The surreal surprise haiku

Black, black cherries. And
suddenly an eruption
of earwigs, earwigs.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Did not happen quite that way. But I started eating a nectarine when a big earwig fell out of the pit, which had partially split the way it sometimes happens with nectarines. That was surreal enough, actually. But then I thought of a pile of black cherries and discovering, when taking a closer look, that there were masses of earwigs underneath a thin layer of cherries...

The brutal reality haiku

If it's not fake, it's
most likely war, injustice,
fraud or betrayal.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
A somewhat pessimistic view of what’s going on in the world.
What brought that on?
Looking at the news, I suppose, suppressing the few hopeful items that are reported on now and then as well as advertising, which suggests that everything is fun and games if you buy the right products.

The big business haiku

Spotless pin stripe suits
and nothing but shit in their
dirty underpants.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Would I ever write a haiku without a note? Naw!
This little one is pretty much self-explanatory, I would think. For anyone who might not get it: big business is two-faced ... on the pretty side it’s all advertising (premium products, service excellence, best customer experience, bla bla bla), on the stinky side it’s all about exploiting their workers and suppliers down to the shameless hilt (and preferably beyond). Anything that serves the greed of the top tier and makes them rich.

Time travel Bengali style

(Another one-line movie quickshot)

Abby Sen (2015) is a beautifully filmed time travel drama/comedy that is well worth watching - but do not expect this to be an action movie; this is a detail and character-oriented film that takes its time and is ultimately very rewarding.

Directed by Atanu Ghosh, starring Abir Chatterjee, Raima Sen, Chiranjeet Chakraborty, Bratya Basu, and Priyanka Sarkar.

The oh Windows poem

(Small ode to updatitis)

My computer has just received
the latest Windows update

Which means it’ll be busy
Microsofting for an hour or so

Instead of doing
what it needs to do

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Once in a while I let Windows install an update and immediately regret it because it means that the PC will be slow as a snail for at least an hour afterwards doing God knows Microsoft what instead of working for me.

The failed poetry haiku

Objects juxtaposed
and not filled with poetic
meaning – fail! Fail! Fie!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Elucidating note
Such objects or emotional weight carriers might be, for example: evening, window across, still unbegun, longing, promise, return, unspoken, unsaid, arm of love, fingers touching the heart, castles in the air (don’t call them pipe dreams, that removes the poetic component), etc.

The age of well-ventilated knees

These days of torn pants may well be remembered as the age of well-ventilated knees by future generations.

(Who knows - doctors may remember them best for the increase in osteoarthritis ...)

The opium haiku

This so-called fragrance
is an allergen. Makes me
sneeze. Kills small animals.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Based on facts! Even though at least one person I know and love would contradict me vehemently and keeps wearing it.

Disclaimer
Does not refer to the drug.

Gods of Egypt

(Another movie one-liner)

An overblown piece of Hollywood fantacrap with shitloads of tiring special effects – don't waste your time and money on this one.

– Leonard Blumfeld

Note
Refers to the 2016 film Gods of Egypt, directed by Alex Proyas and starring Gerard Butler – darkened somewhat to look particularly sinister – and a slew of other ethnically incorrect white actors. If you want to find out something worthwhile about ancient Egypt or Egyptian deities, give this bore a miss and visit your local library.

The sideburn haiku

That should do – shave off
the sideburns along with the
frontburns and backburns.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Wonder what it would look like if someone did that?

Happy happy felicity

The Linguasso Text Collage generator is alive and well! It generated this collage for me and made me chuckle heartily. Try it out for yourself ...

A mostly stolen haiku

In the box
nothing
laughing

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
What happened here is that I read someone’s haiku, which had something (some object I can’t recall) in place of the nothing and seemed quite flat. So, to pep things up a bit and introduce some leaping* element, I used nothing instead. Try to imagine nothing laughing. What would that laughter look like/sound like? Nothing has no face, no voice. Quite apart from the fact that this haiku is seriously underfilled by common syllabic standards.

* Cf. Robert Bly, Leaping Poetry

The Hateful Eight

(One-line movie quickshots)

A lengthy exercise in Tarantinoism - no need to waste your time on that one.

