A haiku trio on the sky
forlorn sky
a kitten’s inaudible
mewling
fog horn
across the beach
injured clouds
dream catcher
the shifting colours
of rain
nagging rain & wave lashings in THF’s Per Diem February feature
My two haiku in The Haiku Foundation’s ‘Haiku in the World’ February feature on the Philippines:
nagging rain
on the moon’s face…
a baby’s whimper
The Haiku Foundation Per Diem, February 9, 2015
‘Haiku in the World’ February feature: The Philippines
Per Diem Archive on The Haiku Foundation Website, and the Haiku App
wave lashings—
with every breath
the shore yields
The Haiku Foundation Per Diem, February 1, 2015
‘Haiku in the World’ February feature: The Philippines
Per Diem Archive on The Haiku Foundation Website, and the Haiku App
As you could surmise, both haiku rise from images of natural disasters which had wrought much havoc and suffering in the Philippines these recent years. In the distance, and the years I have lived in Canada, every face in each calamity transports me back home with the same intensity as if I were there and the same emotions and fears rise again as implied in these two haiku.
some of my spring haiku with French translation by Serge Tome@tempslibres.org
gray spring dawn-
the shiver of daffodils
in my bones
aube grise de printemps –
le frisson des jonquilles
dans mes os
this cold-
Sakura cherry blossoms
on my window
ce froid –
fleurs de cerisiers Sakura
à ma fenêtre
this sunless spring day
chickadees chatter on-
my indecisions
ce jour de printemps sans soleil
les mésanges discutent –
mes indécisions
watching rain
drum beat on window pane–
the deaf cat
il regarde la pluie
tambouriner sur la vitre —
le chat sourd
spring fever–
shoots among the lilies
she can’t name
fièvre de printemps —
des pousses parmi les lys
qu’elle ne peux nommer
tempslibres.org
under moody rains
The Golden Gate Bridge refracted in raindrops acting as lenses by Mila Zinkova courtesy of wikicommons
on paved walks
tracing the patchwork i lost
under moody rains
(posted on NaHaiWriMo under ‘loss’ prompt by Carlos Colon)
grapefruit bite (kigo)/drum beating (free format) my haiku in Shiki Kukai Sept 2011
grapefruit bite
sweeter with each
cloud let go
2 votes (from peers)
Kigo: citrus Shiki Kukai Sept 2011
The original haiku which I edited at the last minute reads:
grapefruit bite
sweeter with each
dark cloud let go
I wonder if by taking out the adjective ‘dark’ I wrote a vague haiku. Or I think the shift or juxtaposition to a metaphor (dark cloud) failed.
drum beating
to clear skies
rain on the roses
0 votes
Free format: rain Shiki Kukai Sept 2011
I read this now and say, ‘Huh?’ What did I want to say when I wrote it? It looks like I meant to illustrate a thought about ‘dark clouds and dark skies’, reflecting our dark moods as in the ‘grapefruit’ haiku. I must have tried to say here that the same rain, which sometimes falls furiously as if ‘drum beating’ on us and on the roses is meant not only to ‘clear skies’ and our thoughts, but also to give life.
What about this rewrite:
rain on the roses
drum beating to clear skies
our shifting moods
meanings on walls (for One Shoot Sunday)
graffiti in the Lansing area, Michigan, photo by Chris Galford
1. squiggles
your words mere
squiggles on walls
if but smiles
on dry leaves–
when clouds take over the sun
the butterfly dies
2. waves
on the wall
waves splatter a froth
the sky sheds–
is it rain?
our hand carvings on sea air
but the mindless moon
3. sky
we sip dreams
no one knows of what–
were it earth
it would roll
drums beating down on our sky
to give up the stars
4. ripple
heat seeps off
tips of lanceolate
promises
disguised flames–
in the waters a ripple
once a breath twice life
5. blue fish
ocean lure–
we dig for stone fists
to ripple
the silence
a blue fish whispers to me
a broken flower
Copyright © by Alegria Imperial 2011
Five ‘haiku-induced’ shadorma, a Spanish sestet or 6-line poetic form in 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllables per line–my first attempt at it–in response to the Picture Photo Prompt Sunday (One Shoot Sunday) from photos of Chris Galford of graffit’d walls around the Lansing area in Michigan and posted at One Stop Poetry, the inimitable gathering place for poets and artists. Check us out!
the wait (TCR issue 51 for One Shot Wednesday)
on the window
the bird seed beveled
a choppy morning
where the soughing wind
mimics whispers
snagged among caricature
of trees
ruined by the rain
shredded under steps
leaves trapped in gutters—
thoughts flung on
rain puddles where the rain
drops as rings blurring
the sky
in the lilac bush
the ruckus of the sparrows
sinks into the sunset
in the brambles a spider web sags—
we wait for the darkness
to open up for the moon
Copyright (c) by Alegria Imperial 2011
Published at The Cortland Review Issue 51 May 2011
Posted for One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry. Check out this site wher poets share their love for their art and nurture each other.
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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jornales 
‘the colour plum’ in a quartet of (non-haikai*) 3-line poems…and why
I think I’m veering farther and farther away from haiku, but the structure has stayed like a template in my being; hence, my lines insist on being ‘three’, of two parts often unrelated (juxtaposition). While I still draw the essence of my poems from Nature, what comes out no longer expands contemplation but rather, the lines focus often on painful truths. I know there’s enough pain swirling in the universe right now (as is perceived) and it’s what I can’t seem to whitewash with the beauty of virgin snow. I wish I could but in writing haiku, the practice of finding ‘two-sides’ in a whole, has stayed with me as a simultaneous numbra/penumbra, thus, these non-haikai* poems. Still, it could just be a phase that has slipped in with grey November, which spring will lift up.
the colour plum
hints of pay back
maneuvers
bramble flower
still not enough
prickly stares
isolation bars
no matter our fingers
in knots
speckled steps
dare you break
rain patterns
moon basket
in it I carry
a widow’s comb
*nod to Johannes S. H. Berg, who coined it
November 28, 2014 Posted by alee9 | comment, non-haikai, poetry | bramble, colour, comb, fingers, flower, moon, plum, rain | 2 Comments