Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Rehn Kovacic & George Held: Wednesday Haiku, #197




        The fly settles--
 reading each word of the sacred text      
              with his feet

                 Rehn Kovacic





  Little Dipper pours
water into Big Dipper -
  Splash!
George Held





letting the samurai
hold the sake dipper...
chrysanthemums

                    Issa
                    translated by David G. Lanoue


 


 
best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Walter Mehring & Chen-ou Liu: Wednesday Haiku, #196

Photo by Anya Quinn


old garden gloves
poised for action
half dirt already

Walter Mehring


Photo by Pavel P
 


shadow on the wall...
as if writing keeps myself
away from myself

Chen-ou Liu



Photo by Photosteve


looking younger than me
the scarecrow casts
his shadow
                  
                    Issa
                    translated by David G. Lanoue


 

best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku


Monday, December 22, 2014

Two Nostrils

Ferdinand the Bull



So worked up
lucky he has two nostrils
~ Korean figure (or aphorism)
translated by W. S. Merwin


I've been working my way through W. S. Merwins book East Window: The Asian Translations and the section on figures or aphorisms is quite telling. Since the aphorisms, more often than not, refer to the foibles of humans, how Ferdinand came into all this I'm not sure. But, there you are or, more precisely, here you go: 



in the great bronze
Buddha's nose chirping...
sparrow babies
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue




After a month of nearly no internet connectivity (thanks, Verizon), Facebook trashing the original Lilliput Review account (here's the new one for those so inclined), I hope to be posting a little more regularly. There will be a Wednesday Haiku posting this week. Thanks for your patience.

Yes, without those two nostrils, my head would have exploded. Now I'm just smelling the flowers.
 

best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Helen Buckingham and Margaret Dornaus: Wednesday Haiku, #195


 Photo by Phillip Pewar


midsummer...
her dandelion clock
unwinds    
           
Helen Buckingham



Photo by Gillicous



spider
            season—
                        forgive me, Issa

    Margaret Dornaus



Photo by funchye



the dandelions too
have shaved heads...
festival day
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Building Your Wren's Nest: Robert Bly

Photo by Nottsexminer



The inner nest not made by instinct
Will never be quite round,
And each has to enter the nest
Made by the other imperfect bird.
Robert Bly
from Listening to the Koln Concert



Photo by Tibor Nagy

 
why so restless
restless, restless?
little wren
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Yesha Shah and Kashinath Karmakar: Wednesday Haiku, #194

Photo by Basoo


old banyan--
childhood still clings to
the tire swings
Yesha Shah



Photo by Kenneth Cole Schneider



 

morning glory-
for a moment I am
the butterfly

Kashinath Karmakar

 


Photo by June Marie



swinging on the swing
clutching
cherry blossoms
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue




best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Archana Kapoor Nagpal & Jayashree Maniyil:Wednesday Haiku, #193

Photo by Brian Vogelgesand 


new moon --
my wishing lamp
on the holy river
Archana Kapoor Nagpal


 

Artwork by Ba Jin


anchored boat –
the weight of the moon
in her belly

Jayashree Maniyil


The Ba Jin art, pictured above is after the famed Li Po poem, Drinking Alone by Midnight. Never one to be able to resist Li Po, the poem follows:


Drinking Alone by Midnight

A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
For he, with my shadow, will make three men.
The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.
To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;
Now we are drunk, each goes his way.
May we long share our odd, inanimate feast,
And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.

Li Po 
trans. by Arthur Waley  


(from 'Cathay: Poems after Li Po' by Ezra Pound)

------------------------------------------------

The Lark (page down a tad)


ripples on water--
mingling with the larks
a fishing boat
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku.

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Pretty Saro: Issa's Sunday Service, #192

Artwork by Bob Dylan


 
 
This 18th century traditional song, sung by Bob Dylan 43 years ago and just released last year, is accompanied by amazing video by filmmaker Jennifer Lebeau. As you will note, it is comprised largely of images from the Farm Security Administration. Dylan, for the 1970 Self-Portrait sessions, was in fine voice. The mention of "If I was a poet" gets it on the Sunday Service list. Here's some more about the release of this brief little gem


Pretty Saro (traditional) 

Down in some lone valley
In a sad lonesome place
Where the wild birds do all
Their notes to increase



Farewell pretty Saro
I bid you Adieu
But I dream of pretty Saro
Wherever I go

Well my love she won't have me
So I understand
She wants a freeholder
Who owns a house and land

I cannot maintain her
With silver and gold
And all of the fine things
That a big house can hold

If I was a poet
And could write a fine hand
I'd write my love a letter
That she'd understand

And write it by the river
Where the waters overflow
But I dream of pretty Saro
Wherever I go

~ Bob Dylan (traditional lyrics)
  
What follows is another version, with different lyrics, sung by Ires DeMent for the movie, Songcatcher:
 
 
 
---------------------------

 Photo by Martin Sercombe via foter


 
dawn's glow
hasn't quite yet dyed
the dewdrops 
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku. 