- Leonard Blumfeld

Note
This quickshot refers to the 2015 film The Hateful Eight, directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell and Jennifer Jason Leigh and others. Go ahead and watch if you get off on cruelty, gore, etc.

A cough next door at 1 p.m.

(Another truthful haiku)

She must be rising
after last night’s 4 o’clock
boyfriend shouting match

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Nothing but the truth reported here. The dear neighbor girl came home with her latest sweetheart around 11 last night, exposed the entire neighborhood to rumba zumba music for an hour and later proceeded to have it out publicly with the guy down below between 4 and 5 in the morning.

A Sunday morning haiku

Woken up by the
bark of a dog named Leila
passing by below.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Of course I wouldn’t have known the dog’s name if her master hadn’t said it as he was trying to calm her down. Rome, January 29, 2017, 9:22 a.m.

The rhymed morning note haiku

Darling, I’m going
very far – I’m on my way
to the coffee bar.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Completely authentic. Conceived in my head en tour to that said establishment.

The what does that bode for Rome haiku

January 2, 2017

Productivity:
piles of fresh dogshit along
the sidewalks today

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Sad to say, the first poem this year starts on a disgusting note. However, the scats were too numerous and strategically placed to go unnoticed. Oh well.

The Nike haiku

Little goddess in
a niche. Modest and helpful.
Shines a timid smile.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
Does not refer to the omnipresent manufacturer of sports items but to the much, much older Greek goddess of victory whose name appears to have been appropriated by that same manufacturer in hopes of assuring victory to the wearers of its shoes.
I actually wrote this little poem in January of 2016 and stumbled across it today when I opened the art sketchbook in which I'd written it in pencil. I suspect that it was inspired by the picture of a statue of Nike but did not write down any details.

The Netflix haiku

Pick a movie – watch –
loading – watch some more – loading –
stopped – OK – was that it?

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
A reality haiku about trying to watch various movies on Netflix. I hope other people have better connections and get to watch entire films.

Love at first sight or breath or whatever

“You are so bouncily vapid!” she said breathily in that vapid girl band way.

I took it as a compliment and sort of nodded, not knowing what else to do.

“Let’s adjoin this, shall we?”

“OK.”

Upon which she took me by the hand and to the adjoining room. Bouncy on her bright red toenails.

(Where {...} happened – as it was all vapid bouncy imagination.)

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
Hardly requires any explanation, does it? 3WW supplied the words vapid, adjoining and bouncy, and I vapidly bounced on them to adjoin them.

A fatal tendency

I have a symbolic tendency to become unhinged.

Mind you, it’s only symbolic.

Mostly.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Woven around symbolic, tendency and unhinged from Three Word Wednesday (3WW).

The feel good quotes haiku

That one by Beckett,
about failing and failing
better more merrier

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
At least half of social media consists of the cud of feel good quotes chewed over and over again. Here’s a Samuel Beckett failure variant to join the cud and make you feel good, better and merrier about failing.

An abstract haiku

Lines, circles, lines, black
and blue, Kandinsky objects,
peaceful, with a smile.

- Leonbard Blumfeld (c 2016)

Notes
Felt an urge to take haiku to another dimension. Had nothing specific to say, so abstract was a natural choice. Caught myself typo-signing as "Leonbard" ... ok, the new bard has spoken.

Blogger is acting up today - I'm editing an entry, updating it ... and blogger creates another one. So you have the same haiku twice, with a little color variant.

An abstract haiku

Lines, circles, lines, black
and blue, Kandinsky objects,
peaceful, with a smile.

- Leonbard Blumfeld (c 2016)

Notes
Felt an urge to take haiku to another dimension. Had nothing specific to say, so abstract was a natural choice. Caught myself typo-signing as "Leonbard" ... ok, the new bard has spoken.

Nonsense - and you shall be enabled

In a cinch, in a cinch
In a dank, in a dank
You shall be enabled

In a black, in a black
In a humor, in a humor
You shall later laugh

- Leonard Blumfeld (c 2016)

A poetic flash inspired by cinch, dank and enable from 3WW.

Disclaimer: may not always use words in their usual meaning.

