MrSmith1's picture

    A Rain Spattered Friday Afternoon at the Haikulodeon

     


    Here's this week's heap of haikus:

     

    Breaking News-ku:


    Again and again
    and again and again and ...
    NO! STOP! NOT ONE MORE!!

     

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    Times Square, no longer
    the crossroads of the world, now
    just a bottleneck.

     

     

     


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    tanka haiku:

    All men were once boys,
    All leaders, once followers,
    Wise men, ignorant.

        Neither resent nor regret,
        all will soon enough be frail.

     

     

     


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    Silhouettes of trees
    turn my river view into
    a jigsaw puzzle.

     

     

     

     


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    What's more exhausting
    than having unlimited
    opportunities?

     

     

     


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    How her heart would ache
    in the middle of the night ...
    yet, be healed by dawn.

     

     

     

     

     

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    When you are away,
    I sit and stir my soup and
    listen to sad songs.

     


     

     

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    Walking the shoreline,
    the fog envelopes me and
    the ocean inspires.

     

     

     


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    When you are taken
    out of your routine; rethink,
    resolve, then re-set.

     

     

     

     

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    A quartet of haikus:

     

    After all these years,
    I still haunt the lost and found,
    looking for my life.

    I still ride the train,
    in hope the next station will
    be where I get off.

    I cross bridges knowing
    I can not wash away all
    the sins of my life.

    I am stuck in time
    living out a meager life
    extracting fool's gold.

     

     

     

     

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    Coffee from my cup,
    splashes on the floor as I
    hurry to breakfast.


     

     

     

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    They soon fell asleep
    in a field of bluebonnets
    his head in her lap.

     

     

     


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    Little girls on swings
    always seem so happy, as
    if they've learned to fly.

    (My mom - circa 1923.)

     

     


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    Outside my building
    they've hung a sign that says,
    "We've become snooty."

     

     

     

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    Geisha on a bridge,
    watches the swans, then hurries
    off to serve the tea.
     

     

     

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    His toy soldiers were
    lying in the lawn; battle
    called due to bedtime.
     

     


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    I sail into the
    darkness.   The sunset leaves me
    without any friends.

     


    (Photo courtesy Kristina Rebelo)

     

     

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    The fear we will die
    and no-one will remember
    motivates many.

     

     

     

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    Faceless men wander
    city streets searching for hope
    in the pouring rain.

     

    Manhattan rain, unknown location, 1945. Photo by Arthur Leipzig


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    tanka haiku:

    On a corner lot,
    a two-story brick building
    is all that remains.

    Glories of another time,
    too soon reduced to rubble.

     

     

     

     

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    Laughter's a rainstorm,
    that washes away the gloom,
    and cleans Life's sidewalks.


     

     

     

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    In an apple tree
    sits a happy little boy
    dangling his feet.

     

     

     

     

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    A young girl's shadow
    searches for its own balloon
    hiding in the rocks.

     

    (Photo courtesy Kristina Rebelo.)

     

     

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    An int’resting choice;
    hiding her psoriasis
    under snake tattoos.

     

     

     

     

     

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    Giving away the
    punch-line of a rival’s joke
    is ... satisfying.

     

     

     


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    When do hab a code
    dere isn't much do tan do
    'cept thniffle and thneeze.


     

     

     

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    Do not expect an
    elephant to understand
    a hummingbird's fears.

     

     

     

     


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    She pined for a lad
    who lived quite far away, and
    yearned to be with him.


     

     

     

     

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    If you need a laugh,
    ask a child what adults say
    when they're whispering.

     

     

     

     

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    double haiku:
     

    Two ballet dancers
    arch their backs and reach their arms
    up to the heavens.

     

    A plea to God to
    understand the suffering
    of this mortal realm.

     


     

     

     

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    There, on the sidewalk,
    he spied a crumpled dollar
    which looked a bit spent.


     

     

     

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    double haiku:

     

    It's three fifteen, and
    wakened from a sad dream, I
    try to clear my head.

    Thoughts of you linger
    and entwine with my day's chores.
    You still haunt my heart.

     

     

     

     

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    Wow, they carved a bough
    to make a prow, which even
    now, still floats somehow ...

     

     


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    As the night draws nigh
    chickens roost and dogs bark at
    approaching shadows.

     

     

     

     

     
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    Shifting winds. Light rain.
    He unzipped his coat. She closed
    her red umbrella.

     

     

     

     
     
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    The intensity
    of her stare made him wary.
    (She's just near-sighted.)

     

     

     


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    Like they always say,
    Love is blind, but absinthe makes
    green whores Jane Fonda.



    "The Absinthe Drinker" by Viktor Oliva 1901

     


     

     

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    Ripped from the headlines-ku:

     

    Meeting Kim Davis
    means nothing more than that this
    Pope's now found on Snopes.  


     

     

     

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    Java Jive, don't keep
    me waitin', drip is quicker
    than percolatin' ...

    (September 29th was National Coffee Day.)

     

     

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    tanka haiku:

    When you decide to
    give a flame a hot-foot, you're
    fighting fire with fire.

    but 'til the fuel runs out, you'll
    not remember which ember.

     

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    tanka haiku:

     

    Conflagration is
    the conflation of flame with
    oxygen compounds.
       Except. of course, hydrogen,.
       which will rain on your tirade.

     

     


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    Muted shades of dawn,
    the pier in the distance fades
    into memories.

     

     

    ( Photo courtesy Kristina Rebelo )

     

     

     


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    Rows of orange houses
    face the morning sun each day ...
    Chairs well positioned.

