winter solstice (First Place, December 2012 Shiki kukai, kigo category)
My haiku for the kigo category in the December Shiki kukai won First Place, my 2nd in this kukai. Here it is:
winter solstice
the widow tightens
her braids
(0,10,9) = 29 pts
**Very picturesque and melancholy
Thanks to all who voted and to the kind poet who made a comment.
In the free format category where Cara’s (Cara Holman) haiku won 2nd place, my haiku
on the prompt ‘departing’ gained only 3 pts. Here it is:
a leaf
races in the wind
after him
Thanks, too, for the votes.
ice cream/day moon my voted haiku at the June 2012 Shiki Kukai
Kigo*: ice cream
ice cream
the prescription
she misplaced
(5 points)
Free format: day moon
day moon
hovering on her window
a Luna moth
(8 points}
*A kigo is a season word entered into a data base that if used expands a haiku with a wider sense shared worldwide. Most kigo words are found in the World Kigo Database. While it lists predominantly Japanese season words, as is understandable, Gabi Greve who maintains WKD has been inviting haiku poets to contribute kigo in their locale, hence, further widening the data base. WKD is easy to access on the web.
A kukai is a prompted haiku exercise wherein participants (only) vote anonymously from an anonymous list of haiku with votes limited only to a total of 6 votes. This kukai is named after another Japanese haiku master, Shiki.
caked mud (my haiku for CKK#28)
caked mud
clinging to my heels–
summer memories
Caribbean Kigo Kukai#28 (mud)
Votes:33**** Points: 12
Comments: 255 = 12, Is this person a farmer, a labor worker, or a hiker–nice ambiguities that allow the reader to speculate.
‘words’, First place, July 2011 Shiki kukai (what a break!)
words
we’ve left unsaid–
Indian summer
First Place, July 2011 Shiki kukai (Kigo prompt: weather)
Luna moths–
some things
we can’t see
8 pts., July 2011 Shiki kukai (free format: moths)
I can say a lot about what in these haiku I wrote from a blank space (or not trying to write a perfect one) garnered votes–first place or the most votes for kigo even! Let me know what you think about it.
my voted haiku on ‘rainbow’ (Sketchbook June 2011 haiku kukai)
under trellises
their blooming vegan romance
harvests snap peas
Sketchbook June 2011 among haiku thread editor’s choice
rainbow–
of her childhood wishes
she rephrases one
5th place Sketchbook June 2011 haiku kukai (kigo: rainbow)
wanting more
of the rainbow she takes
her kaleidoscope
9th place
so close
at her every step–
rainbow’s end
10th place (or zero vote)
Please bear with me for posting published haiku for now. Nothing fresh has worked out for me these past days. I hope some will come soon as easily as these rainbow haiku.
By the way, I can tell you why the last haiku received no vote: first, it’s author-driven or my idea imposed on it, in stead of an observation; second, it has no anchor, hence, no pivot; third, it does not leap into any thought; fourth, it’s a cliche or a rephrasing of ‘finding a dream or pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
the coming of summer (Shiki Kukai May 2011)
the coming of summer–
all the petals
i brushed off my hair
voted haiku, Shiki Kukai May 2011, kigo: coming of summer
also posted at NaHaiWriMo
My voted and zero haiku in the Feb Shiki kukai: a self-critique (Or what’s a mirror flashing as signal in the copse all about?)
February Shiki kukai
kigo (spring fever) – 5 pts.
spring fever—
shoots among the lilies
she can’t name
free format (mirror) 0 pts.
mirror
flashing in the copse—
signal she missed
What? A vague haiku, the kind no one should send for a kukai, but at least it wasn’t to a haiku journal, hence, it didn’t waste a minute of an editor. Yet when I wrote it, the image and the ‘moment’ seemed quite clear; it haunted me later though–what if the kukai pariticipants have no idea of the practice I recall in my teens? That’s so long ago, decades ago!
Decades ago when ‘secret loves’ ruled teenage lives and parents had eagle eyes and iron hands (sorry for the cliche); my growing up years in the Philippines, when the ‘mirror flashing in the copse’ served as a secret signal for assignations. Telephones would reach our town generations after I left–farther away into the future when cell phones and ohhh, facebook that has since taken away the thrill of getting caught halfway through the ‘verboten’ (an old HIgh German word for ‘forbidden’ that sounds so archival these days) love-pledges and assignations.
In my early teens, conservative upbringing by families who lingered on the fringes of a now-weakened colonial past treated girls as if we were all novices for a convent. For example, even on weekends, no prowling the streets for me because someone for sure–as my father, especially, drilled into my mind–waited to entrap my eyes, hiding in bamboo groves, in a copse of wild goat-berries or behind hefty trunks of aged acacia trees. Girls, like me and my friends, invented cunning ways to give in to the hunter’s trap. So that’s what the mirror/ flashing in the copse is all about–we used it to send signals though the more inventive among us, could frame words and phrases. Of course, because when and who does the signalling and for whom could hardly be confirmed, part of the thrill would lie in the surprise–but then, it could be missed as whoever awaited could have dozed off, hence signal she missed.
