The filthy poor rhyme

The filthy rich get
rich by making sure
that most others
remain filthy poor.

– Leonard Blumfeld  (© 2013)

Inevitable note
Somehow yesterday's Filthy rich haiku stuck in my mind, demanding more treatment. This resulted in the above poem, which is no longer a haiku by count of syllables & lines. For obvious reasons, I'm calling this filthy poor metric companion to the filthy rich a rhyme.

The filthy rich haiku

The filthy rich get
rich by making sure others
get very little.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2013)

Inevitable notes
Who ever said haiku should be limited to gentle muzings about bonsai in the mist and could not be used for succinct statements of fact? Facts such as that the gap between rich and poor has never been more extreme than right now.
Last year, Apple’s CEO earned about 1 million dollars a day while the workers making Apple products at Foxconn in China earned about 10 dollars a day.
China, a nominally communist* country, now boasts the world’s second largest number of billionaires, right behind God’s own USA.
*Part of the communist doctrine, if I remember right, is a very negative attitude towards private property.

Infinite wisdom I

I was going to start the year with a new column titled "The infinite wisdom of Leonard Blumfeld" or something along those lines, imparting to the world my precious gems of infinite wisdom.

But the fact is that I have come to dislike aphorisms and most of the pearls and beads of wisdom quoted or shared on Facebook or in other books at any opportune and inopportune moment and time of day, telling you in flashes of deep or shallow insight how to live your life, how to be happy or unhappy, how to treat thy neighbor or thy neighbor's dog or how to make or keep friends, enemies, etc.

Therefore, instead of adding to the heap, the above little rante & rave shall remain the first infinite wisdom of the year. That's all, folks!

– Leonard Blumfeld

No fury like one scorned

So you don’t like my gift?
Well, let me tell you
that a lot of others
have liked my gifts,
and they were smaller
than this one I gave you,
less smelly, less offensive,
less aggressive, not
nearly as loud and dirty.
So I’ll tell you what
you can do with this gift
of mine you don’t like –
you can throw it
in the nearest ditch
and kiss me good-bye
forever, you jackass,
see if I give a toss.

– Leonard “Giver of Gifts” Blumfeld (© 2012)

Posted as a 'gift' for Poets United.

My Nature Haiku

Damn Nature! Why does
it include mosquitoes, a-
phids, gnats, bats and moths?

– Leonard “Loves Nature” Blumfeld (© 2012)

The call at Haiku Heights was for haiku on Nature. Not to be taken all that seriously – in fact, I quite like bats.

Feeding the birds at EUR lake

For S.

Last Saturday the women
of the Gugnani clan
and I as their chauffeur
went to EUR lake
to feed dry bread
and chocolate-coated
rice crispies to the birds –
droves of ducks, geese,
pigeons and seagulls.
I was reminded of my
mother and how, even
during her last days
at home, her first priority
in the morning was
to feed the birds, come
sunshine, ice or snow.
I remembered how
she'd walk out
on that terrace in
slippers and gown,
oblivious of everything
except the birds
and the seeds
she had for them.
I cried for her,
perhaps the first time
since she died in 2009.

– Leonard "Loaded with Memories" Blumfeld

A poem a day

... keeps the doctor away.

Well, hopefully that mutation of the apple proverb is true because I'm about to go insane and definitely do not want to see THAT doctor.

What is causing bouts of insanity?

WORK.

Translation of a list of terms for a well-known tractor company, to be precise.

Whatever variants of whatever you could come up with they have come up with.

And all nice and cryptic, like:

HVAC door open (low side output)

I'd be so happy to never ever again have to deal with an HVAC and whatever high or low side and input or output it might have.

– Leonard "Disgruntled" Blumfeld

Proverbs from the Chinese XI

"Be brisk and detached today, otherwise you'll be miserable."

That's a fortune cookie piece of advice that is surprisingly concrete and could not possibly be meant for just any day!

Happens to contain the words brisk, detached and miserable from 3WW.

Yours sincerely,

Leonard "Wisdoms of Ancient China" Blumfeld

Self-portrait with thinning hair

– Leonard "Kissed" Blumfeld

Well, hair actually getting tousled by the fan...

Dry spell

This has been the longest dry spell for me in years – I haven't written a thing in weeks. And it seems like it's been much longer than that.

But a lot has happened as well.

I have moved to Rome, Italy, from Germany. That took an enormous amount of preparation and moving. Not to mention the fact that I'm not even fully moved in and just getting a feeling for my new environment.

All combined with working nearly full time as well...

More later!