     

    ( Photo courtesy Kristina Rebelo )

     

     


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    Ripped from the headlines-ku:


    Kevin McCarthy
    Speaker of the House? Body
    snatchers invasion!

     


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    "Stained glass is easy,
    Comedy is hard" - Louis
    Tiffany Lampshade.

     

     

     

     

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    Kindergarten art
    saved by mom for 50 years,
    can still make me cry.

     

    Actual work of art created by me in Kindergarten circa 1955. I called it, "The colored lights of Niagara Falls." (I really did call it that,) I found this in the 1990's in a box my mother had saved of me and my sister;s early creative efforts. As you can also see, I still hadn't quite mastered how to sign my work of art. The second photo is the scene that I drew from memory. 

     

     

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     a haiku quintet:


    Life on the frontier
    was not easy for Patience,
    a young pioneer.

    Crouching underneath,
    Conestoga wagons, she
    did her needlework.

    Riding on buckboards
    for long afternoons she would
    do her homework.

    She reached Montana
    at the age of eight, and could
    read and write ... and sew.

    Prairie adventures
    would settle into quiet
    domesticity.

     

     

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    Coincidentally, this month Spondyville remembers another young woman named Patience; Patience Thruitt, a long-time Spondyville resident, who, as a young girl was part of the orginal wagon train of settlers that first arrived in what is now Spondyville in 1875.  Although much later she would become the first female member of the Spondyville town council, and she taught Geometry for over 30 years at Uriah Stoop Middle School,   Patience Thruitt is perhaps best remembered for overhearing the conversation between noted malcontent, Mathias P. Culpepper and Spondyville co-founder, Elias Fuselot, that has come to be known as "Culpepper's Calamitous Cogitations."  The story goes something like this:
                          
    In October of 1874, after slightly more than a month of travel,  the arduous wagon train journey of future Spondyville co-founders, Uriah Stoop and Elias Fuselot and their friends and families was temporarily brought to a halt by what has come to be known simply as,  "Culpepper's Calamitous Cogitations."

    One of the more severely affected men in the group, Mathias P. Culpepper, suffered a major flareup of what everyone in those days called, "The Ossifyin' Rheumatism", (but which we now know as Ankylosing Spondylitis), and being in a very dark and melancholy mood, Culpepper vowed to go no further, and demanded that the wagon train stop and settle down right where they were. (Which, unfortunately, was on the edge of a cliff, but that's neither here nor there.) Since he was brandishing his rifle and threatening to shoot holes in the barrels holding the wagon train's only supply of fresh water,  Mr. Culpepper's complaints were taken very seriously.   Unfortunately, wagon-master Andrew Tripzen was off negotiating with some local native Americans for some fresh horses, so it was left to the soft-spoken Elias Fuselot to try to disarm the situation (and the aforementioned Mr. Culpepper.) 

    (The only known photo of Spondyville Co-Founder, Elias Fuselot)

    Taking out a bottle of medicinal whiskey he had hidden in his knapsack for emergencies, Mr. Fuselot sat down and starting talking with Mr. Culpepper.  After about an hour and a half of discussin’, drinkin’, joke-tellin’ and some more drinkin’, the two men began to ruminate on the nature of suffering.  Mr Fuselot posed the question, "If we are not our disease, who are we?" To which Mr. Culpepper replied, "I don’t know, but if we are our disease, why do we suffer?"  Mr. Fuselot, thought for what seemed like an eternity, (it was closer to a minute and a half, but never mind that), and then he quietly spoke: "Mathias, I know how you feel, for we have all suffered mightily, but it is my firm belief that though we have great obstacles to overcome in our lives, we are all otherwise blest."  With that, Mathias Culpepper put down his rifle, wiped a tear from his eye, took another gulp of whiskey and agreed to let the wagon train continue on its journey.  A journey that would conclude on March 4th of the following year, with the founding of the town that we now know as Spondyville.

    The drama between Elias Fuselot and Mathias Culpepper would have never have come to light if not for a little girl named Patience Thruitt, who was hiding under one of the conestoga wagons working on her needlepoint sampler when she should have been sleeping.  Patience told her step-parents what happened and the rest is history.  She later went on to become a beloved school teacher at Uriah Stoop Middle School. Patience Thruitt was also an advocate for women's rights, and in 1912, was elected as the first woman member of the Spondyville town council.

    In 1929, in recognition of the fiftieth anniversary of 'Culpeppers Calamitous Cogitations', the Spondyville town council, at the urging of then mayor, Uriah Stoop Jr., designated that the month of October shall forever more be known as Spondyville's Octoberblest (aka The S.O.B.) and the month would be an opportunity for Spondyville residents to reflect, not on their pains, but on the many ways their lives are blessed.


    And so, another Spondyville Octoberblest has begun.  How are you blessed?


                                                                                 

     

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    Comments

    I love that picture of your mother.  It that a pigon on her lap. 

    1961 Raindrops. 


    A pigeon?  No, it's just the way she's folded her hands in front of her.  :-)


     


    Thanks.  

    Please stay dry.

    Here is another song I love. 


    Shattered, broken bones

    dance between the memories

    of pain and pageant,

    all the while feeling

    the necessity to live,

    even as they die.


    Oh, very good, Missy!!

     (Don't have time to write a response right now.  I'll write one later.)


    Sometimes it's over.

    Sometimes it doesn't implore

    an explanation.

    Because it's limping.

    Because it needs to be shot

    to bleed an answer.


     

    Hmmm ... Okay, who are you and what have you done to Missy? 

    An interesting, if somewhat disturbing haiku to read so early in the morning. 
    I'll try to comment more later in the day.  


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