Green-eyed

I called my fly
Prezzemolo because
it has one green eye

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Note
“Prezzemolo” is Italian for “parsley”.

Photo by Phillip Larking on Unsplash

The bark haiku

A bark echos an-
other bark, joined by more bark,
two more – a chorus.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Note
Now you know what’s happening around here at 9 o’clock on a Saturday morning. Could be any day, though, any time. What is it with dog owners sequestering their beloved pooches on the balcony so they can vent their jealous anger at anything that moves freely below?

Mare of Easttown

 

Watched the first two episodes of Mare of Easttown, an HBO crime series released in spring of 2021. It is directed by Craig Zobel and stars Kate Winslet (who is also one of the executive producers) as a detective investigating two similar murders in a suburb of Philadelphia, PA, called Easttown.

So far my impression is favorable – a solid, reality-steeped drama with credible characters that is well-filmed and well-acted. And it is suspenseful – can’t wait to see the next episodes. Hope they'll live up to the excellent start.

More details about the series

The photo is an instant picture taken from the TV screen.

Proverbs from the Chinese XV

It is foolish to expect a cat to lay eggs.

Source: fortune cookie. 

Another definition of what fools might expect, I guess. Along the lines of the commonly quoted (and usually misattributed to Albert Einstein) “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

With the difference here being the point of view. This proverb does not claim that the cat might think it’s stupid. A true cat couldn't care less anyway...

The flowers of speech haiku

Have been throwing kind
regards with every e-mail.
Please return in kind.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Notes
None (the truth and nothing but).

Three Madlib Haiku

In the shweet shugar
These sour mullein
A tall bravery

✧✧✧✧✧

In the silent query
This mute abyss
A menacing sweep

✧✧✧✧✧

In the stupid bitches
This impudent loftiness
A dry swirl

All by Basho & Joanna (© 2021)

Want to create Madlib haiku of your own? Click here.

Example of a 3rd person biography

 

“A windy and somniferous birdwatcher, Lean Mean Moran is an ambitious young dynamic emerging writer who roams the high and low lands and some more or less dubious neighborhoods of a lesser known Balkan country. On warm summer days you can find him in somebody’s backyard with his bong. He enjoys short and mindless hikes in the company of his I-Pod, expired USSR army outlet biscuits and reading Sylvia Bletch. One day, he is sure that he will die and hopes so. He has bled and published profusely in the realms of desktop perpetrators.”

The above recent photo shows Lean striking a favorite pose on the way to his Italian podologist.

Note
All aspiring writers looking to have their outpourings published are faced with the demand for that 3rd person biography that makes editors gasp. The above is a good example of what to write if you want to (not) get published. Of course, a hard-hitting bio such as this must go hand in hand with the proverbial poetry that contains fresh imagery and surprises even the most inured editor.

The onset of dementia haiku

Could not remember

Alka Yagnik. Thought her name

started with an S.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Notes

Managed to remember this super-important piece of poetry for several hours after composing it in my head in the car on the way to the dentist this morning. Not bad for an ageing memory, if I may say so myself. However, this should not detract from the alarming fact that it took me more than a day to remember the name of Alka Yagnik after hearing her sing in a Hindi movie a few days ago. Whereas I could easily remember the others whose voices graced the same film: Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan and Lata Mangeshkar (who is impossible to forget anyway, right?).

Happy Sunday!

Some nasty little
yapper is spitting venom
outside and loves it.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Note
That too on Valentine’s day – when everything’s supposed to be lovey-dovey.

P.S:
You know me – when I come up with a title like ‘Happy Sunday’, it most likely won’t be all that happy. But there’s ‘loves’ in it after all.

LoL. – The Old Grump.

Baghdad Central: We Leave Tomorrow

 

Still picture from the British crime thriller series Baghdad Central (2020), based on the novel by Elliott Colla from 2014. 

The gripping and beautifully filmed series follows Iraqi policeman Muhsin al-Khafaji (shown in the screenshot above, played by Waleed Zuaiter) as he searches for his missing daughter in dysfunctional Baghdad. The series is set in Iraq in 2003 in the aftermath of the Second Gulf War.