The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    MrSmith1's picture

    Even more of the seemingly unending stream of haikus for a Friday afternoon.

    By MrSmith1 on Fri, 09/23/2011 - 1:57pm |

     

    Mournful elegies
    echoed through the cathedral
    loved ones laid to rest.
     
    Autumn arrives with
    colorful foliage and
    orchards to harvest.
     
    Ah, the autumn leaves,
    that drift gently to the ground,
    blanketing the lawn.
     
    Piles of raked leaves,
    sit in my yard. Should we jump?
    What kid can resist?
     
    Eliminate stress,
    by breathing deeply. Then, you
    focus on nothing
     
    In a wooden shack,
    on the outskirts of town, lives
    his late uncle's wife.
     
    Will you dance with me?
    Come, Let's shake the rafters with
    our mutual joy.
     
    In a hiding place,
    behind some old wainscoting,
    dusty diaries.
     
    A sincere heart is,
    more likely to change the world,
    than well reasoned thoughts.
     
    She seldom complained,
    was quick with a comeback, so...
    was taken lightly.
     
    He was confident,
    he'd done the assignment, but ...
    Wrong chapters were read.
     
    His girlfriend's bedroom,
    seemed like such a private place,
    dainty and perfumed.
     
    tanka haiku: The rheumy's office
    was quite small and cramped and yet ...
    within, whole new worlds.
       Many unfamiliar realms
       were first revealed to me there.
     
    A wind-swept plateau,
    where the sky looms large, as in
    a John Ford western.
     
    I love you so much,
    but can't claim to ever know,
    all you mean to me.
     
    tanka haiku:  When I am dreaming,
    I somersault on the beach,
    and dash through the surf.
       We laugh, then stroll hand in hand,
        two soul-mates who have found peace.
     
    A toasted muffin,
    bacon, juice and cantaloupe,
    my Sunday breakfast.
     
    Sweet melodies drift
    from my grandmother's bedroom
    old 78's.
     
    Kids were not allowed
    in grandfather's library,
    but cats wandered in.
     
    In Nantucket pubs,
    Zithers and dulcimers play,
    to enraptured drunks.
     
    ---------------------------
     
     
    Bonus:  A poem I wrote in 2004 dedicated to my fellow 'Spondys' and by extension, all who deal with a chronic illness:
     
    -------------------------------
     
     

    There is a moment, after they tell you,

    That you have an incurable, chronic degenerative disease,

    That you feel all alone,

    That you ARE all alone,

    That you are the only one that you know that has to deal with something so huge,

    so formidible, so difficult, so challenging and utterly life-changing.

    There is a moment, after they tell you, that everything will be okay,

    That you feel they are lying, that your life is now definitely and completely over, 

    and that no-one understands or knows the full extent of what you have lost.

    We do. We who have what you have. We who've lost what you've lost.

    We who feel the pain that you feel. We who struggle with what you struggle with.

    We're fighting to keep our lives from becoming less than what we dreamed they would be before all this.

    And we're scared that we are losing the fight.

    We know. We know the fear of unknown disability and uncertain futures.

    We know how what you thought you were is no longer how you are.

    We know how hard life has become in more ways than anyone else can possibly know.

    We know. We are a miracle in your life.

    We are the vindication that you are not alone, that you are understood by someone.

    We are your reassurance that despite it all, you can make it through the difficult times. We are your mirror and your sounding board.

    We are your miracle.

    We are not alone, we are united in our understanding.

    We are each other's insistence that we can carry on, that giving up is not an option.

    We are each other's lesson that our lives still have worth and can continue on, striving to learn and then reaching out to teach, in an unending cycle of giving and receiving.

    When you sink into despair, and think the worst,

    We know. We have too.

    We know all the levels of Hell that there are to know.

    Just as you know them.

    We are your miracle.

    We will steady you, so you don't fall, help you learn to cope and shed real tears for your pain, which is the pain we, ourselves know all too well.

