winter moods (sequence that worked)
November sky
rains into stray runnels
into cesspools
drenched in the rain
city pavements let no step
leave a sign
on paved walls–
I trace the patchwork
by the moody rain
catching winter clouds
shielding for themselves alone
the marine blue sky
up frosty mountain peaks—
i wonder about the lily
in a summer pond
Published in LYNX XXVI:I, February 2011
A ‘sequence’ is another haiku-related form in English haiku where individual haiku along the same theme are put together. I seem to have better chances in getting accepted with it although most of my sequences have only been published in LYNX and The Cortland Review (Issue 39, ‘revenant’) not a haiku and its related forms but a poetry journal.
The form comes rather easily to me–I do it even here with my posts; when I start composing right here, one haiku often isn’t enough for an image/thought/moment that comes to mind. Sometimes I want to give up on writing haiku and perhaps just get on with my poetry, which seems to have given me a more distinctive voice but haiku whips me back to shape with its discipline and brevity. I look at it as a wisp of air, a mist, fog swarming over me so I may fade and be one with it.
And so, to add a haiku to this sequence
stepping into the fog
knowing
i, too, fade
the copper sea (for One Shoot Sunday)
the sun sets copper
on the sea swarming over
desert longings
lapping our dreams
on our footprints
a heat rises on ghosts
of foam cresting
for the stars
the sand sinks
death our sun desires
drained on our footprints
unquenched
no shadows lurk
here the light fractures
the pining twilight
leaves splinters
on the sand
the copper sea turns in
a petulant phantom
on our footprints
unwashed silted
footprints by Iquanyin Moon
Posted for One Shoot Sunday at One Stop Poetry, a community of poets and artists who love their art and sustain each other.
pine tips (a haiku rewritten from a non-haiku)
pine tips holding up
to the winter sky–
how low can stars fall?
the non-haiku
Pine strands
flailing: how low can stars fall?
Why I think it’s not haiku:
1. it doesn’t have the two parts of a haiku
2. the first part is an incomplete thought, also, wrong word usage–strands don’t quite describe pine branches and flailing suggests something like strips or threads or strands like hair which could describe willow branches–hence,
3. the second part is meaningless or
4. the juxtaposition does not work
5. therefore, it’s not a haiku moment
Perhaps the rewritten version works better though I’m still uncertain about it. The second part might be, as Patrick G would describe, ‘author-driven’. But I’m quite content that I’m seeing batches of non-haiku I’ve written more clearly, and writing haiku that work sometimes.
What had helped? Reading a lot, interacting with haiku lovers-writers who have turned friends-who-care like Patrick Gillespie at poemshape and Margaret Dornaus at haikudoodle, but reading especially Melissa Allen’s haikuverse at red dragonfly. And there’s the monthly meeting with my Haiku Vancouver Group!
quenched (cactus haiku prompted by the Haiku Foundation facebook site)
quenched
the cactus blooms
while i thirst
(posted on the site 1 person likes it)
prickly cactus
to me: ‘touch me not’
my thirst unquenched
saguaro–
desert air brushing my skin
for comfort
desert wind
its rough embrace hurts
but not for the cactus
pear cactus
cut in strips to cook
in its own water
alien notes (for One Shot Wednesday)
in Vietnam courtesy of wikicommons
old suns, desolate breakfasts,
days turning on stiles, later
a trudge ending in a box
re-spelling obtuseness
words on words
soft as soufflé he hardly tasted—
so he left grinding dust, seeking
flashes in the desert
why songs fly
to him now sneaking between dawn
and moaning, silences between
gaping eyes the dead leave on strings, he
draws answers from skies,
grumbling about bomb spores–
songs he plucks off storms
alien to his longings
on his waist solid
steel tips waiting to fly
this sentinel
of rock burrowing on sands
lets old suns free
on his guitar
published as Poet of the Week, Poets Against War, June 2009
Posted for One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry blog. Join other poets and artists who love their art.
grey skies (and other grey/in the rain/and snow haiku)
1.
grey skies
still the heather blooms
and blooms
2.
hydrangeas
even in dryness
the same sighs
3.
willow tips
dripping with rain
but i’m not crying
4.
tangled vines in the snow–
our thoughts sometimes
5.
in the rain each stone a new face
route (sequence with a lesson on how to breathe life to a ‘lifeless haiku’)
on a bench—
granny arching
to a waltz
on the ground
black-eyed posies,
but not for me
over head
a robin trills, i race
the train
pine strand
flailing in night sky—
the first low star
pasta bowl
and cranberry juice
with no one
Published in LYNX XXIII:3, October 2008
These were separate haiku I labored to make ‘perfect’ but hardly ever tried to submit, having at that time received one rejection after another. And so, I put them together as a titled sequence and got an acceptance from Werner Reichold, my first publication after my one and only haiku award from VCBF haiku invitational.
But as I’m won’t to do, two of the haiku have since danced on into a full poem in free verse: #3 became “first kiss” posted here for One Shoot Sunday, #4 out of the image ‘flailing in the night sky’, I wrote “revenant” published in The Cortland Review.
Lesson: on how to save one’s own self from ‘grief’ of a ‘lifeless haiku’ or how to breathe life on a ‘lifeless haiku’
Do not delete/discard/bury it. Instead, keep it wrapped in angels’ wings.
