URBAN HAIKU II

[New York City skyline photo: webshots.com]

"Urban haiku” is how a friend of mine refers to haiku written about city scenes. I think that makes a nice distinction between these haiku and the more commonly known nature-themed haiku. See the post here "Urban Haiku," dated May 30, 2006 for more of my urban haiku.

The below were written as long ago as 1999 and as recently as this month, most in the past eight months or so.

we push our carts
on the shady side
the temperature soars

*

hot laundromat
she speaks Korean
I use hand gestures

*

a neighbor hoses
her terrace:
garbage cans drum

*

outgrowing my home
the dracena I raised
from a sprout

*

office tree
leans to the light
accommodation

*

train delay, but oh,
the ice revealing
every tree branch

*

subway serenade:
in his shiny guitar
my tired face

*

leaf litter swirls
workers hurry
homeward

*

end of the line
subway graffiti
softened by fog

*

after her death
cleaning my roomate's closet
little by little

*

houseplants reflected
in the silver gazing ball
winter rain

*


Two One-Liners:
[A form being used more these days. It echos, to me, the one line form of Japanese haiku in calligraphy -- except that is a vertical line.]

Nor'easter -- bowling on the roof

*

a lengthy pause -- still I flinch at the thunder

* * * *

Resource: Simply Haiku, an e-journal for haiku and related forms.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.

P.S. TO "PROSE & POETRY AT THE LIGHTHOUSE" POST

[The Seven of Pentacles in The Tarot of the Trance deck; see footnote]

In the post here of July 22, 2006 I shared some of my experiences with teaching creative writing at The Lighthouse for the blind and visually imparied for three and a quarter years (1987-1990). In going through my files since that post, I found the below poem the class and I wrote together in January of 1990.

One of the things I often did when first starting a class or workshop, was to lead everyone in a collective writing effort. It usually helped us to get to know a little bit about each other and to begin working together. The resulting poems varied greatly in cohesion but rarely fell short of their aim of beginning to create a working group. They also never failed to help me begin to assess where each student was at, both in terms of skills, and in terms of interests and needs.

In this exercise, I led the class in a guided meditation in which they met a wonderful tree that had something important to tell them about their writing. Each student then said a word out loud that described their tree in some way. I then randomly "gave" one of those words to each student. Then each class member wrote a sentence, using their "gift" word, that in some way reflected what the tree said to them about their writing. Once we had all the sentences we decided on how they fit together.

The below was written at what would be the start of my last year of teaching at the Lighthouse (though I did not know it then) and is probably the most cohesive of its type we produced. This is not surprising as most of us had been in this class for two and a quarter years already.

TENDER IS THE TREE
(written by Debbie, Dorothe, Greta,
Patricia, Rose, Thea and Vernon)

Knowledge I learned from the tree
was most enlightening.

My inner self was frightened,
and like tree moss
my heart's feelings were fuzzy.

Hung high amid your branches,
I was enveloped by a peaceful strength.

With the scent of pine in the wind
I felt the rough bark of the tree.

Firm bark, protecting sweet inner growth.

Tender is the tree.

* * * *

Footnote: I had not planned on using a Tarot card to illustrate this post. However, that I came across this card in The Tarot of the Trance deck as I was searching for graphics for my Tarot blog last night, could be considered a bit of synchronicity. (1) A trance is very much like meditation and creative visualization. (2) A traditional meaning for The Seven of Pentacles is appreciating the fruits of your labor. (3) The post today on my Tarot blog -- written before finding the above Tarot card version -- is about The Seven of Pentacles, with two other versions of this card and several other less common meanings for it.

Need I add anything? I was very moved by this collective poem, as I was by all my experiences at The Lighthouse.

Resource: How Poems Work, a "lively" blog with various articles about poetry.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.

A TINY FAIRY STORY

Back in 1986 when I wrote the below little piece it was one of several that were just simple descriptions. (See the May 12, 2006 post here called "Several of My Heretic Poems," piece titled "An Open and Shut Case," for another example of this type of writing I was experimenting with.)

Another input to the piece was a series of fairy dreams I'd had. None were like the fairy in this piece, though. In fact, once I had determined the idea of emotional expression and decided it would have a fairy-like character, I deliberately went for bold action. My dream fairy -- a soul symbol, I realized -- was rather wounded. And I wanted to experiment, if only in fantasy, with less deep and agonizing ways of relating to things than my dream fairy went through. Even as I took the dream images seriously.

The last influence on this piece -- what a lot of input for a small piece -- was the Flower Fairies artwork of Cicely Mary Barker (the fairy above is one of hers). I'd just discovered her work and found it delightful. I still have a couple of her fairy pictures up in my home.

[Untitled]

She had always been fascinated by what scintillates there, at the surface of things. She flitted through life like a fairy, gathering aspects of mind as they reflected or refracted and gave them each names. This ruby she rolled fondly around in her pocket she called "Rage." It was her most recent acquisition. She had found it blooming gloriously on the face of a friend. And she had swiped it openly, lifting it surely from him as one might pluck a ripe apple. Then she had frolicked away, gleefully ignoring the pink surprise spurting where rage had once grown.

* * * *

Resource: ArtMagick "is a virtual gallery dedicated to the continual quest of seeking out obscure 19th century artists and long-forgotten paintings showing a 'magic world of romance and pictured poetry.' The majority of the content in the archive covers the Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist movements."

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.