haiku

2011-12-16T09:07:00.000-05:00

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in her twilight voice the ocean lulling home the gulls one by one
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2011-12-16T09:01:00.000-05:00

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“I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.” ― Rumi
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2011-12-15T08:47:00.001-05:00

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in the dream the stirring
of my own chains wakens me
this endless winter night
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2011-12-15T08:40:00.000-05:00

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“Poems are rough notations for the music we are.” ― Rumi
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2011-12-14T08:20:00.001-05:00

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the spinning top
falters
midsummer dusk
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2011-12-14T08:17:00.000-05:00

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Poetry is the natural prayer of the human soul. – Rilke
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2011-12-13T08:30:00.001-05:00

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all the sky
in the kite string
osprey’s cry
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2011-12-13T08:19:00.000-05:00

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“Reclaiming the sacred in our lives naturally brings us close once more to the wellsprings of poetry.” – Robert Bly
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2011-12-12T09:11:00.002-05:00

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these fallen leaves still whispering of Tree dusk deepens into night
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2011-12-12T09:06:00.000-05:00

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“We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.” —The Talmud
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2011-12-11T08:26:00.001-05:00

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the smallest branch
trembles at its leaving
gibbous moon
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2011-12-11T08:20:00.003-05:00

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Haiku are written best and appreciated best through the intelligence of the heart. –Robert Spiess
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2011-12-10T08:16:00.002-05:00

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where the ocean embraces the river’s return evensong
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2011-12-10T08:12:00.001-05:00

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Each moment is a place you've never been. -- Mark Strand
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2011-12-09T07:29:00.001-05:00

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“when he [basho] could no longer stay idle at home because, as he put it, the gods seemed to possess his soul. He patched his trousers, repaired his bamboo hat, bid farewell to his friends, and hoisted his pack onto his bony shoulders.” – Journeys of Simplicity; Traveling Light by Philip Harnden
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2011-12-09T07:20:00.002-05:00

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the crows speak of it
before it arrives
distant thunder
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Baraka and Cantillation from Alexis Rotella

2011-12-08T10:15:00.004-05:00

two new-to-me words:

"Baraka is an Arabic word that means “blessedness” or “divinely inspired.” . . .

"No doubt the poems by Rumi and tagore have baraka. Unlike the traditional Muslims, Sufis embrace the Muse, or Mother Goddess. In order for something to have baraka, it seems that it must be infused with that deep, intuitive, female quality. That which is strictly intellectual cannot have baraka and the Japanese themselves who mistrust Western logic are first looking for a subjective quality which cannot be named before they will even do business with a foreign entity."

"When a writer or artist is in a trance while working (or when one is taken over by the Muse), her poetry often takes on an otherworldy quality. When we’re working in this state, we cantillate. We are close to the Mother God, and when in this altered state we believe that we are loved by the Creator."

--Alexis Rotella
http://alexisrotella.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/why-does-alexis-rotella-use-punctuation-and-capitalization-in-her-little-poems/

2011-12-08T04:47:00.002-05:00

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“It’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold onto it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life.” —last words spoken in the movie American Beauty
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2011-12-08T04:28:00.001-05:00

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emptying myself
of stones
river’s edge
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2011-12-07T09:19:00.001-05:00

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“It's possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things—a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring—with immense, even startling power.” ― Raymond Carver
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2011-12-07T09:15:00.002-05:00

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what it feels like
to be left behind
winter tidepool
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a quote . . .

2011-12-06T08:23:00.001-05:00

When you say life is marvelous, you are saying a banality. But to make life a marvel, that is the role of poetry. -- Octavoi Paz

after . . .

2011-12-06T08:19:00.000-05:00

after the argument
her hug’s
gravitational pull

a quote . . .

2011-12-05T06:40:00.000-05:00

“Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.” – rumi

crow's caw

2011-12-05T06:37:00.000-05:00

the crow’s caw
more urgent now
these autumn woods

interview . . .

2011-12-04T21:04:00.002-05:00

an interview of me by Haiku Guru : http://www.thehaikuguru.com/poet-interviews.html

a quote . . .

2011-12-04T10:12:00.000-05:00

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
–rumi

just knowing

2011-12-04T10:09:00.000-05:00

just knowing
how I like to be touched
winter sun

searching

2011-12-03T09:27:00.001-05:00

searching
the waves but finding
no answer
the sandpiper tracks
vanish without a trace

a quote . . .

