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

    A Wish-filled Friday Afternoon at the Haikulodeon

    By MrSmith1 on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 12:35pm |
     
    Here's this week's heap of haikus:
     
     
     
     
    He looks angry, but
    his pain had only just begun.
    Looks are deceiving.
     
    (This photo was taken in 1980, the year I first felt the symptoms of what would be diagnosed as Ankylosing Spondylitis in 1985.)
     

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

     

     
     
    Double haiku:
     
    I thought I saw her
    standing on a street corner
    waiting for the light.
     
    Her face was so calm
    her bearing so relaxed, I
    sensed she was happy.
     
     
    -----------------------------------------
     
     
    Swirling embers rise,
    riding a smoky breeze, then
    die, and fall to earth
     
     
    ------------------------------------------
     
     
    Where he planned to plow,
    a row arose to roundly
    rout rows of roses.
     
     
     
    -----------------------------------------
     

    Souls forge truth and hope,

    while minds dream up fantasies

    and hearts search for love.

     
     
     
    -----------------------------------------
     
     
    tanka haiku:
     
    Are you touched each day?
    Physically caressed or just
    held in someone's arms?
    Or do you use cyber-hugs,
    as salve for withered longings?
     
     
    -------------------------------------------------
     
     
     
    Underneath his bed
    is a shirt that she once wore
    And still does, in dreams.
     
     
    ---------------------------------------------------
     
     
     
    A gigg'ling toddler,
    plays 'soccer' on the sidewalk
    with his patient dad.
     
     
    ---------------------------------------------------
     
     
     
    In this worldly realm,
    folks often mistake kindness
    for passivity.
     
     
    -----------------------------------------------------
     
     
     
    An unexpected
    infatuation can help
    mend a broken heart.
     
     
    -------------------------------------------------
     
     
     
    An over-dose of
    an antidote, will become
    a poison itself.
     
     
     
    --------------------------------------------------
     
     
     
    Aunties in panties
    love Uncles' carbuncles ... (So
    say the sea chanteys.)
     
     
     
    --------------------------------------------------
     
     
     
    Apples in bowls pose
    for a painter's 'still life', then
    wait to be eaten.
     
     
    ---------------------------------------------------
     
     
     
    Will you walk with me
    to the crest of the hill, where
    new horizons wait?
     
     
    ----------------------------------------------------
     
     
    She seemed unaware,
    that her presence caused a scene;
    crowds in an uproar.
     
     
    -----------------------------------------------------
     
     
    Cats and melon balls;
    a recipe for hi-jinks ...
    and sticky felines.
     
     
    -------------------------------------------------------
     
     
     
    Mary had a lamb,
    And little though it was, it
    started stalking her.
     
     
    -------------------------------------------------------
     
     
    You think you've won, BUT ...
    Like the phoenix from ashes,
    I shall rise again!
     
     
    ------------------------------------------------------
     
     
    It does not add up,
    that the way to multiply,
    is through division.
     
     
    ---------------------------------------------------------
     
     
     
    Sitting in his room,
    pondering his hopes and dreams,
    he soon fell asleep.
     
     
    -----------------------------------------------------------
     
     
    Windows to our souls?
    Eyes may behold the world, but
    Minds create vision.
     
     
    -------------------------------------------------------------
     
     
    The look in her eyes
    was enough to melt his heart …
    and his tupperware.
     
     
    ---------------------------------------------------------------
     
     
     
    trudging slowly on,
    I get to the pharmacy
    just as it’s closing.
     
     
    --------------------------------------------------------------
     
     
    Sunday ev’ning and
    I dread the week to come; full
    moon and rising tides.
     
     
    --------------------------------------------------------------
     
     
    Watching old sit-coms,
    I see the world I thought would
    be, when I grew up.
     
     
    --------------------------------------------------------------
     
     
    Don't use a cane with
    limp imaginations, use
    a damned bungee cord.
     
     
    ------------------------------------------------
     
     
     
    Bonus corny poem:
     
    Your brain is mush, your back is fried,
    your feet are swollen, your eyes have dried,
    your hair is frizzy, your fingers numb,
    your neck is frozen, your mood is glum.
    So now your assets you have assessed,
    just remember, you still are blessed.
     
