Invitation

Ali

Very good...i like it...
Hows the weather en France?

Ms. Haiku

charles wrote:

To B. for the very the first spark, to F. for her rythm, and to anyone who wants to share.

Desert sky
Lone crow caws
Life!

Dark forest
Invisible wings flap
Company!

Heavy rain
Invisible bird sings
Hope!

a bird
alone
unheard

Ms. Haiku

water drop
on one bird
ruffled feathers

Ms. Haiku

dead wolf
covered in snow
melting

Felicity

arrival
and departure
of body only

think
constant mind
a treasure trove

dream
i believe
infinitely

Ms. Haiku

in the snow
in sunshine
a leaf

Ms. Haiku

charles wrote:

whistling wind
strips my thoughts
as i fall asleep

Welcome back! I don't have a haiku response yet, but I'll work on it.

Ms. Haiku

charles wrote:

whistling wind
strips my thoughts
as i fall asleep

half a leaf crosses the street
last week of December

Ms. Haiku

bright colors
bounce under a grey sky
tourists

Ms. Haiku

rush hour
two opposing turnstiles
new year's eve

Ms. Haiku

charles wrote:

It's raining
the tick-tack of my clock
mixes with the rain drops

rain
flows down concrete stairs
measured

Ms. Haiku

charles wrote:

drizzle
I hear time flow
unmeasured

jackhammer
consistent crunching
grey sky

Ms. Haiku

charles wrote:

above city jangling
holding on
a crumpled kite

let me see if i can try a tanka:

Seattle skyline
covered in kites
bouncing with children's laughter
my hands hurt from typing
another black and white memo

Ms. Haiku

charles wrote:

across the skyline
suspended echoes
time zone

and- what is a tanka?-

The popularity of the Sonnet in English poetry is equal to the popularity of the Tanka in Japanese poetry. For both it seems the focus is on relationships and beauty. As we learn that haiku is 3 lines 5-7-5, we would learn that tanka is 5 lines 5-7-5-7-7. As with haiku, once a poet is comfortable with the form it becomes less strict in syllables and is probably shorter in the English version.

Tanka started renga which is linked haiku, which is what we do here. Some consider Haiku as the first three lines of Tanka. Poets more interested in the spiritual "now" of poetry broke the haiku away from tanka. Poets more interested in beauty continued with tanka. Some say that haiku is the first three lines, and then the last two are a response to the first three. I don't necessarily agree with this.

Ms. Haiku

charles wrote:

across the skyline
suspended echoes
time zone

and- what is a tanka?-

small children inside the tunnel
older children on top
delayed echo

FinsburyParkCarrots

charles wrote:

My good friend died, I get in the subway, stunned, closed eyes, let rails slam into my head, till I feel nothing else, stay in that train, cross the city, cross many worlds, uptown cheep, hip-hop bark, yuppie quibble, tramp smell, lover whispers, baby cries, prostitute perfume, beggar laments, tourist gibberish, ghetto creoles, back and forth, back and forth, words, life snapshots, and the rail bang, connecting me, network of experiences, all there, pulsing, beings, cursed and blessed, believing themselves unique…as that one I call “I”, and his burden, not so unique after all, not so blade sharp anymore.

This is a bit Conradian. The good friend that dies was reason, home, a clear use of episteme, proportion, social balance and psychic stillness; everything that presumed itself in place under the last dust until the wind caught up is scattered in the roar of an urban subway train in a tunnel. The wind of modernity, the metropolis, alienation and the fluxing manyworldedness of the urban consciousness tears apart a sense of old monolithic, epistemic certainties. The mind is Othered by the gallimaufrey of carnival on the train.

I like this, but I'm a bit uncomfortable about the linguistic equivalences "tourist gibberish, ghetto creoles".

FinsburyParkCarrots

On their own the phrases are fine but linguistically in a sentence, you get this pattern:

uptown cheep (adjectival noun/noun)
hip-hop bark (adjectival noun/noun)
yuppie quibble (adjectival noun/noun)
tramp smell (adjectival noun/noun)
lover whispers (adjectival noun/noun)
baby cries (adjectival noun/noun)
prostitute perfume (adjectival noun/noun)
beggar laments (adjectival noun/noun)
tourist gibberish (adjectival noun/noun)
ghetto creoles (adjectival noun/noun)

There's a wealth of studied and oftern convincing linguist argument that poetic language (even in prose poetry) works communicatively, differently from prose (which communicates meaning through the way words are placed grammatically in a sentence). It communicates meaning through patterns such as repetition of linguistic effects such as rhyme, assonance, alliteration and repetition. Now, in a long list such as this which is meant to convey the disparate hubbub of various urban life on a metro the list works really well in setting up antitheses (tramp smell/ lover whispers). We get an idea of different cultures and peoples and lives thrown together in the train. But there's something about the successive clauses 'tourist gibberish/ghetto creoles' that works differently. The concepts almost seem synonymical, that ghetto people are tourists uptown and that creole is gibberish. I know this isn't your desired effect but there will be readers who see it this way. I would place the line 'ghetto creoles' somewhere else in the list: maybe before 'prostitute perfume'?

I'm only offering this suggestion because I think this is a fine piece of work, Charles. Thanks for sharing it.

FinsburyParkCarrots

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

It communicates meaning through patterns such as repetition of linguistic effects such as rhyme, assonance, alliteration and repetition.

Sorry, my sentence in the last post should read,


It communicates meaning through linguistic effects such as rhyme, assonance, alliteration and repetition.

Thanks.

Righteous Jammer

I love simple words to poems

FinsburyParkCarrots

No problem. It's just that a lot of people are culturally sensitive to such effects in language.

I enjoy your work.

Ms. Haiku

charles wrote:

My good friend died, I get in the subway, stunned, closed eyes, let rails slam into my head, till I feel nothing else, stay in that train, cross the city, cross many worlds, uptown cheep, hip-hop bark, yuppie quibble, tramp smell, lover whispers, baby cries, prostitute perfume, beggar laments, tourist gibberish, ghetto creoles, back and forth, back and forth, words, life snapshots, and the rail bang, connecting me, network of experiences, all there, pulsing, beings, cursed and blessed, believing themselves unique…as that one I call “I”, and his burden, not so unique after all, not so blade sharp anymore.

I didn't know how to respond to this, but I thought of the following after a bit:

a friend who
wore a string
around a finger
to remember the scenes
always rerunning


it may or may not apply, it's just what a thought