2011-12-02T08:16:00.000-05:00

“A poet is someone who can pour light into a cup, then raise it to nourish your beautiful parched, holy heart.” -- Hafiz

haibun

2011-12-01T08:39:00.003-05:00

she envies her her boyfriend that never fools around and her cherry-
red convertible that never needs repairs and her outfits (complete with shoes and accessories) that can be had for less than ten dollars and the perpetually-shining plastic sun outside her practically-immaculate plastic house but most of all she envies her her god-damn nearly-perfect never-faltering ability-to-smile . . .

she says
“we can’t help who we love”
to no one
in particular
"all guys are assholes”

a quote . . .

2011-11-30T08:29:00.003-05:00

Poetry began when somebody walked out of a cave and looked up at the sky with wonder and said, ‘ah-h-h!’ that was the first poem. – Lucille Clifton

quiet stray

2011-11-29T09:48:00.001-05:00

the quiet stray
slips into twilight
night without stars

a quote . . .

2011-11-28T11:12:00.000-05:00

"The wave does not need to die to become water. She is already water." — Thich Nhat Hanh

as if

2011-11-27T09:07:00.001-05:00

as if I were still married
the nag of the jay
through these autumn woods

a quote . . .

2011-11-26T09:30:00.001-05:00

What strikes me as essential are that a haiku be: (1) brief (as long as it needs to be, as short as it can be); (2) a concatenation of words (this is, after all, a literary art, and the words of a haiku are not the experience it contains; on the other hand, the words of the haiku are another and new experience); (3) an opening (to something, though not always the same thing, but always larger than the flat description would be by itself). – Jim Kacian

the circle

2011-11-26T09:24:00.001-05:00

the circle
she draws around herself
equinox moon

a quote . . .

2011-11-25T22:23:00.000-05:00

Issa has objectively captured the essence of the moment: one of sudden beauty—and after, when all that’s left is the remembering. That is what a firefly is. That is what a genuine haiku is. This haiku has “the grave elegiac music which stays forever in the listening mind.” – anita virgil

just out of sight

2011-11-25T22:02:00.003-05:00

just out of sight
this thing I want to see
autumn twilight

ITO EN North America NEW HAIKU GRAND PRIX 2011 CONTEST

2011-09-24T23:17:00.002-04:00

one of my haiku is an august semifinalist, find it here:

http://new-haiku.itoen.com/SemifinalistsOfTheMonth/August/Index.aspx

a note

2011-05-24T10:28:00.003-04:00

after a bit of soul-searching, i've decided to set aside my haiga for future publication instead of blogging them. my feelings about publcation are complicated, so it's a decision that didn't come lightly. i will resume posting once my 'publication reservoir' starts to overflow.

i leave behind

2011-05-20T09:47:00.000-04:00

a quote . . .

2011-05-20T09:45:00.001-04:00

our brush against the small and ordinary connects us with the universal and eternal. The absence of the period at the end of the modern haiku is meant to leave the haiku open-ended for an echoing extension into what Blake termed "eternity's sunrise." – h.f. noyes

beyond the trellis

2011-05-20T09:41:00.000-04:00

a quote . . .

2011-05-20T09:38:00.001-04:00

Creating art allows us to express our deepest feelings and ideas without having to put a name to them. -- Robert Dalton

such little effort

2011-05-19T09:33:00.000-04:00

haiku IS

2011-05-19T09:32:00.000-04:00

Haiku creates a word-framed void where ISness rushes in.

my burst-out-loud laugh

2011-05-19T09:28:00.000-04:00

haiku IS

2011-05-19T09:26:00.001-04:00

Haiku are fragmented glimpses of life, glued together by bits of the reader’s self.

waiting for gnomes

2011-05-18T09:17:00.000-04:00

haiku IS

2011-05-18T09:16:00.000-04:00

Haiku is weaving wonderment into words.

her snow angel

2011-05-18T09:03:00.000-04:00

On photographs, haiku and aesthetics:

2011-05-18T08:50:00.001-04:00

In Camera Lucida, Barthes assigns two qualities to a photograph. The first is ‘studium’ . . . which he explains as “meanings that are nameable”, “cultural meanings that we understand at once”, “for it is culturally that I participate in the figures, the faces, the gestures, the setting, the actions”. The second is ‘punctum’ . . . explained as “this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow and pierces me”, “that accident which pricks me (is poignant to me)” . . .

the sprout

2011-05-17T09:12:00.000-04:00

haiku IS

2011-05-17T09:10:00.001-04:00

haiku is a sketch of the things of life allowing us to see into the life of things.

the depth

2011-05-17T09:07:00.001-04:00

haiku IS

2011-05-17T09:06:00.001-04:00

A haiku is two parts (fragment and phrase) illuminating a whole greater than itself.

how gently

2011-05-16T07:32:00.000-04:00

haiku IS

2011-05-16T07:31:00.001-04:00

Haiku is the experience of the one illuminating the experience of the all.

the crows too

2011-05-16T07:28:00.000-04:00

haiku IS

2011-05-16T07:27:00.001-04:00

Each word of a haiku serves as a stepping stone along the ordinary with a nearly imperceptible leap into the magnificent.

one firefly

2011-05-15T12:59:00.000-04:00

haiku IS

2011-05-15T12:58:00.000-04:00

A firefly glows and is dark. Further along the forest path another glows and then another. This ephemeral illumination . . . this is the haiku poem.

the shape

2011-05-14T08:08:00.000-04:00

haiku IS

2011-05-14T08:03:00.001-04:00

Upon the great darkness out of which everything manifests -- a handful of words can serve as pinpoints of light suggesting an outline, a constellation of stars, allowing each viewer a personal interpretation of a universal truth. So it is with haiku.

unfurling

2011-05-14T01:42:00.000-04:00

haiku IS

2011-05-14T01:41:00.000-04:00

haiku creates a sacred space to honor the indescribable beauty of the everyday world.

the owl's call

2011-05-14T01:40:00.000-04:00

haiku IS

2011-05-14T01:39:00.000-04:00

Haiku is a portal, framed by words, from which the essence of what-it-means-to-be-human comes oozing-gushing-raging out.

finally i get it

2011-05-14T01:37:00.000-04:00

a quote . . .

2011-05-14T01:35:00.000-04:00

To strip human nature until its divine attributes are made clear, to inform ordinary activities with spiritual fervor, to give wings of eternity to that which is most ephemeral; to make divine things human and human things divine. --Pablo Casals

the way the ocean

2011-05-14T01:34:00.000-04:00

a quote . . .

2011-05-14T01:32:00.001-04:00

The sun shines, snow falls, mountains rise and valleys sink,
night deepens and pales into day, but it is only very seldom
that we attend to such things ... When we are grasping the
inexpressible meaning of these things, this is life, this is living.
To do this twenty-four hours a day is the Way of Haiku.
It is having life more abundantly. – R.H. Blyth

absolutely beautiful youtube video

2011-05-11T10:38:00.004-04:00

stirring moonlight

2011-05-11T10:15:00.000-04:00

haiku IS

2011-05-11T10:14:00.000-04:00

Haiku is a few small words giving voice to that which is too large for words

the bark scorpion

2011-05-11T10:09:00.001-04:00

haiku is

2011-05-11T10:06:00.001-04:00

Haiku is the intellect of the heart putting words to the ‘je nais se quoi’ of the soul

stepping into

2011-05-10T10:10:00.001-04:00

a haiku is . . .

2011-05-10T10:03:00.002-04:00

Give a haiku-poet a half-dozen grains of sand and you will get back a mountain veiled in moonlit fog.

so many stars . . .

2011-05-10T10:00:00.000-04:00

a haiku is . . .

2011-05-10T09:56:00.000-04:00

When a handful of words are placed together in such a way that allows the reader to feel, in the silent spaces between them, the breadth and depth of the universe . . . that is a haiku.

a quote

2011-05-09T09:23:00.001-04:00

A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at . . . -- Diane Ackerman

the hitchhiker

2011-05-09T09:20:00.001-04:00

a quote

2011-05-09T09:17:00.001-04:00

And verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. -- Pablo Neruda

night fog

2011-05-09T09:12:00.001-04:00

a quote

2011-05-08T08:54:00.000-04:00

The artist's role is to invent rhythms and forms to reveal a deeper apprehension of reality for the viewer. --Leland Bell

the shapes of crows

2011-05-08T08:50:00.001-04:00

a quote

2011-05-08T08:48:00.000-04:00

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset. --Crowfoot

her crayon flowers

2011-05-08T08:43:00.000-04:00

a quote

2011-05-07T09:14:00.001-04:00

“Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.” -- T.S. Eliot

the old pine

2011-05-07T09:11:00.000-04:00

a quote

2011-05-07T09:09:00.001-04:00

. . . it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are—until the poem—nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt. --Audre Lorde

ducks come and go

2011-05-07T09:05:00.000-04:00

sandhill crane (link to a youtube video)

2011-05-06T09:08:00.002-04:00

http://youtu.be/8EbZrvbFvcQ

touching the edges

2011-05-06T09:07:00.000-04:00

a quote

2011-05-06T09:02:00.000-04:00

the poem is not a thing we see -- it is, rather, a light by which we may see. -- Robert Penn Warren

all the sky

2011-05-06T08:53:00.000-04:00

a quote

2011-05-05T08:24:00.000-04:00

Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own. - Salvatore Quasimodo

giving voice

2011-05-05T08:15:00.001-04:00