     
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
     
     
     
     
     
     

    Comments

    A lot of humanity in this set Smith!

    My granddaughter will grab my finger like its some toy and will not let go and I get a charge out of it.

    Mammalian affection is the technical term. 

    You have me thinking though. 

    I have been shut in too damn long!


    by Richard Day on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 5:00pm

    Thanks, DD.  Your comments always cheer me.

     

    I found this picture today on the Metropolitan Museum's Facebook page.  It is from the early 1800's ... even then cats were looking out windows.

     

    My Siamese cat
    sits at the window, staring
    at distant mountains.

     

     

     

     


    by MrSmith1 on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 6:20pm

    Oh there was something else, that appears in your poems all the time.

    It is the picture.

    And damn, if I made one mistake in life it was not taking pictures.

    I was in Paris, Probably '91 and I get off the bus or transport and the sun is setting and there is this beautiful profile of a real woman walking down an alley with a purse on her arm of course and carrying a grocery bag with a French loaf sticking out.

    Why have I no picture of this?

    I dunno.

    But that mental picture has haunted me for over two decades.

    It was pure beauty; just like a tree you might witness on a prairie or a lion wandering in the wilderness on some History documentary.

    THE CLICHE! Which only is French for picture of course!

    Sorry, I get to rambling at times....


    by Richard Day on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 6:34pm

    Funny you should notice that.  I love nothing more than rummaging through my boxes of old family photos.  And, of course, I do have lots of photos of my younger self from my days as a starving actor.  I like to use my old resume photos now in the photo manipulations that I do for my Spondyville site.  

    I know what you mean about an image that haunts you.  I have taken a couple of overseas trips where I told myself that instead of taking photos I would simply 'experience the moments" and I look back now and wish I had documented the trips with photos.  Experiencing the beauty in the moment was wonderful, but having a lasting image to look at in my dotage would have been nice too.  

     

     

     


    by MrSmith1 on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 8:36pm

    Okay, I had to go to Spondyville and also look up Ankylosing Spondylitis because that gorgeous guy looking out from that picture practically demanded it.  I learned something new--I had never heard of that type of arthritis--but the Spondyville website is really great fun.  Very clever and an inspiration to others with chronic diseases who need some moral support.

    And did I say you were one gorgeous dude? 


    by Ramona on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 8:16am

    Aw shucks, Ramona ... (blushes) ... Thanks for the kind words.   Being diagnosed with this disease gave me two new jobs; 1) to raise AS awareness so that I didn't have to keep telling people that I had a disease that they've never heard of ... (which is ironic, since there are approx. 2.7 million Americans with some form of Spondylitis, which is nearly twice as many Americans as have Rheumatoid Arthritis), and 2) to make people with AS know that they can still laugh and that their lives are not over just because they have a chronic, degenerative condition.  I sometimes get nostalgic for the me in that photo, but he had much to learn and experience, and though the price was high, it wasn't unfair.   AS has changed me, and not totally in a bad way.  It has taught me much ... And isn't that what Life is all about? 

     

     


    by MrSmith1 on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 8:46am

    Indeed it is, my friend, indeed it is.


    by Ramona on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 9:25am

    I don't see anger in the picture.

    Fear, yes, but determination too.

    I see a resolve to stay the course;

    More Will than Wish.

     

     


    by moat on Sun, 02/24/2013 - 7:53pm

     

    Resolve by any

    other name is stubborn-ness.

    I must plead guilty ...

      

    I see fear and hurt in the photo, but so many people used to tell me that I looked angry.  At the time, it didn't occur to me that they might be projecting.  


    by MrSmith1 on Sun, 02/24/2013 - 11:34pm

    In Praise of Concision

    From this article:

    Dangerous pavements.
    But this year I face the ice
    With my father’s stick.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 2:41pm

    Wonderful article!  And the haiku quoted above is sublime.

    Thanks A Guy called LULU!


    by MrSmith1 on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 6:24pm