The abstract haiku

Shake and melt and shade
do not I repeat do not
(mis)represent me.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
The battle between abstract and representational rages mostly in the art field, but here it is extended to poetry and, in particular, the haiku.

The budding rock'n roller haiku

If it's not base strum-
ming next wall, then it is wild
warbling or whooping.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
Once again a truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth razor-edge-of-time haiku. Next wall is the equivalent of next door except closer. Bless your emerging career, Oriane. It would be nice if it took you somewhere else.

The working day haiku

Working away, cold
feet, cold day, February,
no wild conclusions.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Notes
I needed one more syllable for the last line, so introduced “wild”. But actually there were neither wild nor tame conclusions. So far. Oh, and there's an internal rhyme here, which is frowned upon by haiku purists.

The GMP haiku

You can’t just write it
from scratch. First buy patented
seeds from Monsanto.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Notes
GMP stands for Genetically Modified Poetry.

The waiting for Godot haiku

I’ve been waiting, I’ve
been waiting, I am waiting,
oh yeah oh yeah ...

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Inevitable note
A slightly underfilled haiku celebrating Beckett and the Rolling Stones. Sparked by a still picture from a performance of Waiting for Godot someone posted this morning. Never saw the play performed, but read it (all of it!). Always thought some brevity might have done it a lot of good.

Just read that it’s been voted "the most significant English language play of the 20th century" (according to Wikipedia). The competition must have been really insignificant.

Blunt, drunk and lethargic

Oh husband, what has become of you?
You are now mostly drunk, which means lethargic couch potato, and the few words you say (if you manage to utter any) are blunt, like "Get out of my sight, bitch."
Oh husband, what has become of you? You used to be gallant, spirited and romantic. Think of your loving and devoted Nandini and please change quickly.
Or I'll have to call big brother, who will teach you. Remember the last time? He threw you out of the house with a big kick in the butt and then hosed you down with cold water for half an hour. Remember how that straightened you out for a year?
Your loving and devoted wife.

- Leonard Blumfeld (in a somewhat older Hindi movie vein)

Written for 3WW around the words blunt, drunk and lethargic.

An audio shelfie

A collection of some of my best musical friends...

The give us today our daily grind haiku

Most irritating:
can’t even see what they’ve been
grinding all morning.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2014)

Razor-edge-of-time reporting from the noise front. Picture the building as a giant tooth, with a gigantic dentist going at it. I can feel the damage done to the enamel all the way to my work room on the 1st floor.

You are like a hurricane

Again woke up with a song playing in my mind that seemed to have sprung from nowhere – Neil Young's Like a Hurricane, essentially a one-image song: that of the stillness in the eye of the hurricane while the storm rages, blowing the narrator away.

It is one of my favorite Neil Young songs, but I haven't listened to it in ages.

What could have caused this to rise to the surface this morning?

Musical affliction

Has it ever happened to you that a song implanted itself in your inner ear, seemingly out of nowhere, and would stay with you for days?

Hank Snow's One More Ride has been with me off and on for several days now. Where did it come from? No source I'm aware of. It's unlikely that I heard it somewhere here in Italy. It certainly would not be played in any Roman store or elevator.

I remember recording this song on my reel-to-reel tape recorder from the country music hour at SWF 3 around 1973 and must have listened to it a lot back then. I loved country music at the time and hardly ever missed that radio show on Saturday afternoon.

The clickety-clack of Hank's railroad track has been calling me much too long. What to do? I have no button to switch it off.

– Leonard Blumfeld, musically afflicted