Friday, March 6, 2015

The if I could haiku

If I could, I would
turn the I.S. destroyers
of Nimrod to stone.


– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

The Islamic State has been destroying more than 3000 year old Assyrian monuments in Iraq. The intolerance and bigoted narrow-mindedness of these self-righteous, self-appointed guardians of inhuman faith is unsurpassed.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

The concrete haiku

This one is very
concrete – deals only with stones,
rocks, flint and pebbles.


– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
The counterweight to the recently composed abstract haiku.

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.

Friday, February 20, 2015

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.

Monday, February 2, 2015

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.

Saturday, January 31, 2015

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.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

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.

Friday, December 12, 2014

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.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

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.