To the old grump

Kindly be lighthearted and not so melodramatic, will you?
The evil world won't suffer if you smile once in a while!

- Leonard Blumfeld (c 2016)

Woven around kindly, lighthearted and melodramatic from 3WW.

The tumblr heroes haiku

We were tumblr he-
roes for a while, racking up
shitloads of little red hearts.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
To misquote John Lennon, “a cyber class hero is something to be”. Would be a true haiku syllablewise if the “little” were taken out, but it sounds much better this way, don’t you think?

(Clip from art by Julia Morozova - see here for complete image.)

Rhetorical

How carefree would you feel if you’d just been hit over the head with an ear-splitting deadpan?

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
Woven around carefree, ear-splitting and deadpan from 3WW. May not use some of the terms in the intended meaning.

The all pervasive advertising haiku

Nowanights I am
presented sponsored content
even between dreams.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
Only the next logical step in the planning of Google & Co.

The retarded haiku

This poem is slow.
Even the fast events in
it occur slowly.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)


Note
Woke up at 6:15 a.m. with this on my mind and got up to go to the toilet and to write it down. Didn't want to turn the computer on, so I wrote it as an e-mail on my cell and sent it to myself. How the miracles of technology favor poetry!

This happened on April 16. Rediscovered the e-mail a few days ago.

And now it's finally seeing the light of the (electronic) world after the darkness of electronic storage. Wow!

The life, sex, death haiku

Life evaded her.
Sex mostly evaded her.
Death evaded her.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
As we all know and have been told by countless pundits countless times, all good poems, novels, novellas, stories, movies and life in general are about life, sex or death. Or one or two of the three. Or all three, just like the purely fictitious, brutally honest and minimally mysterious ball breaker above.

The working man’s haiku

Got a new job. And
somebody next door inflicts
loud nasty grinding.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Notes
The facts and nothing but.

The prehistoric alienation haiku

They called her rebel
for resenting to weave baskets
each and every day.

– Leonard Blumfeld ((c) 2016)

Note
Now we know that alienation existed even at the dawn of mankind.

The damn fine haiku

It was a fine poem
and was doing fine until
someone said stand down.
 
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
According to Ted Kooser and his column American Life in Poetry, American literature is full of fine poems. Yep, you got to pronounce that fine with some sort of corn belt accent to get the full meaning. The stand down part is popular in recent military Hollywood lingo. It is frequently used when we all (the audience) are meant to strongly feel that someone should actually not stand down. I added damn to the title because a damn fine poem is even finer than one that is just fine.

The fighting the addiction haiku

Succeeded! Did not
use or think of using smart-
phone for fourteen hours.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
Actually not that autobiographical. I’m perfectly happy being connected to the world normally and not through the damn gadget – unless I’m walking around taking pictures with it. Sometimes of people in public places staring into their smartphones.

The Francis Bacon face haiku

Looks like TV on
a windy day disturbing
the satellite dish.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
This poem was inspired by true events – we have a big eucalyptus outside whose branches and leaves interfere with satellite reception and cause such Bacon-like distorted faces. (Alludes to the 20th century artist (1909-1992), not the Elizabethan philosopher.)

The cannot fail to be poetic haiku

Pathetic words to
beat the crap out of your mind-
less astral body.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

And the inevitable note
Where did that one come from? From all the ball-twisting, tear-jerking poetry out there on the net.

The damn it I said haiku

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Written on Write A Haiku, which counts syllables for you and turns your outpourings into magnetic poetry.

The ostrich haiku

Stick your head in the
sand and wait; that is the art
of problem solving.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
All too often I catch myself doing exactly this kind of problem solving. Which is not easy to detect with your head in the sand...

The you must watch haiku

You must watch this ad
before you can see what
you wanted to see.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
A little kick at today’s coercive online advertising blackmail practices. (Is that a tautology? Doesn’t matter. Drives home the point.) This forced ad exposure reminds me of Stanley Kubricks’s film A Clockwork Orange (1971), where Malcolm McDowell’s eyes were kept open by force so he could not avoid seeing the things that were forced on him. With the aim of turning him into a nice guy from a criminal. So what’s the advertising forced upon us supposed to turn us into? Idiots who will eventually succumb and consume?

