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

A Semi-Final Heat on a Friday Afternoon at the Haikulodeon

 

 

Here's this week's heap of haikus:

 

 

tanka haiku:

In Nineteen Eighteen,
World War One was still raging,
King Tut, still unknown,
Band-aids, Penicillin and
'Radio', all yet to come.


(Putting my mom's birthday in perspective.  She would have been 98 on August 8th.)

 

 

---

 

 

Our own impact can't
be known to us. For we've touched
lives and don't know it.

 

 


---

 

 

 

 

Remember, when you're
tall in the saddle, your feet
are not on the ground.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 I sometimes wonder,
is it still flying a kite,
if I let it go?

 

 

 

---

 

 

double haiku:

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

---

 

 

Infantilize you ...?
Be my, be my baby now
Oh come on, grow up!

 

 

---

 

Orchid on her wrist,
She twirls in her flouncy skirt,
The belle of the ball.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

Despite the road maps,
Cluttering up the front seat,
Where are we? Don't know.


 

 

---

 

 

Shhh!  Look over there,
nibbling on the bramble,
a doe and her fawn.

 

 

 


---


 

 

He expects to learn,
through obtuse introspection ...

 

 ... it will take a while.

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

They scrawl on postcards,
"Miss you. I wish you were here!"
Tourists plagiarize.

 

 

 


 

 


---


tanka haiku:

 


Ah, Domestic bliss!
She relaxes while he cooks,
they discuss the news.

And later, after dessert ...
they will sleep contentedly.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

tanka haiku:

 

All the old worries
have been resurrected by
my return to earth.

while souls in heaven's hammocks
enjoy eternal slumber.

 

 

 


---

 

 

 

Our ends should come as
a complete surprise ... as if
an interruption.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 


No new gnat knows naught
Nifty Northern gnats gnaw nuts.
neither, numbs knightly gnus ...

 

 

 

 


---

 

 

 


While the daylight shines,
many lives are not like me,
darkness unites us.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

Baby genius drools
stupid parents wipe her mouth
Evolution! HA!

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

You can not tell Time.
Time is such a know-it-all ...
Time and Space are jerks.

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

We will perservere.
We'll wake again tomorrow
and tend our gardens.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 


Two old women walk
on a foggy esplanade ...
head scarves and hand bags
 
   disappear into the mist
   and quite soon, they do as well.

 

 

 

---


 

 

 

While he was coping,
dealing with all of his pain
the world slipped by him.

 

 

 

---


 

 

 

A sheer cotton dress
flutters around her body
with each gust of wind.

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 


As humidity
rises, timidity falls,
she wears less and less.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

Mother's charm bracelet,
clanged against the banister,
as she climbed the stairs.

 

 

 

 


---

 

 

 


Pancakes for dinner ...
because I'm an adult and
I'll do what I want.

 

 

 

 

---


 

 

 

 
Why-does-a-chicken-ku:

 

Psychic helps chickens
to get to the other side;
Is that Poultry-geist?

 

 


---

 

 

 

 

Having conquered fear,
my soul is now free to seek
out better angels.

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

 tanka haiku:

 

We fight our whole lives
to thrive in the world of our
parents, only to

discover that we’re living
in the world of our children.

 

 

---

 

They were on a lark,
when they met an old school mate
living on the street.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

The scent of jasmine
scatters as the door is slammed
and she rushes out.
 

 

 

 

 

Few shall ever know
private failures we endure ...
unless we succeed.

 

 

---

 

 

Souls forge truth and hope,
while minds dream up fantasies
and hearts search for love.

 

 

 

---

 

 

A leaf-less tree frames
a lonely farm-house in the
middle of nowhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 


 

---

 

 

 

I feel so alone.
I watch the tide come in and
think of yesterday.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

The deepening blue
gently quiets golden waves.
Nightfall approaches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

****

 

 

Comments

H


H


Hello Mr. Smith

Few things we might rely on

We rely on Smith. hahahah

We have touched the lives

Of people who will become

And never knew us

Oh, my son's second

Looks so like my dear mama

Jolee endears me.

If this life were planned

If everything were known

Why does it matter?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

This song relates to nothing, I just wished to hear it again


Such a good song D. Thanks. Here is a cover by a perfect voice. 


Lulu I have never heard this rendition.

I am  in awe.

THANK YOU FOR THIS LULU.

No kidding.


Oh I cannot let this go.

Others might wish to hear this without linking.


Thanks, DD...

 

Underestimate
the element of surprise
and joy will wither.


You are a goooooood man Mr. Smith.

You make me look for the gooooooooood. 

thank you


I forgot to add this one to this week's heap:

 

tanka haiku:

I do not care that
Snoopy is, in dog years, o'er
four hund'red years old.

He will always be the dog
that other dogs hope to be.

(Photo of a young MrSmith1 holding a Charlie Brown and Snoopy Action Figures ... Not dolls, action figures!)


Hey, I know that house

it's the house my aunt lived in

could we be cousins?

I don't remember it all

 But I remember warm fires


Ha!  That would be fun!
Imagine, we are cousins!!
Warm fires breed, in deed!


---

That house was on LostBrook Road in West Hartford, Connecticut.  The photo was taken around 1956 or 57.  We lived there from 1955 to about 1961.  It was a good house;  3 bedrooms with a nice backyard.   I have many fond memories from my time living in that house.  ;-)    (P.S. Every time it rained too much, we found out the lost brook was in our basement, but never mind that.  HA!)

 

 


What is that awful

Sound?  Ah, yes:  My cat snoring

Whiny, wheezy snores.

 

"Glumly dorky face"

Thus I have described Peanut

Alas!  It fits him.

 

Not all cats can be

Elegant, graceful, handsome;

So sorry, Peanut.


Excellent, Janicket!

 

A cat called Peanut
will withstand mild roasting and
keep within its shell.

 

 


The dorky Peanut

Lurks in his shell, peering at

His mocking human.

 


Ha!  Good one!

 

Photo clearly shows
"Peanut" has a name for you ...
and it ain't "Master."


Pea can be grumpy

Beats up the other cats when

The bad mood takes him

 

Other times, best buds

With Squash -- then suddenly, not

Mercurial moods

 

Sweet with me, mostly

But makes his limits quite clear

And God help the vet!


Apropos of nothing

Beyond its elegiac

Beautiful sorrow:

 

 

 


Good one!  


Rain on long-parched ground

Soaking; not pounding, then gone.

Not enough; but some....


Good one, Janicket!!

 

Rain on long-parched ground
the desperate earth absorbs
the precious liquid

Each descending drop,
restores a little more hope
our drought is over.

 

 

 

 


Rain yesterday.  But

Sunshine today.  More sunshine

 Forecast, and forecast....

 

The Ipswich River

Already stressed many years

Sinks ever lower.

 

The parched earth suffers

In sad dust-choked gullies that

Should be flowing now.


Excellent, Janicket!!

 

 


Meanwhile, a pipe breaks

Deep underground, under pavement

Water seeps upward

 

Seeps through pavement cracks

Runs uselessly down the drive

Waste water wasted.

 

Backhoe breaks pavement

Digs deep, hauls forth muddy spoils

They find the problem.

 

Fixed.  Reburied.  Now

Adjoining residences

Can have water again.

 

Run it for a while

We're told, to clear sediment.

Waste water wasted.

 

 


"Water seeps upward?"

asked the frustrated flower.

Gravity thwarted.

 

 


Pressure in the pipe

Bubbling upward from rupture

Better than sinkhole


Ha!  Love it, Missy!!


Excellent, Janicket!!


Worcester, where what was
worse, was when wasted water
weighted wet waiters.


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