The electric bike ditty

(An electric bike-age homage to Dr. Seuss)

We like our bike, and this is why:
the battery does all the work
when the hills get high.

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2014)

The challenge at Poets United was to write a poem with a bicycling motif.

Toilet bowl smartism

The toilet bowl-proof smartphone has yet to be invented.

– Leonard Blumfeld

Note
Razor-edge-of-time reporting from the toilet bowl accident front. And no, the Samsung Galaxy is not toilet bowl-proof.
What does this teach you? Keep your smartphone away from toilet bowls.

The art gallery haiku

Squeaky clean wooden
floors that squeak when trodden on
as rapt viewers walk.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2014)

A good poem

Never fight a moon.
Where are the misty seas?
The moon dies like a stormy breeze.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2014)

Note
I must admit that I had some help writing this. The original version came from the Poem Generator. I modified it to make it even greater.
Why is this little poem good?
Because it contains some of the most important key words, images and subjects used in poetry throughout the ages. Such as moon, misty, seas, breeze and death.
Guaranteed to work each and every time!

The I could haiku

I could do many
things right now. But they are not
things I have to do.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2014)

Notes
Inspired by a poem of the sort that lists things the author could do, like polish his shoes, add more sugar to his coffee, muze about friends, family and pets, muze about the mellow April weather, prune the bushes, etc. In the end he decides to do nothing but listen to the sprinklers come on and observe their “immaculate band of light over the lawns.” The immaculate has become stuck in my mind like the proverbial sore thumb. Seems to be about as debatable as the immaculate conception.
As to the things I could do, there are many, as the haiku says. But bread-winning work calls and needs to be taken care of. Sadly.
Oh, and by the way: I would call this haiku a deadpan poem. As opposed to the immaculate band of light kind.

Best of Meme

My out-of-print book Best of Meme now goes for $67.17 at Amazon. Wow!

The haystack haiku

Today I have to
find three bent needles in a
PC file – achoo!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2014)

Note
In my work as a coordinator of translations, I have to deal with the idiosyncracies and erratic behavior of a CAT software named Star Transit. Most likely three occurrences of an apostrophe in a text file caused Transit to stumble and fall today (it stumbles and falls a lot in general). These are the bent needles I have to find in the haystack. And I do have a highly developed allergy to such problems (which are a great waste of time and nothing else), hence the achoo.

The smartphone disability haiku

For S.

My love sends me lobe,
lisses and all gibbt – please help
me decipher that!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2014)


Note
Have you noticed how typing accuracy has gone down the drain with the advent of touch screen keypads? A great big cheer to the advances of technology!

The coherent world view haiku

I do hope that a
coherent world view steps out
of these counted words.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2014)

Note
When a well-known poet does not have a major poem to his name (such as, for example, T. S. Eliot would have The Waste Land or Ezra Pound would have the Cantos), literary criticism focuses on the merits of the so-called coherent world view, i.e. it is good for a poet to have one (and, by implication, bad if you don't have one). I remember some article about the poetry of James Schuyler, where the critic spoke of this. Alas, I don't remember what the critic's ultimate conclusion was. I only remember that I strongly disagreed with both major notions of the article: 1. That there are no James Schuyler poems of major importance (to me, many of his poems are by far more important than anything erudite, contrived and sterile T. S. Eliot ever wrote), and 2. That it is difficult to discern a coherent world view in the body of James Schuyler's poetry. (To which I would say that there is hardly anyone else to rival the rendering of 20th century human experience I see in Schuyler's poetry with more coherence.)

Failed in all three

The three-gated word check applied to a poem as it is coming into existence

I
Is it true?
No.

II
Is it necessary?
Probably not.

III
Is it kind?
Definitely not.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2014)

Written in response to a sufi saying encountered on the Internet:

Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates:

At the first gate, ask yourself:
'Is it true?'

At the second gate, ask:
'Is it necessary?'

At the third gate, ask:
'Is it kind?'

This explains why sufis don't talk a lot and why there's a lot of poetry.