Oh sweet lord

Dear mom, as you go on to complain,
there's a delicious food on my brain

If I could have that apple crumble
I swear I'd instantly cease to mumble!

Contrary to present dismay,
this would result in a very happy day

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2018)

Note
For the longest time, this was an orphaned draft consisting of these words: "She was drawn to the apple crumble and could not resist. Having eaten it, though, left her" and had the draft title "Diet problems." As you can see, it was drastically rewritten and now ends on a happy note.

The endless summer haiku

Oysters and summer balm
night and drunk
tequila on love

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
A permutation of somebody else’s haiku using the same words. Seemed a bit too obvious, so I moved things around. Feel free to try and reconstruct the original!

The Tom and Jerry haiku

You take the cats out
with you and shut the door. That’s
it for a long while.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
The first two lines are pretty much stolen from someone else's 14-line poem that started this way. The remaining 12 lines were full of details I didn’t quite feel like bothering with, imagining that the most exciting event had been described (that of letting the cats out), so I kind of skimmed through the rest (back asleep, rain forecast, sugar the strawberries, canceled, drift back beneath, to list a few) and then decided to name the unnamed cats Tom and Jerry to pep the whole thing up. How’s that for genesis?

The before kissing haiku

Already thinking how
her decidedly long nose
might get in the way

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
Pure fiction inspired by a photo portrait I came across about 12 seconds before I wrote this. And why is decidedly so hard to type without typos?

The poised haiku

It is sovereign
in weight distribution, bright
ease and breeziness

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
Most haiku (at least the ones that come to my eyes) are pretentious – in insinuating they have to offer something worthwhile – as well as flat sprat on their face in attempting to create a moment of instant recognition – that special haiku specialty – that usually is neither instant nor recognition. So, once again, I decided to add to the mass with a haiku that is definitely pretentious as well as completely devoid of any instant recognition.

Edward Dorn on the need for poetry

I have no illusions whatsoever about people at large being in need of poets or their work.

Edward Dorn in Statement for the Paterson Society (Edward Dorn, Views, Four Seasons Foundation, San Francisco, 1980)

Note
Not having read much lately - due to lack of time and motivation -, I picked a book from the shelf next to me yesterday, which happened to be the one shown above, opened it and came across this devastating* statement on the need for poets and their work. Actually, I must admit to have been thinking along the same lines. According to Marx, man's basic needs (such as food, clothing, etc.) must be fulfilled before there can be any artistic impulse. Not sure it's as simple as that. I am surrounded by thousands of people - and that's just the area I live in - whose basic needs are definitely covered or more than covered, but whose artistic impulse continues to remain remarkably underdeveloped. It's hard to picture them enjoying anything but pizza, soccer, car races, their cell phones and occasional sex. In fact, they appear to be perfect implementations of Marx's materialist view of man.

*Devastating for poets and their self-esteem.

The quote haiku

Can quote Dylan. Can
quote Cohen. Can quote Springsteen.
Cannot quote myself.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
It’s true – I can quote from an infinite number of songs by the people named above, plus a zillion others, like Joni Mitchell, Richard Thompson, Neil Young, Gianna Nannini, Gianmaria Testa, Labordeta, Chavela Vargas, Amparo Ochoa, Soledad Bravo, Ralph McTell, Cyndi Lauper, etc., but I cannot quote from any of the poems I’ve written, even though they must number in the thousands by now. Well, except from one of my first ones, written in German when I was around ten, about some flower I claimed to have found deep in the forest.

The I can’t sleep haiku

Dije, dijiste,
dijo, dijimos, dijisteis,
dijeron, and snore.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
Woke up at five in the morning for unknown reasons and had a hard time going back to sleep. So I came up with the innovative solution to conjugate irregular Spanish verbs. It worked. And I even remembered ...

It is that sound haiku

With my back to the 

window I sense – I know – that
it’s raining again.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
There is no other sound quite like rain coming down. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards knew it:

All I hear is the sound
Of rain falling on the ground
As Tears Go By (The Rolling Stones) 

The more than this haiku

More than this there’s
nothing – Roxy Music – more
of this – make my day

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
The truth and nothing but. This song by Roxy Music played at the bar while I was having today’s second coffee. The bartender started singing it as soon as he’d heard the first chords. Whenever I hear this, I’m reminded of Bill Murray’s unforgettable karaoke version in Lost in Translation.