Here's this week's heap of haikus:

 

Breaking News-ku:

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

 

---

 

 

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

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

tanka haiku:

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

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

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

What's more exhausting
than having unlimited
opportunities?

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

---

 
 

 

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

(My mom - circa 1923.)

 

 

---

 

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

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

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

 

---
 

 

 

 

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

---

 

 

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

 

(Photo courtesy Kristina Rebelo)

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

---

 

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

 

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

---

 

 

 

tanka haiku:

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

Glories of another time,
too soon reduced to rubble.

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

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

 

(Photo courtesy Kristina Rebelo.)

 

 

---

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

---
 
 

 

 

 

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

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

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.
 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

---

 
 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 
---

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 
 
---

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

---

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


"The Absinthe Drinker" by Viktor Oliva 1901

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

Ripped from the headlines-ku:

 

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

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

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

(September 29th was National Coffee Day.)

 

 

---

 

 

 

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.

 

---

 

 

tanka haiku:

 

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

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

( Photo courtesy Kristina Rebelo )

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

( Photo courtesy Kristina Rebelo )

 

 

---

 

 

 

Ripped from the headlines-ku:

Kevin McCarthy
Speaker of the House? Body
snatchers invasion!

 

---

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

---

 

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. 

 

 

---

 

 

 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.
 

 

                                                                                  ---

 

 

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?

                                                                             

 

***