The oh Windows poem

(Small ode to updatitis)

My computer has just received
the latest Windows update

Which means it’ll be busy
Microsofting for an hour or so

Instead of doing
what it needs to do

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Once in a while I let Windows install an update and immediately regret it because it means that the PC will be slow as a snail for at least an hour afterwards doing God knows Microsoft what instead of working for me.

The failed poetry haiku

Objects juxtaposed
and not filled with poetic
meaning – fail! Fail! Fie!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Elucidating note
Such objects or emotional weight carriers might be, for example: evening, window across, still unbegun, longing, promise, return, unspoken, unsaid, arm of love, fingers touching the heart, castles in the air (don’t call them pipe dreams, that removes the poetic component), etc.

The age of well-ventilated knees

These days of torn pants may well be remembered as the age of well-ventilated knees by future generations.

(Who knows - doctors may remember them best for the increase in osteoarthritis ...)

The what does that bode for Rome haiku

January 2, 2017

Productivity:
piles of fresh dogshit along
the sidewalks today

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Sad to say, the first poem this year starts on a disgusting note. However, the scats were too numerous and strategically placed to go unnoticed. Oh well.

The Netflix haiku

Pick a movie – watch –
loading – watch some more – loading –
stopped – OK – was that it?

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
A reality haiku about trying to watch various movies on Netflix. I hope other people have better connections and get to watch entire films.

The feel good quotes haiku

That one by Beckett,
about failing and failing
better more merrier

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
At least half of social media consists of the cud of feel good quotes chewed over and over again. Here’s a Samuel Beckett failure variant to join the cud and make you feel good, better and merrier about failing.

The tumblr heroes haiku

We were tumblr he-
roes for a while, racking up
shitloads of little red hearts.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
To misquote John Lennon, “a cyber class hero is something to be”. Would be a true haiku syllablewise if the “little” were taken out, but it sounds much better this way, don’t you think?

(Clip from art by Julia Morozova - see here for complete image.)

The all pervasive advertising haiku

Nowanights I am
presented sponsored content
even between dreams.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
Only the next logical step in the planning of Google & Co.

The damn fine haiku

It was a fine poem
and was doing fine until
someone said stand down.
 
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
According to Ted Kooser and his column American Life in Poetry, American literature is full of fine poems. Yep, you got to pronounce that fine with some sort of corn belt accent to get the full meaning. The stand down part is popular in recent military Hollywood lingo. It is frequently used when we all (the audience) are meant to strongly feel that someone should actually not stand down. I added damn to the title because a damn fine poem is even finer than one that is just fine.

The fighting the addiction haiku

Succeeded! Did not
use or think of using smart-
phone for fourteen hours.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
Actually not that autobiographical. I’m perfectly happy being connected to the world normally and not through the damn gadget – unless I’m walking around taking pictures with it. Sometimes of people in public places staring into their smartphones.

The Francis Bacon face haiku

Looks like TV on
a windy day disturbing
the satellite dish.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
This poem was inspired by true events – we have a big eucalyptus outside whose branches and leaves interfere with satellite reception and cause such Bacon-like distorted faces. (Alludes to the 20th century artist (1909-1992), not the Elizabethan philosopher.)

The cannot fail to be poetic haiku

Pathetic words to
beat the crap out of your mind-
less astral body.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

And the inevitable note
Where did that one come from? From all the ball-twisting, tear-jerking poetry out there on the net.

The you must watch haiku

You must watch this ad
before you can see what
you wanted to see.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
A little kick at today’s coercive online advertising blackmail practices. (Is that a tautology? Doesn’t matter. Drives home the point.) This forced ad exposure reminds me of Stanley Kubricks’s film A Clockwork Orange (1971), where Malcolm McDowell’s eyes were kept open by force so he could not avoid seeing the things that were forced on him. With the aim of turning him into a nice guy from a criminal. So what’s the advertising forced upon us supposed to turn us into? Idiots who will eventually succumb and consume?

The candlelight installation haiku

Bucket-size candle
jars, jasmine water-filled, in
about any church.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
This one was sparked by a photo of an eminent contemporary conceptual artist's installation in a church in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The jasmine water is my invention. Add a wick and paraffin, and it would probably burn nicely. I'm convinced it would smell good in any church. Priests, preachers, bishops, etc., please contact me for possible execution.

The Martin Shkreli haiku

There he goes crowing
and smirking: the cockiest
cock on the dunghill.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
This one was prompted by this morning’s news on France 24, where it was said that Martin Shkreli might easily be America’s most hated man nowadays.

Rude

"My internal monologue started ..."
"Keep it internal!"

- Leonard Blumfeld ((c) 2015)

Note
Inspired by some chatty piece I encountered in a blog a minute ago. After reading the first few words and glimpsing the length of it (considerable), I knew I would have no patience for these monologic outpourings of a literary soul.

The situation in central Italy haiku

Wild pigs in the streets, 
trash scandal and regular 
bus service delays.

- Leonard Blumfeld ((c) 2015)

Note
Once again, nothing but the truth in a haiku. Today's newspaper, quickly perused at the breakfast bar, reported on wild pigs in the streets of Ostia. A photo graphically demonstrating the lack of garbage removal at Viale F. T. Marinetti was published in the press a few days ago. And the bus service has been sporadic, erratic or simply nonexistent. Supposedly because the bus drivers have not been paid in months.

The Donald Trump haiku

Billions and not
a thing to sell. Billions.
No trump, none at all.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
Some people appear to have it all. Well, maybe in the bank. Other than that: nothing at all.

A preposterous situation haiku

Supporting the weight
of the clouds. You’ve been doing
it for years, my girl.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
If there’s one kind of poetry I don’t like it’s the type that attempts to blow up a perfectly normal situation into something “poetic” (and subsequently usually asking rhetorical questions along the lines of “why oh why is this happening to oh so sensitive poor poor me”). Sometimes I picture these poems hitting their author in the face like a balloon burst from overinflation with all that fake meaning.

The infinite loop installation haiku

(An exercise in straining the imagination)

In the middle the
fallen lupodopteryx
right in the middle

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Notes
How much of a haiku is allowed to be outside the haiku?
There is a lot that’s outside this one.
First of all the inspiration, which was a photo of some big animal that had died in an art installation (well, admittedly I’m sure it had died before if it had ever lived).
So I placed an equally huge animal in the middle of the haiku and made extra sure that it could be identified as the centerpiece by repeating the middle part.
But now comes the other thing that’s outside the haiku: the building this installation is in. The lupodopteryx is in the center of a central room, which is blocked off for visitors by ropes strung up between the columns supporting the structure. This room is surrounded by a ring-like hallway, from which the lupodopteryx can be seen through the spaces between the columns.
Any gallery or museum dying to house this installation is most welcome to contact me.