Haibun: Cedars against snow

For Real Toads Tuesday platform.  This haibun only has 39 words, more than enough.

Cedars against snow
Against the snow on the hillside, the cedars show up almost black. The wind whistles over the snow; the occasional bark of crows wafts over the meadow.
a crow caws
across the meadow – feral cats
line up for food

feral cats

Coming of Snow

For Real Toads, Marian’s Fussy Little Forms Prompt:  Puente is a rewarding form created by James Rasmusson. The word puente means bridge in Spanish, and–naturally–this lovely form features a bridge. It is a simple idea:  Three stanzas – First and third stanzas have equal number of lines (your choice how many) Middle bridge stanza is one line, enclosed in dashes or tildes.  Middle bridge stanza serves as last line for first stanza and first line for last stanza. I used classic haiku for my stanzas, combining two forms. I am in an odd emotionless time at this point and it is reflected in my poetry.

Coming of Snow
bitter cold morning –
quick whiff of wood smoke before
nostrils become numb

the smell of snow in the air – sharp and sweet

frost forms on window –
moon stays warm among the stars –
quiet night sleeps

Haibun: Bitter Kisses

For Sherry’s prompt over at Real Toads, Homecoming.  We are to write about the nostalgia of lost faces, lost loves, gone places.  She offers up one of my favorite songs by the Beatles. I am using it for my haibun here.  As the new usual I am writing in the old abbreviated form of the original haibun by Basho.  this one is rather long – 98 words.

Bitter Kisses
When I was a child I pulled green blades of a daffodil still wet with rain. I wanted to see how it tasted. I placed the green blade between my lips – slowly pulling using my tongue to feel the sharp edge of the bitter green blade.  Years later after kendo, my lover and I stood in the rain and kissed. He had daffodil lips. I drank in their cool wetness and my tongue probed the sharp edges of his teeth and the slightly bitter taste of his lips.

hot kisses –
bitter daffodils –
love withered away

The Duns of Winter

For Amaya’s prompt over at dVerse Poet’s Pub – the secret ingredient.

The Duns of Winter
The duns of winter
sleep softly
waiting for the last ingredient –
snow

Haibun: The Blizzard of Hate

A habun for De’s Quadrille today at dVerse Poets Pub. A quadrille is a poem in any form of exactly 44 words using the prompted word. Today the word is “cheer”. It must be used in any form of cheer within the Quadrille. With the re-emergence of Anti-Semitism it is hard to be cheerful during this season of the Festival of Lights, Chanukah. As a Jew, I feel this deeply. This will also be posted at Real Toads Tuesday Platform.  My haibun has exactly 44 words in the fashion of the first haibun created by Basho.

 

Public lighting of the Menorah

The Blizzard of Hate
The first candle of Hanukah is lit. Light shines in the darkness. Joy and laughter for the next few days. Anti-Semitism spreads like evil snow – a blizzard of hatred blankets the innocent.
genocide shootings –
cheer in the face of miracles
seems so far away

Berlin – anti-Semitism Rally, modern day

Haibun: Light overcomes darkness

For Frank’s Haikai Challenge number 63 – Habukah or Advent. Both start on the same day. I am lighting my first candle for Chanukah tonight. I will also be driving past the Hassidic Chabad temple to see the first candle lit there as well as subsequent lights – a public lighting proclaiming love and miracles for the world. This haibun is in the abbreviated style of the original created by Basho. This haibun has 76 words, less than 100.

Light Overcomes Darkness
The shamash or the attendant candle lights the other eight candles during Chanuka. The time of the festival of lights shows us the miracle of the oil lasting in the temple for eight days. Every night I will drive past the Hassidic Chabad to see one more candle lit, blazing for the world to see. In spite of hatred, shootings, gassings, genocide, the lights shine forth.
eight candles blazing
in the winter’s cold night –
light overcomes hate

The Ugly Hat

For Kerry’s Camera Flash at Real Toads. We are presented with a photo of Jessie Tarbox Beals, on of the first women photojournalists.

The Ugly Hat
Yes I know my hat looks like a cat
all covered with white fuzz.
But I love taking photos of cats.
Mainly long haired beauties of the rich.
I took over 80 photos of cats.
I don’t care for them but they are good subjects.
As long as they behave.
I get well paid for taking photos of cats.
I also get paid well for taking photos
Of shops and tea rooms in Greenwich village.
I am not much of a photojournalist
and the photos of the shops
all have these cutesy little poems at the bottom –
You can find laces and a whole more
At Tom’s Odds and Ends Variety Store!
Not much of a photojournalist
But I am prolific!
Eighty photos of cats –
just like my ugly hat.

Jessie Tarbox Beals
Early woman photojournalist 1904