The candlelight installation haiku

Bucket-size candle
jars, jasmine water-filled, in
about any church.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
This one was sparked by a photo of an eminent contemporary conceptual artist's installation in a church in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The jasmine water is my invention. Add a wick and paraffin, and it would probably burn nicely. I'm convinced it would smell good in any church. Priests, preachers, bishops, etc., please contact me for possible execution.

The extended burger and fries haiku

Let’s think of the pain
of the cows and potatoes – 
or rather not go there
and eat the damn thing.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Notes
This one's pretty much self-explanatory... I admit to having second thoughts every time I eat a hamburger somewhere. And the haiku is definitely extended.

The Heather Nova haiku

Dedicated to Alexa

Said my daughter: you’re
the only person I know 
who listens to her.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Notes
The truth and nothing but the truth (about the quote*). Out of the blue** I felt the urge to listen to Heather Nova’s London Rain and its healing effects*** today.

* Some evening in the early 2000s I ended up watching part of a Heather Nova concert on German TV, probably as a result of zapping through channels in search of something watchable. I don’t recall anyone else who comes off as ethereal on stage, as dreamy and enamored with singing with eyes closed. It’s something that can get too much. However, I ended up getting some Heather Nova CDs and playing them frequently when my daughter still lived at home. Hence the quote. I don’t think she liked H. N. very much. She preferred bands like The Back Street Boys back then.
** Does anything ever really occur out of the blue?
*** Nothing falls like London rain / Nothing heals me like you do

The friend from my youth haiku

She used words that I
would have never used to make
new categories.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
This one is about a friend from my youth (as she called me even 20 years ago). When she used that term, I felt hurt because she seemed to be saying that we were friends back then but could no longer be. She had created a limited category instead of the friends is friends and friends last for ever that I would have preferred.

The surreally sentenced haiku

Thirty days of hot 
landswart for the misdeamer, 
said the judge. Gavel!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
Another one that came to me while I was half asleep and getting ready to wake up.

Emancipated

“A little backbone once in a while wouldn’t cheapen your dangle,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

I’d just apologized to the waiter for the fact that she had ordered a Dos Equis and that he had brought her a Tres Equis.

When, in fact, I was pretty sure she’d said Tres Equis.

Now what the hell was her meaning?

Which is exactly what I asked her.

“It means that you should learn to stand up to some people, my dear man. And it would not hurt that swagger of yours I love so much,” she laughed and slapped me in the area of my bum – which she couldn’t quite get to because we were seated.

Reading between the lines is sometimes difficult.

What she really was trying to say might be, “Stand up to others as much as you like, but be wax in my dainty little hands.”

However, there definitely had been some innuendo in the dangle.

So that I was not entirely surprised when she suggested going back to our room after a while.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Written around the words backbone, cheapen and dangle from 3WW.

The Martin Shkreli haiku

There he goes crowing
and smirking: the cockiest
cock on the dunghill.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
This one was prompted by this morning’s news on France 24, where it was said that Martin Shkreli might easily be America’s most hated man nowadays.

The early morning dog haiku

Barking. The shrill kind,
a smallish yelp. Ecstatic
to have done a job.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
I hope this renders the facts as experienced from my early morning office: the yelp of a dog being walked somewhere in the vicinity. Saw neither the dog nor its walker. The job is my interpretation. Alas, many of these jobs can be encountered in the vicinity.

The Ansel Adams haiku

Oak tree, grassy hill,
fence posts in bottom foreground,
color, faded some.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Note
It’s a little known fact that the American photographer Ansel Adams (1902-1984), who is famous for his monochrome photographs of American landscapes, also experimented with color photography. This poem is a direct reference to one of his color photos, which can be seen online here. The first two lines actually consist of the photo’s matter-of-fact description at the Center for Creative Photography site.

The photographable interior haiku

Oh how I'd love to
have a photographable
interior! Oh!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Notes
Welcome to this new year's first poetic product. It was triggered by looking at pictures of stylish interiors on tumblr. Sad to say, our interior at this point does not look like interior design mag material. It is as pictured above. And, contrary to some of those stylish pictures, it looks lived in...