Let it sleep the sleep of bulbs of daffodils and star lilies.
Wait for spring in your spirit.
And then, unwrap them, buff them and watch the wings stir, flapping weakly at first.
And then, with your touch, watch the lines soar!
how not to haiku or haiku submitted with temerity…
…to the late Peggy Willis Lyles, the editor I was assigned to send my haiku to at Heron’s Nest. I believe this belongs to that first batch in late 2007. I had just won an honorable mention that year in the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational, a month after I migrated to Vancouver, which gave me the boldness to send these truly absolutely non-haiku I now realize.
Peggy had replied ever so kindly to my submissions–three more followed; the last one she received on her first hospitalization preceding her fatal illness, and still she responded from her hospital bed as always encouragingly (posted here ‘September twilight’ 09/07/2010 and at the haikuworld website with my tribute to her).
I’ve strived to learn from my rejection notes since then. It’s amazing how crystal clear they read as bad when they come back like wilted blooms or sagging starved horsemen. Some specifics Peggy had noted: “use of language should be natural”, “image should not be twisted (unnatural or made-up) but clear (natural in its flow)”.
Other editors of other haiku journals would send back a ‘robot’ mail or just simply not let you know; I later learned that with thousands of haiku descending on them like an avalanche (I read once about an editor receiving 250 haiku about a visit to Hawaii and not a single one worked), I began to feel less ignored in a personal way. I had long contracted haiku and it has turned into a ‘chronic malady’ so much so that I’m still writing and bugging editors.
Of these haiku that demonstrate how not to haiku (you would know), I’ve turned two of them quite successfully into free verse. Haiku#1 became “Suppositions” (free verse, posted 12/20/2010 for One Shot Wed ) and #5 as “Revenant” (sequence-like published in The Cortland Review Issue 39, May 2008 with a podcast ).
1.
turtles tipping on rocks
dip legs in pool—
summer note
2.
ah, spring—
squirrel digging shoots
chews on
3.
on black soil
clumps of snowdrops—
shorter nights
4.
old oak tree
leafing so soon? but sparrows
twig each
5.
duck pair at lagoon
V-patterns on the water—
on the sky
About
autumn wind
wondering about lilies
in a mountain pond
Tell me a writer who really gets a satisfying jornal, in Spanish a daily wage or its equivalent, and I’ll bare a spirit in constant bouts of doubtfulness. Does a writer earn more because of what he writes and how he does it? Or is a writer paid more or less because of who he is? Is it money or honor he expects to receive?
Ahhh … but money as wage, and praise or honor as reward would be too predictable, too common as Job lamented in the Book of Job. It is in these lines that read: “Is not man’s life on earth nothing more than pressed service, his times no better than hired drudgery? Like the slave, sighing for the shade, or the workman with no thought but his wages, months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief. Lying in bed I wonder, ‘When will it be day?’ Risen I think, ‘How slowly evening comes!’
Restlessly I fret till twilight falls. Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle my days have passed, and vanished, leaving no hope behind. Remember that my life is but a breath, and that my eyes will never again see joy.”
Not money but joy is the ultimate wage as the passage implies. And joy is not hard to earn for it is in everyday life if we have eyes to see, a nose to smell, fingers to touch, ears to hear–a heart beating. This to me, is how a writer earns a daily wage. His wages then take the guise of treasures his heart can transfigure into a universe of thought that taps into other hearts, that causes a swirl in the depth of other souls, or that makes wings to sprout on leaden heels.
Sometimes not joy but rueful, poignant moments are my pick. Take what I earned once: On my walk home in my neighborhood, I caught two clumps of snowdrops–such tiny blossoms smaller than fingertips that do not look up but shyly droop close to black patches on the ground winter has frozen. That afternoon in the frosty wind, they trembled as if ready to turn away and run but how could they? For that poignant moment on seeing the wintry rain beat on the fragile snowdrop–as if pushing it to go home now, go to sleep–I earned my jornal, my daily wage.
Once on summer walk, the crackle of dried leaves just hit me both like the laughter of children and sobs long suppressed. Neither one of them would resolve the dryness, but I recalled how each does bring tears: laughter for joy, sobs for healing that comes with the release of a dammed-up pain. My jornal that day came as two haiku.
Fall has since shortened the day and the heart begins to crave for lost space that it doesn’t even recall which or where. I feel that most treasures have turned into mush so much so I wouldn’t be able to sift them off the ground. Yet I caught the dying day yesterday–so glorious in the gold of autumn it opened a flip side of serene heaven. Blades of grass coated in diadems of rain that carpet the lawns render royal walks poor by imitation. A burst of red maple against an inky blue sky humbled me, a soul bragging about her skill to recreate beauty in words.
I suppose I’m taking Job’s reflections to heart. I’d rather not gloss over each day and look beyond what’s there, right before me, or else fragile as is my breath one day “my eyes may never again see joy” to write. With what then will I compare the eternal joy, the ultimate wage I await?
Yet for now, as other eyes hanker to make the invisible visible, I put a tag on some moments of joy. Like on seeing the snowdrops, I paid myself $200 as my jornal.
What could have been yours?
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