Rat Pack (wondering if any of them were still alive), then Al Martino and that one and only song of his I remember.

A so what poem

I betrayed the sea
when I pretended
I didn’t want to tame it

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
More of an illustration or example than a real poem (one that would have come from my heart). What is a so what poem? It is a poem that is based on a preposterous, pretentious assumption, like the one above. Why would anyone in his right mind give a shit about some poet drooling about pretending not to want to tame the sea? Should or would the sea really care? Unfortunately, the genre of so what poems seems to abound and thrive. Particularly on social networks.

A summer visit haiku

Two sultry perfumes
clashing on the sofa and
the fan mixing them.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Razor-edge-of-time haiku reporting. The truth and nothing but.