Friday, October 3, 2014

Scott Watson and Leo Tolstoy: Good and Evil


I'm a correspondent of fellow poet John Bennett, whose email distro list I'm on. Likewise, for another email correspondent and fellow poet, Scott Watson. In both cases, these two poets have an unblinking dedication to truth as they see it. It has been an honor to publish the work of both poets previously, in print (Lilliput Review) and online (here at the Hut).

A little while back, two emails arrived in my box, one right after the other, Scott's first and then John's. First, I read Scott's powerful, devastating poem, IN PREPARATION FOR LOOKING AT AN A-BOMB. The poem, parenthetically, asks two very specific questions.

In his email, John passed along a quotation from Leo Tolstoy (On Good and Evil), which he saw a couple of weeks back (at the time he sent me the email, it was a day or two before) on the Writer's Almanac. In the quote, Tolstoy asks and, in a very real sense, answers, Scott's more specific questions. 

I hasten to add that, in my mind, Scott's parenthetical questions were, in fact, rhetorical, Scott's sentiment being very similar to Tolstoy's own, all of which may be gleaned in his poem, if by implication.

Or it least my feeble brain made the segue. This may be a case of the reader, myself, being way off base. Be that as it may, I want to thank both folks for permission to reprint. See what you think when what they sent, poem and quotation, rub up, one against the other.


IN PREPARATION FOR LOOKING AT AN A-BOMB

[Why was Hiroshima chosen?]

600 meters above
on a mountain's peak
a Buddha bone--or
tiny piece of one--is composed.

Innumerable scenes
are collected here.
[No flash photography]
Eternal Flame.
A sudden enlightenment
burns away
rational. Irrational too.


[Why was the A-bomb made?]

This life we are
given took eons to evolve:
incinerated blink
of an eye gazing
Namu Amida Butsu
Mercy, compassion--
  fire blowing winds
      prevail
          nothing can be done

and it rains
  back
      human myth
              reasons

skin drips off mama melting river flames.


I move with you
  through this exhibition
      seeing slowly
          as a lifelong
              teardrop
                  death


to know,
  touch, feel
          how this can be.


There must be something wrong with me
      that is me too
          wanting to
              forget.

Reduced to this.


Scott Watson
8/2014


Tolstoy on good and evil...

"...In 1854, Tolstoy was promoted and sent to the front to fight in the Crimean War. He was horrified by the violence of war, and in 1857, he witnessed a public execution in Paris, which affected him deeply as well. He wrote:

