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

    A Warmly Spring-like Friday Afternoon at the Haikulodeon

     

     

     

    Here's this week's heap of haikus:


     

     When you have learned to
    accept what you can not change;
    You will suffer less.


    ---


    Though Life continues,
    and struggles will never end,
    my peach tree still blooms.


    ---



    They say Spring has sprung
    but it still feels like Winter.
    Maybe sprung sprang back.


    ---



     




     Her mood would shift from
    indigo to violet;
    her passion sublime.



    (Mood Indigo Duke Ellington)

    ---


    Her face pressed to mine,
    I hold her close to me and
    know our love's survived.


    ---


    Sometimes I’m awake,
    when I should be fast asleep,
    dreaming I’m awake.


    ---


     

     

    wish-or-curse-ku:
     


    But in the end, you
    will give up ev'rything to
    do what you love most.



     

     


    ---
     

     

     




    A moment frozen
    60 years before my birth,
    makes me nostalgic.


    For St. Patrick's Day:  A  photo of my maternal great-grandmother, Agnes Kelly, who came from Ireland, through Castle Garden, (the predecessor to Ellis Island), some time around 1881. In 1891, she lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, close to where I now work. By the turn of the 20th century, she had re-married, and she and her three children had moved with her new husband to Benton Harbor, Michigan, where she died in 1929.

    ---

     

     



    Provocatively
    reading, Rabelais, no doubt,
    (Before the Kindle.)



    ---

     





    (Fur Traders Descending the Missouri River)


    Never let a cat
    be your guide down the river
    or the fur may fly.



    ---



    As our lives go on,
    difficulties increase, we
    make bargains with God.

     


    ---



    As I fall asleep,
    whispers and memories drift
    through my consciousness


    ---


    tanka haiku:

    Sirens start screaming,
    in the middle of the night,
    causing dogs to bark.

    Then, the neighbor’s lights go on.
    I drove through their shrubs, okay?


    ---


    Experts know; though you
    can’t alphabetize chaos,
    you can order fries.


    ---


    double haiku:

     


    Eternity is
    a wish not to die made real.
    A hope soon denied.

    Of course, it’s also
    dining with all your in-laws,
    but never mind that.


    ---

     

     


    Dogs, cats and songbirds,
    seldom think beyond right now,
    Most folks, nothing but.


    ---


    I am a student
    and always will be. My school
    is all around me.


    ---


    A teenager asks,
    'Why are naps such a big deal?'
    His grandfather smiles.


    ---


    His eyes glazed over;
    lost in a halcyon daze,
    re-visiting youth.

    ---


    There is a structure
    to all things, and a context
    to fence it all in.


    ---


    In an oblong tin,
    he kept his oolong tea; a
    thin tin type tea tin.


    ---


     tanka haiku:

    From the cab of his
    pickup, he could see the smoke
    rise from the chimney.

    But it was nearly sunrise,
    he could not wait for breakfast.


    ---



    double haiku:

    The screen door slams shut.
    An angry young man runs to
    his car and 'peels out.'

    She watches from the window
    and prays that her sadness ends.


     
    ---



    alliterative tanka haiku:

    Pa peddled papers,
    Ma mostly mixed martinis.
    Sis sewed sombreros.

    I, inadvertently, inked,
    (in innocence), irked insults.


    ---

     



    An anemone.
    yearns to be a violet,
    but feels conflicted.


    (Thanks to Kristina Rebelo for the use of her photograph.)


    ---






    No longer straight-laced,
    They have, no doubt, lost their soles ...

    When work boots go bad.

    (Thanks to Kristina Rebelo for the use of her photograph.)

     

    ----



    Double haiku:
     
    Her heart cringed when she
    found some old love letters, but
    forgot who wrote them.

    The letters revealed
    the seeds of a broken heart;
    harvester unknown.


    ---


     


    tanka haiku:
     
    Clinging to her form,
    the diaphanous gown made
    her ethereal.

    As she stood in the moonlight,
    she glowed with Love's own glory.

     

     

    ---

     

     

    Ha, ha, ha, it's Spring!
    The lap-dogs of Winter are
    in retreat! Hoo-ray!!

     

    (Thanks to Kristina Rebelo for the use of her photograph.)

     

    ---

     

    Save the Date! 

     

     

     

     

    Comments

    I think about this

    All the time, to my regret

    I think about this

    Loves lost and loves won

    I won one love and I lost

    But time tells us all

    Nothing really lasts

    Nothing is this permanent 

    So I must adjust

    hahahahahahaha

    I have memories

    Memories that just keep on

    And still are keepin

    the end

    I am now supposedly witnessing the first 48 hours of spring and there is a terrible storm out there. hahahaha

    Even down, 200 miles into the Cities, it is not that nice. haahaha

    I just trudged threw the new four inches of snow in my new shoes; and yet I know that 30  degrees is better than 30 degrees below. hahahahah

    I was going to shoot myself, but then I recalled that I had no gun. hahaha

     


    I know how you feel.  Only I don't have the cold to contend with.  So I decided I needed to do some spring cleaning to keep me real tired at night.  I stay a sleep and don't think much that way. 


    Hmmm ... Isn't that, in essence, the plan our mothers had for us when were kids ...  wear us out during the day so that we'd sleep at night? 

    Or, in haiku form:

     

    This, in essence, was

    the plan our moms had for us;

    wear us out, we'd sleep.

     

    ---


    Spending too much time

    obsessing on the past?  Don't

    think twice, it's alright.

     

     

     


    Dancing skeletons;

    Words skittering in the pan

    with sly tiny nods

         argue against the old judge

         and his gavel of regret.

     


    Nice, moat.

     

     

    What often follows

    The gavel of regret is

    an unfair sentence.

     

    A sly, tiny nod

    to a higher justice might

    ameliorate.