This world is so wide that, even if you flitted around and around it, you would never reach the end of it. This blog is a collage of more or less literary and humorous, outlandish or sometimes even serious glimpses at this great wide world.
Friday, January 7, 2022
Labordeta - Aragón
Thursday, December 2, 2021
Rainy December Day
It’s
as
if a
chasse d’eau were
continually
being pulled today, and all grey.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)
Note
So I’ve come back to a form (fibonacci) I used to practice a lot for a while and then didn’t for a long time. Nothing but the truth in this one – the waters of the sky are coming down on Rome in varying degrees of mercilessness, and it’s so dark you can hardly call it day.
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Current trends in spam
An excerpt from my gmail spam inbox
Brand new: funeral plan offers! Wow, can't wait to get one of those plans from a surely entirely trustworthy source.
Old faithfuls for the last year or so: Bitcoin! As you can see from all the mails I've received, I'm filthy Bitcoin rich by now. Bitcoin spammers - such benefactors to mankind. And not just in English - I've also been identified as a Spanish-speaking Bitcoin aficionado. ¡Ay, caramba!
Apply and receive funds today (Just remember to include the asterisk next to 'today') - That one day was the one that went by me, so did not receive the funds. Ouch!
I also failed to track that package from Royal Mail I never ordered. Ouch again.
Now off they go - there's that handy Delete forever button.
Upon which Google Mail proudly crows "Hooray, no spam here!" like a rooster on a missing pile of manure.
Monday, October 11, 2021
The umbrella flight haiku
Rain, umbrella and
wind conspire to lift me up
like Flying Robert.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)
Note
Pretty much that kind of weather here in Rome this morning of October 11, 2021. Inspired by a poem in Der Struwwelpeter (1876) by Heinrich Hoffmann, a book of more or less moral tales everyone in Germany knows. The illustration is by the author (Hoffmann) himself.
Saturday, October 2, 2021
The perils of having a pet haiku
Can’t tie my shoes –
cat’s playing with the strings.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)
Note
A seriously underfilled specimen of the form, but based on nothing but real events.
Friday, September 17, 2021
The sad truth haiku
Can’t bring myself to
read poems that are longer
than ten lines or so.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)
Notes
First of all – why should this truth be sad? Only for myself, I must admit. Others may concur, disagree or simply don’t give a flying fog. It’s a free world, peotry included. (Think I just created a word! Peotry ... like poetry mixed with peyote.) Anyway, all rubbish. What brought about this rubbish? I was looking for enjoyable poetry in the famous Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (famous because – at least in my days at the university – it was a standard book to carry around for English and Creative Writing courses). I started at the back of the hefty volume, thinking those poems had to be by the most modern and least stuffy poets. I believe in brevity in general, so I was really looking for something short, but nothing doing! Even James Tate’s “The Blue Booby”, which starts at the bottom of page 1387 with 3 promising ultra-short lines but rolls on for most of the next page, ending with “like the eyes of a mild savior” – a line I actually like. It really packs a punch. If only there weren’t so much in between. Well, pardon me, it’s the old grouch speaking again, having accrued more than 10 lines of negatively ranty prose by now. I know for a fact that long poems exist. I even know one person personally who wrote a long poem (thankfully it was still in the making when I knew her) and said she loved long poems! The sad truth actually is that people who like poems (period!) are a very, very tiny minority.
Saturday, September 4, 2021
Desperate heroine
Despite the trite synopsis (something like "A young woman finds herself naked in an empty building after a night of hard partying"), this gripping film starring Amala Paul has some surprising depth, twists and turns and even a message.
Thursday, August 26, 2021
Disjunct
A gadget, a card,
several USB cables.
Hot, tedious hours.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)
Note
Had nothing specific to say (seems to happen often ... I’m speechless in view of what’s happening in the world) but nonetheless felt the need to assert my cyber presence. Drastic change is needed – but who’s going to do it? 100,000 poets alone can’t.
Thursday, August 5, 2021
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
Saturday, June 19, 2021
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?
Thursday, June 10, 2021
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.
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...
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
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).
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
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.
Friday, April 9, 2021
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.
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
The onset of dementia haiku
Sunday, February 14, 2021
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.
Thursday, February 4, 2021
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.
Monday, January 18, 2021
A pretty haiku
Look at its eyes! Their
sparkle! Its luscious lips! Its
cheeks! Their modest blush!
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)
Note
Nothing to be added. Could have made it even prettier if I hadn’t limited myself to haiku size.