Conclusion? My free format entry wasn’t a haiku but a ‘micro story’ perhaps. Here’s the rest of my mirror haiku from which I chose what I sent that could have fared better.
mirror—
she stares
at her stare
mirror-
she sees her flaws
in his eyes
mirror
her mother’s lips
pursing like hers
in the mist/frosted dawn (#24b & #25 for NaHaiWriMo with brief self-critique)
#24b for NaHaiWriMo (#24 posted at facebook site)
in the mist
waiting to meet you–
budding crocus
A double kigo for spring. I don’t know if it works. But I also see in it two meanings: ‘mist’ for uncertainty, ‘budding crocus’ for hope, reassurance.
#25
frosted dawn–
his words hang
over coffee
I’m not sure about the juxtapostion of image, kigo and meaning here. But I like it.
Butterfly in the winter? Wrong kigo! (12th for NaHaiWriMo)
butterfly sleeves—
she sway-balances her arms
against the breeze
Butterfly in the winter? Wrong kigo!
No, this haiku comes from memory, from the way we wear and dance with our terno or patadyong, the Filipina formal dress. I suppose you’ve seen them. Patterned after European 18th century women’s fashion but made of sheer fabric woven out of pineapple fiber, its main feature is a pair of stiffened sleeves made to look like folded butterfly wings. It’s a hassle to don it on because the bodice, which is entirely made of pina can only be fastened with pins, and for a woman like me, who wore it only once or twice, it makes her feels boxed in the first time. But because it has to fit perfectly, it can look absolutely elegant.
And we wear it not only to socialize but also to dance! Sway-balancing, twirling on its long skirt, while gathering its train so we don’t get snagged on it and fall on our faces. We can’t wear shoes with it as well—it has to be a beaded ‘zapatilla’ (slippers) that covers only the toes…but this is going too far for my haiku and why or how this came about. So…
I pulled out this conversation from comments of Rick Daddario (19 planets) and my reply on my post two days ago (Nine for NaHaiWrimo) because it’s about butterflies, to put it simply. And I’d like to pass it off as my 12th for ‘daily-haiku-write’.
Wrick:
island trail
in the back yard today
butterflies
yeah. that was today – feb. 9, 2011.
in some ways this has become curious to me… when the concept of kigo originated it must have been in one area – so the season was probably basically the same for everyone writing ku. now that ku is planet wide it seems it’s hard to say when a kigo matches the season. the butterfly trail in my back yard has become active in the last week or two – yeah, in January/February. it’s not a major trail but it’s been there since i’ve been here – 20 plus years or so. normally i wouldnt think of butterfly trails as a winter season indicator – i think it does start up about this time of year tho. may be late january… sometimes i think all we can do is write what is around us and let others decide if that’s right or not. i like this butterfly season. cool on the month of haiku. and cool on you revisiting your haiku each day. bwahahahahaaha – i see WP thinks i wrote this on Feb. 10, 2011. my case exactly – it’s still Feb. 9, 2011 for me. okay okay, it’s 11:54 PM on Feb, 9, 2011 – but that’s still today for me.
Me:
We got the same problem though I think we’re earlier on this side of the Pacific!
First off, I love your haiku, Wrick! It could well be mine if I weren’t consciously trailing about in my new country, taking note of the season’s imprints and non-prints. I still find myself looking as if through a fractured glass though, where the sun, for example, shines in hues so like yet unlike what I recognize. And yes, butterflies! Back home in the Philippine archipelago, they flit around amost all year. I loved the tiny yellow species, which flutter like disembodied petals. Did you know that when a butterfly just suddenly bursts into sight, we believe it is a soul?
butterfly
oh, on my shoulder–
name long an epitaph
A ‘season indicator’ aka ‘kigo’ is intrinsic by tradition in haiku, is what I understand. And a kigo to my mind is nothing else but life’s details. If it’s possible to simplify it in these terms, it’s quite easy to understand why haiku thrives anywhere and up to now. It’s an art form that could never fade or die because its womb is the spirit. Reading more and more of its history, I’ve come to believe that it aims at nothing but truth and joy that comes with its flash, ‘aha’! Joy from uncovering a secret–life’s or nature’s secret, that is. And that is infinite, right? Aren’t we lucky to have stumbled on haiku? (I caught it on the internet years ago.) At least with it we can be certain of finding bits of truth and ‘joy’ everyday or as I had set out in this blog, a ‘jornal’! Cool on you for your thoughts and your butterfly! Thanks to you for finding my revisits cool!
Nine for NaHaiWriMo (copying, rewriting some old haiku of mine)
National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo)–that’s what’s going on. I don’t know if we have to sign up and join a ‘marathon’ but I’ve taken it up anyway. What I have here for the past nine days though isn’t honest, I mean, not fresh–freshened up is more like it. I scrounged around for them from rejects of submissions and buffed them up. And so, the kigo is mixed–there’s autumn, winter, spring and summer here. Still, I know some of them or most of them aren’t ‘good haiku’ but like most of what I write, they transform into something else after a while. I don’t really write a haiku a day; when I do, it’s often up to ten or more. So, here are my take for NaHaiWriMO counted from day one. I hope to make the kigo right for the month of February in the next two weeks.
1.
empty nest
scrapes an ivy wall–
broken silence
2.
crow cawing
over shuttered houses
pierces my thoughts
3.
delayed arrival—
a hat bobs over the hedge
the wrong way
4.
lit up skies–
so many darkened doors
shushed walls
5.
twilight–
she kneels
to smell a rose
6.
winter thought–
on a window
a trickle
7.
stalactites–
her stubborn reply
scribbled
8.
raindrops
on an evening window–
what’s unsaid
9.
crescent moon–
his silence
his droopy eyes
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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