    There is a moment, sometimes long after they tell you that you have an incurable, chronic degenerative disease, that you come to know that you are still you and that despite it all, you are going to be all right.

    We are each other's miracle.

     

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

     

    c   M. Smith

     
     
     
     

     

    Comments

    Thanks.

    One brings back an image so clearly from decades ago. Revised.

    Piles of raked leaves

    idled in the yard. Sis and I

    laid out a new house.


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 09/23/2011 - 3:29pm

    Wonderful. 

    I used to play a game with some writer friends; one of us would write a haiku, then pass it on and the next person would have to write a haiku using one of the lines from the previous haiku and pass it on, etc.   We tried to see how long we could keep the thread going, sending haikus back and forth.  It was like a haiku version of 'telephone', by changing one line at a time, it was always fun to see how far we could split off from the original thought.  


    by MrSmith1 on Fri, 09/23/2011 - 3:30pm

    Thanks. The telephone haiku game sounds like fun.

    That's the thing about poetry. It goes right to the subconscious. I hadn't thought of that image with my sister for a very long time.

    Thanks for writing and sharing these. I really enjoy them.


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 09/23/2011 - 3:36pm

    Why must the Good Lord

    Give us the gift to see us

    For what we have been

     

    Santorum really

    Wants to suck some corp dick

    We all can tell that

     

    Perry already has

    Sucked some really big corp dicks

    Enjoying each one

     

    Bachmann seeks to hide

    Truth she doesn't even know

    Facts are too costly

     

    How much time do we

    Have to follow up on things

    With no real reward?

     

    Romney has no soul

    Though Morman he contends is

    His true religion

     

    Paul would have us hide

    In a pupa feigning birth

    As a real virgin

     

    Newt would have us think

    That he is a real thinker

    But he is just lame

     

    No one is more lame

    Than Cain who is a real joke

    He shall make money

     

    I am no good at this but I was listening to Dylan

    And if you play with the lines; if you listen to his

    words with his background music; I think you can hear

    his haiku! Or a pattern akin.

    Disillusioned words

    like bullets bark As human

    gods aim for their mark


    Make everything from toy

    guns that spark to flesh-colored

    Christs that glow in the dark to


    Flesh-colored Christs that

    glow in the dark its easy to

    Looking too far that
     

    Not much Is really sacred


    by Richard Day on Fri, 09/23/2011 - 5:39pm

    In the musical, 'Pacific Overtures', Sondheim wrote a song about two Japanese men playing a game of composing haikus.  The song structure gives the feel of haikus, if not the actual syllable count.  

     

     


    by MrSmith1 on Fri, 09/23/2011 - 11:14pm

    There is a haiku dynamic in Jim Morrison's Love Street.

    There is a five syllable line followed by a six, followed by a seven, followed by an eight:

    She lives on Love Street,

    Lingers long on Love Street,

    She has a house and garden,

    I would like to see what happens.

     

    Many of the other lines are sevens and there are seven La La La La La La Las. Since the song doesn't actually end, he never gets back to five.


    by moat on Sun, 09/25/2011 - 9:44pm

    The Doors seemed to write a lot of unusually structured songs.  But they made them work, so I guess that's all that matters.  

    Here's one for you, that just came to me:

    Open or cross it,
    Rhyme it with float, boat or coat,
    Still, the point is moat.

     

     

     


    by MrSmith1 on Sun, 09/25/2011 - 11:22pm

    I resemble that remark. :-]

    I am glad the rhymes were not shoot, loot, or flute.

     


    by moat on Mon, 09/26/2011 - 8:46pm

    Then you'd be moot.


    by Donal on Tue, 09/27/2011 - 7:54am

    and a hoot to boot.


    by MrSmith1 on Tue, 09/27/2011 - 9:40am

    This is no preview.

    I got in line for popcorn;

    What was I thinking?


    by moat on Wed, 09/28/2011 - 9:33pm

     

    No preview? That stinks!

    But then, so did the movie, 

    Everything's re-makes.

     

     


    by MrSmith1 on Wed, 09/28/2011 - 11:11pm