"During my stay in Paris, the sight of an execution revealed to me the instability of my superstitious belief in progress. When I saw the head part from the body and how they thumped separately into the box, I understood, not with my mind but with my whole being, that no theory of the reasonableness of our present progress could justify this deed; and that though everybody from the creation of the world had held it to be necessary, on whatever theory, I knew it to be unnecessary and bad; and therefore the arbiter of what is good and evil is not what people say and do, nor is it progress, but it is my heart and I."

~~~~~

not a devil
not a saint...
just a sea slug
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Shloka Shankar & Brett Brady: Wednesday Haiku, #192

Photo by Meena Kadri


early monsoon...
the taste of petrichor
in my chai
              Shloka Shankar






   two cell phones...
the long long silences
      say it all

               Brett Brady



Artwork by Claude Monet



the haystack
soaking with rain...
spring breeze
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku. 


Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Yield to The Willow Book Release Party: Friday Sept. 26th at ModernFormations Gallery


On Friday, September 26th, at 7:30 pm, we'll be having a party for the official release of Yield to the Willow, my second book for Six Gallery Press at ModernFormations Gallery. Reading for the event will be Jason Baldinger, Kris Collins, Angele Ellis, Kevin Finn, Gwen, Karen Lillis, Bob Ziller, and Scott Silsbe

It's $5 at the door OR a covered dish (cookies and snacks welcome).

For those at long distances who can't make it Yield is available directly through me at the Paypal button at the top of the right hand sidebar (over there ⇢) or by check directly to me or via Caliban Bookshop in Pittsburgh (info@calibanbooks.com), or from amazon here, if you will.


                 sparrow's little singing lesson: be, leave

                                                        ~ DW



hey sparrows
no pissing on my old
winter quilt!
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku. 

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Daryl Nielsen & Ramesh Anand: Wednesday Haiku, #191

Photo by victoryismine



just stuff people do
'tween cherry blossoms
and snowfall
Daryl Nielsen



 Photo by Sarah Elzas




sound of the conch
stirs the autumn dusk
last rites
Ramesh Anand



 Photo by Wendy Cutler

deutzia blossoms--
the children play
funeral
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku.


Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Chen-ou Liu & Mary Frederick Ahern: Wednesday Haiku, #190

Artwork by Nukina Sūō


what's left undrawn ...
the sound of the pine breeze
in his ink painting

Chen-ou Liu


Artwork (detail) by Olive E. Whitney



bee abandoned
the blossoms fall -
letting go

Mary Frederick Ahern



Photo by Michael Goodin


thicket bees
in the next life don't
be like me
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Lariat: Issa's Sunday Service, #191 (& a parenthetical 192)



From one of the best, if not the best, albums of the year (Wig Out at Jagbags), Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks song, Lariat.

It's not everyday Tennyson gets a nod in a rock song (although there is this Hold Steady exception to prove the rule (#192)). Here's a dynamite live performance, followed by the lyrics.

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks


 
 
Lariat

Only a chariot could carry it
Across this void

I wouldn’t jerry rig or candy coat your Latin kisses

You’re not what you aren’t
You aren’t what you’re not
You got what you want/You want what you got
People look great when they shave
Don’t they?

We lived on Tennyson and venison and The Grateful Dead
It was Mudhoney summer, Torch of Mystics, Double Bummer

You’re not what you aren’t
You aren’t what you’re not
You got what you want
You want what you got
Feels so great in the shade

A love like oxygen, so foxy then so terrific now
On a jape I’m returning
Bobby spinnin’ out
I was so messed up
You were drunk and high
Just a ramblin’ wreck
Comin’ off the breaks to see what was shaking

We grew up listening to the music from the best decade ever
Talkin’ about the A-D-Ds
We grew up listening to the music from the best decade ever


-----------------

As my morning reading of Middle Eastern ghazals - Hafiz and Ghalib -, William Stafford, W. S. Merwin, the new Buson, and Haiku in English continues, this Robert Bly poems keep rising to the fore.

Here's a beautiful moment, indeed:

My Father at Forty
I loved him so much. I've said
That before, so don't be surprised.
It was a first love. Go ahead, open
Your hand. Do scissors beat
Paper? Does rock beat scissors?
It's just love and can't be
Explained. Probably it
Happened early. You're looking
At it. The way I found
Of opening a poem I took
From the way he walked into a field  
                                                               Robert Bly



Artwork by Utagawa Kuniyosh


though wrapped in
tissue paper...
a firefly's light
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku.
PPS  Long live Pavement

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Raamesh Gowri Raghaven & Rehn Kovacic:Wednesday Haiku, #189

Photo by Benoy

unfenced:
songs from
the tea garden
     Raamesh Gowri Raghavan


 




clouded mind
      the scent
    of sweet rain

      Rehn Kovacic



Artwork by J. F. Nauman



the nightingale, too
has a merry song...
tea pickers
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Sunday, August 24, 2014

William Stafford and the Body Language of the Tribe: Poem for a Sunday Afternoon



Purifying The Language of the Tribe
Walking away means
"Goodbye."
Pointing a knife at your stomach means
“Please don’t say that again.”

Leaning toward you means
“I love you.” 

Raising a finger means
“I enthusiastically agree.”

“Maybe” means
“No.”

“Yes” means
“Maybe.”

Looking like this at you means
“You had your chance.”
                                                        ~ William Stafford

 Back to the picture, above. (Psst: Facebook users, note stanza 5)

------------------------

And simply because I haven't had the time and I've been missing the Sunday Service, here's one to keep me honest (The Bar Kays!):





writing with a finger
in the clear blue sky...
"autumn dusk"
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku