A to Z Challenge – The letter P [Percival’s Quest] – April 30, 2016

“Ach ’tis proper poo!”
Princess Priscilla proffered,
[Profoundly disgusted]
From her perfect lips
Perplexing Pendragon’s Percival;
Pale paladin –
Prudish and pious,
Profanity had never passed his lips.
Polly proceeded profoundly irritated
At the poly chromatic, pubescent,
Bloom bedecked paladin.
“Ach as if pansies was prizes!
Ye piteous,
Prancing, pandering, pimple-faced
Pavonian peckish peacock!
Poor indeed is this now depaupered
Damsel in distress
Since yon palfrey ponderously
Plonked down his poo
On our pale pink pinafore
and patent leather pumps!”
Percival spluttered,
Penitent he’d departed from his home, he
Proposed to placate that prima donna
(And perhaps his hunger)
Praising Priscilla’s imagined
Prowess in preparing poutine …
[Having observed her prosperous derriere].
Imprudent proposal.
Priscilla punched him in his paunch,
Pummelled him soundly ’bout the head
Then took his palfrey,
Proceeding proudly to her pinnacled palace.

© G.s.k. ‘16

Morning Haiku and Waka – Using Karumi (Haiga) – April 27, 2016

morning promenade
waddling off their breakfast
locals and tourists

© G.s.k. ‘16

Carpe Diem Tokubetsudesu #77 pickles (in the way of Basho) lost episode of March

Today Chèvrefeuille re-introduced the “karumi” writing technique.  Here’s what he has to say about it:

“Bashô developed this concept during his final travels in 1693. Karumi is perhaps one of the most important and least understood principles of haiku poetry. Karumi can best be described as “lightness,” or a sensation of spontaneity. In many ways, karumi is a principle rooted in the “spirit” of haiku, rather than a specific technique. Bashô taught his students to think of karumi as “looking at the bottom of a shallow stream”. When karumi is incorporated into haiku, there is often a sense of light humour or child-like wonderment at the cycles of the natural world. Many haiku using karumi are not fixed on external rules, but rather an unhindered expression of the poet’s thoughts or emotions. This does not mean that the poet forgets good structure; just that the rules of structure are used in a natural manner. In my opinion, karumi is “beyond” technique and comes when a poet has learned to internalize and use the principles of the art interchangeably.

In a way it brought me another idea. Traditionally, and especially in Edo Japan, women did not have the male privilege of expanding their horizons, so their truth or spirituality was often found in the mundane. Women tend to validate daily life and recognize that miracles exist within the mundane, which is the core of haiku.There were females who did compose haiku, which were called “kitchen-haiku” by literati, but these “kitchen-haiku” had all the simplicity and lightness of karumi … In a way Basho taught males to write like females, with more elegance and beauty, based on the mundane (simple) life of that time.

Shiba Sonome, a female haiku poet, learned about karumi from Basho: “Learn about a pine tree from a pine tree, and about a bamboo plant from a bamboo plant.”

The poet should detach the mind from his own self. Nevertheless, some people interpret the word ‘learn’ in their own ways and never really ‘learn’. ‘Learn’ means to enter into the object, perceive its delicate life, and feel its feeling, whereupon a poem forms itself. Even a poem that lucidly describes an object could not attain a true poetic sentiment unless it contains the feelings that spontaneously emerged out of the object. In such a poem the object and the poet’s self would remain forever separate, for it was composed by the poet’s personal self.

Basho also said, “In my view a good poem is one in which the form of the verse, and the joining of its two parts, seem light as a shallow river flowing over its sandy bed”.

That, then, is karumi: becoming as one with the object of your poem … experiencing what it means to be that object … feeling the life of the object … allowing the poem to flow from that feeling and that experience.”

Naturalness – Haiku – March 23, 2015

tiny flowers
under the persimmon tree
the snow has melted

spring delight
with a bee in its bonnet
a dandy lion

© G.s.k. ‘16

Carpe Diem Special #203 Basho’s disciples: Mukai Kyorai’s “Master of Persimmons”

NaHaiWriMo – Zit – February 20, 2016

flowering
in the springtime of life
red zit

© G.s.k. ‘16

NaHaiWriMo

Carpe Diem #921 Absurdity / Humor

Haiku Horizons – haiku and waka – January 8, 2016

look as I might
I still can’t find it …
– a poet’s soul

that important find
exaltation for a day
then – a new hunt starts

destiny found
inside fortune cookies
– writing pidgin verse

lost and found offices
full of abandoned objects
their owners misplaced
they’re often never sought
people lack faith in mankind

stopped smoking
new harmony found
without nicotine

© G.s.k. ‘16

Haiku Horizons – find

Goody good blah blah blahs – Kyoka/Senryu/Shadorma – January 8, 2016

calendar poets
penning New Year platitudes
gotta eat – I know
but, is that a good reason
to waste all of those trees?

calendar pulchritude
with tepid affirmations
each season painted
in arrhythmic platitudes
[sad punitive devices]

but first …

swallow your pill
then write aquamarine lies
in cursive caps

oh my lands …
do they never tire
of cute dogs
and kittens
don’t forget yoga – om y’all!
fuzzy warm deceits

© G.s.k. ‘16

1.Punitive 2. Tepid 3. Calendar 4. Season 5. Sad 6. Arrhythmic (any disturbance in the rhythm of the heartbeat.) 7. Cursive 8. Tomorrow 9. Swallow 10. Aquamarine 11. Affirmation 12. Pulchritude (physical beauty; comeliness.)

Wordle #92 “January 4, 2016” – Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie

Fresh New Resolutions – Flash Fiction – January 1, 2016

Photo Credits: The Write Life

Marian walked round and round the room, trying to decide what resolutions she could make for the upcoming new year.  She’d made lists in the past, but they never came to much, she needed something unique, something fresh but most of all, something she could actually bring off during the year in course.

She thought about the time she’d resolved to give up smoking,  it took her eight years to find the well-power to pull that one off and what about the time she’d resolved to lose those extra kilos, well, she pulled that one off too, but only three years later.  However much she tried she never seemed to meet her resolutions on time.

She began her list once again. She wrote this and that then deleted one thing and another, feeling absolutely frustrated.  Then finally an idea hit her.  Why did she have to make negative resolutions?  Why not make resolutions that actually suited her personality, her tastes, her culture?

So with the power of her new understanding she wrote, “New Year’s Resolutions” at the top of her document and began her list yet again:

• Eat at least one piece of chocolate a day.
• Go out and eat a pizza with friends at least once a month
• Go to the cinema at least once a month and watch a romantic movie
• Meet up with her best friend weekly at the coffee shop and swap gossip
• Sit down and write on her blog for at least an hour a day
• Chat on Facebook with her friends and post kitten photos and videos

She sighed with a sense of accomplishment.  For once she was absolutely certain she’d be resolute enough to follow through on time with her new year’s resolutions.  She copied her list using Picasa onto one of her favourite kitten photos and put it onto her desktop, drank the dregs of her tea and went to bed content as the clock struck twelve.  Fire crackers went off around town. At last,  the new year was born and she said to herself, just before dozing off,  happy 2016!

© G.s.k. ‘16

 

3 Word Wednesday # 460

Fresh, adjective: not previously known or used; new or different, recently created or experienced and not faded or impaired, (of food) recently made or obtained; not canned, frozen, or otherwise preserved, (of a person) full of energy and vigor, (of a color or a person’s complexion) bright or healthy in appearance, (of a person) attractively youthful and inexperienced, pleasantly clean, pure, and cool, presumptuous or impudent toward someone, especially in a sexual way.

New, adjective: not existing before; made, introduced, or discovered recently or now for the first time, not previously used or owned, of recent origin or arrival, 2 already existing but seen, experienced, or acquired recently or now for the first time.

Resolute, adjective: admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering.

Festoons of Flowers – Haibun – December 20, 2015

Waiting for the bus in a sea of umbrellas can be an interesting experience.  The streets become as colourful as a Christmas scene festooned with multi-coloured decorations.  Some people always carry an umbrella with them, so they’re the small telescopic variety, maybe made of bright plastic or a duller clothe-like material.  Some came out after the rain began to fall and have an umbrella that covers not only their head and shoulders, but maybe three or more phantasmagorical persons.

Imagine Rome on a rainy day where I used to work.  Romans, and indeed most Italians, aren’t used to the disciplined queuing up so common in an Anglo-Saxon world.  They see the bus coming and jostle their would be fellow passengers trying to be the first on the bus when it pulls up.

The people who would descend from the bus, can’t, until finally someone gives way, overcoming the impasse.  People begin to step off of the bus, with their umbrellas before them, which pop open like flowers on a documentary run at high-speed. Then finally the new passengers mount the bus walking like crabs, a sort of sideways back-step, their umbrellas behind them, so they won’t get wet.  I often wondered if all of this wasn’t some mysterious metaphor of Italian life.

festoons of flowers
blooming on a rainy day
catching a bus

© G.s.k. ‘15

This haibun was written for: Haibun Monday – 4 which appeared on dVerse presented by Mary, who also furnished the photo used in the post unfortunately for me, I’m very late writing and posting this … but I thought the prompt was lovely so participated anyway in the comments. To all of you who read this post, I’d really encourage you to click the link where you’ll find many more haibun and of course the prompt!  Ciao, Bastet.

 

 

Morning Haiku and Waka – double entendre avec musique – December 9, 2015

Humoresque
fowl improvisations
on an evening walk

playing Chopin
adagio through crescendo
entr’acte duet
this warm summer afternoon
our fugue into fantaisie

© G.s.k. ‘15

 

 

Carpe Diem Haiku Writing Techniques #22 double entendre (double meaning)

In today’s post on writing techniques we explored double meanings which is one of the techniques I love the most … above I play with musical terms … and not only.

 

Pond(ering) – Butterfly Cinquain – December 4, 2015

a pond ..
coot a’swimmin
swift as a torpedo
wonderin’ what he finally found
two ducks
quacking, awakened in surprise
they too start a’swimmin
a dragon-fly
.. flies off

G.s.k. ‘15

 

 

A butterfly cinquain is a nine-line syllabic verse of the following pattern:  2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 2 / 8 / 6 / 4 / 2.

Jane Doughery Writes: Poetry challenge #8: Butterfly cinquain