Sunday, January 10, 2021
A multilingual rain haiku
Rain. Regen. बारिश.
Pioggia. All day long il
pleut. ¡Para, lluvia!
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)
Note
Let’s hope this multilingual admonishment will help to put an end to the endless rain.
Sunday, January 3, 2021
Today’s weather haiku
Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain.
A little lull. Rain. Drops. Rain.
Puddle. Rain. Rain. Rain.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)
Note
That is the poetic razor-edge-of-time report on the weather in Rome on this 3rd day of 2021.
Sunday, December 20, 2020
Poltava to Lviv, January 17, 1942
Field marshal, felled by
stroke while jogging at minus
forty. Passed on plane.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Note
Refers to German field marshal Walter von Reichenau, responsible for the massacre at Babi Yar in 1941. Reichenau was an enthusiastic supporter of sports and went on cross-country runs regularly. Having died in 1942, Reichenau was never convicted of war crimes but most certainly would have had he survived WWII. This haiku was indirectly inspired by reading about Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s poem Babiyy Yar (1961), which is about the massacre.
Thursday, December 10, 2020
A lesser known Neruda quote
Attributed to Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, translator and source unknown.
Notes
Came across this on a social network page today that, going by its other postings, is a jumble of things gleaned from here and there and anywhere. Of course, there was no mention of a source or context. Therefore it’s quite possible that someone made this up and attributed it to a famous poet to elevate its importance.
Tuesday, November 24, 2020
Another instructional haiku
Silence, when getting
too heavy, must be relieved.
How about a shriek?
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Note
Actually, I was going to write about my own silence getting too heavy, i.e. not writing was taking on monstrous proportions. The shriek therefore is this haiku. More of the unheard kind. Like one from the stone monster above.
Photo by Johannes Beilharz, taken at the Monster Park in Bomarzo, Italy.
Friday, November 13, 2020
Monday, October 19, 2020
The desperate letters haiku
Writing half-withered
letters to Sea, the under-
standing blue houseplant
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Note:
Inspired by a haiku by N. Gutierrez, turned inside out and deformed in other ways.
Photo by Antonio Grosz on Unsplash
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
The James Schuyler haiku
He had Brahms and Bruno
Walter – both long dead – engaged in
lively conversation.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Note
All true! See James Schuyler’s poem A Man in Blue from Freely Espousing (1969).
Bruno Walter, conductor and pianist (1876-1962)
Johannes Brahms, composer, pianist, conductor (1833-1897)
Sunday, October 4, 2020
My life as a hunter and gatherer
not kill animals and found
only acorns to eat.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Note
There are some, mostly male chauvinists, who proclaim that they were meant to be hunters (while women were meant to be gatherers, of course) and that the failure of many men in current society can be explained by the alienation that is due to them not being able to go after their hunting business. So I pictured this return to nature for myself for a second, did a mental reality check and quickly returned to contemporary amenities (for example, a computer to write and publish stuff).
Wednesday, September 23, 2020
The dark day haiku
Carry a flashlight
to walk the streets of Rome – it
is that dark today.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Note
The truth and nothing but. The seemingly endless scorchers of summer 2020 have come to a dark and wet end for the time being.
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Dunking simplified
Put the cookie in
your mouth, sip coffee, wait
until soggy, down.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Note
There are people with dunking problems, e.g. if the cookie disintegrates when dunked in the coffee (or tea or milk or whatever). Follow the above haiku to avoid this. Try it!
PS: I was going to write “down the hatch” instead of “down”, but that would have violated haiku rules.
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Leave A Note
Played around with one of Jennifer Dewalt's sites called Leave A Note.
These are notes I left:
No idea why I was thinking of the Beatles, but this sure was fun, like many other of her sites.
By the way: The correct reading sequence is to start from the bottom.
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Monosyllabic again
Oh no! What now? So
we’re fucked? Can’t be all true, no
way, Ho Say! Right-ho.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Note
I seem to remember having written and posted a monosyllabic haiku (don’t remember it or what it might have been about – but I have a chronically bad memory for things I’ve written, so nothing new there).
Well, here comes another one. It cheats a little bit, because José actually has two syllables. However, I don’t think this will upset anyone excessively.
Anyway, the general bias goes well with this year, which might go down in history as a year that was effed up in many ways.
PS: Did research and found the other one.
Thursday, July 30, 2020
The a bad part of creation haiku
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
The Donald Trump haiku
has moved to another golf course
to shake a few clubs.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Note
Doing the only thing he might be half good at. Besides spreading lies and clapping for himself, of course. The haiku is slightly overfilled, like the man himself.
Wednesday, July 8, 2020
The amazing prowess of Goggle ... oops ... you know what
Goggle keeps amazing the world!
However, there's one thing it doesn't like ... and considers a potential "grammar" issue:
DO NOT USE GOGGLE INSTEAD OF GOOGLE
Sunday, July 5, 2020
The Laura Nyro haiku
I like her looks more
than her singing and songs.
Strange as it may seem.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Note
The plain truth. Someone on tumblr recently posted a song by Laura Nyro, which reminded me of the one album of hers – New York Tendaberry – I have. As a consequence, I spent about half an hour listening to Nyro on youtube, coming to the conclusion that my love for her music and style of singing has not grown during about a decade of not listening.
Monday, June 8, 2020
The Windows update haiku
a tiger in a cage – Micro-
soft is updating.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Notes
The truth and nothing but. Well, except that I didn’t really turn into a tiger. But my anger is that of a caged big cat. It’s been going on for years – you are trying to get some work done while Microsoft nixes all your plans by doing an excruciatingly slow update it deems necessary for reasons even Microsoft probably doesn’t understand. Otherwise they would not constantly update their crap.
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
The in the office haiku
if short, it’s the rolling of
a tire, if long: rain
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Note
It turned out to be short. Since there was no engine noise, it must have been an electric car or a hybrid in electric mode. Can such dissimilar sources cause similar sounds? But both alternatives presented themselves to me without conscious reflection as I was sitting in my office with my back to the window, not bothering to turn around to verify.
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
He thinks he'll keep her (haiku #2318)
Close to midnight. YouTube playing.
He thinks he’ll keep her.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Note
Pieces of disjointed truth and nothing but.
Friday, April 3, 2020
The perfect life haiku
as perfect as what you see
in advertising.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Note
One of the common experiences with advertising is that you don't necessarily get what was advertised when you buy the product. Advertising has that special knack of making things look better than true. And an old wisdom says that if something looks too good to be true it most likely isn't true. Like the kind of life generally portrayed by advertising. It's better to think of it as staged and paid bliss, I'd say, subtracting at least 75 percent as a reality penalty.
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Love for Sale 2
Sunday, February 2, 2020
The monosyllabic haiku
and or what not like that true
no, no, it ain’t bro.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)
Note
The year and my blogs have gotten off to a slow start – took me until February to even think of posting something. And now it’s this mono-syllable thing that doesn’t say much, does it? Yes, I think it could be safely said that it is somewhat reticent in the meaning department.
Monday, December 16, 2019
The freezing December night haiku
moon now, a noncommittal
cold stare from above.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)
Note
Once in a while it hits us all – the urge to involve the moon in poetry. This is the outcome of my latest moon wax attack. Thank God it’s from above. From below would definitely be spooky. Should have worn mittens and a warm hat on that imaginary December night walk.
Friday, December 6, 2019
The looking at an old picture haiku
harmonica or was that
a fake wide moustache?
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)
Note
You know those old photos – sharp, black and white and very small. So, I am unable to tell without a magnifying glass. I remember the hike we took in the mountains of Crete way back when but have no recollection of that harmonica or moustache instant. She’s standing on rocks under an olive tree with her hand held close to her mouth. As you would to hold a moustache in place or point to it or to hold and play a harmonica. Will we ever know?
Monday, December 2, 2019
The Zoya Factor
Never thought I'd watch another cricket movie after Lagaan (2001) but then stumbled across The Zoya Factor on Netflix last night. It's funny, has an original love story and features excellent comical acting by the star, versatile Sonam Kapoor. No need to be a sports buff to enjoy this (de)light(ful) comedy!
Monday, November 25, 2019
A know-it-all
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)
Friday, November 15, 2019
My favorite famous books
A Tale of Two Dickens
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
The stopped on Via Laurentina haiku
right hand on her face, middle
pushing up nose tip
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)
Note
The truth and nothing but. Observed the driver of a car in the right lane while stuck in traffic this morning.
Friday, October 4, 2019
Bard of Blood
Sobhita Dhulipala and Emraan Hashmi in a scene from Bard of Blood |
Sunday, September 29, 2019
Sunday haiku
fall flat
on their you know what
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)
Note
Lo! He’s broken his lasting poetic silence to come out with an underfilled haiku denigrating the genre, and that on Sunday. As to the you know what, there are two principal possibilities.