Haiku Sticky #395

I'll bet you knows someone who may be affected by the recent changes in immigration policy--you just may not realize it.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Happy Haiga Day!

Since the inauguration, I've joined a resistance movement of sorts--poets! The following was written in response to a challenge issued to a group (on Facebook) organized by Laura Shovan. We had to use these ten words, taken from a New York Times article, in a poem.

rant
ignore
directly
answering
simple
volume
impossible
impact
respond
communicate

I only managed to use eight, but who's counting...

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

T's Pussycat Cheer & Chant Squad
Rehearse for the Big Game:
Team Trump vs. the Press Corps


Two, four, six, eight.
We don't wanna communicate.

Hey, hey, hey!
It's so simple!
On alternative facts
We never skimple.

In your reports you're so uncivil.
In response, we'll give you drivel.

We never
We never
Answer you directly. [repeat chant 3X]

You might be good at writing
And answering with facts
But when it comes to briefings
You'd better watch your back!

We will, we will
Rant-at-you! [stomp, stomp...stomp, stomp]
We will, we will
Rant-at-you! [stomp, stomp...stomp, stomp]

Raise the volume, Buttercup!
Tell the press they'd better shut up!

Hey, hey
Ho, ho
If we ignore ya
Will you go? [repeat chant 2X]

Hey, hey, ho, ho, we ignored you
NOW GO!

Poetry Friday--"women's march 2017"

I've been a bit distracted lately and thought about skipping Poetry Friday this week, then a line popped into my head and it turned into a poem. (Funny thing, that original line is no longer there!)

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Remarkably, the photo of the suffragists picketing the White House was taken on January 26, 1917! The photo of the marchers in Boston was taken by me on Saturday, January 21.

Text:

women's march 2017


again we march--
a century after
the obdurate
the brave

suffragists marched
for the right to vote

again we march--
50 years after
the defiant
the resolute

feminists marched
for equal rights

again we march
and again we'll
march--

until fear is defunct

and there are no -ists
just humans


Head over to Beyond LiteracyLink where Carol is hosting the Round-Up this week.

Haiku Sticky #394

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

cardinals and jays
a welcomed distraction
...snow continues

Happy Haiga Day!

The Women's March, which took place in Boston, yesterday, was inspiring in its numbers, its unity of purpose, and its hopefulness. From my Facebook friends, all over the country, came similar reports.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

January sun...
the drakaina awakens
from a long sleep

Poetry Friday--A New Project!

Chap-Books of the Eighteenth Century With Facsimiles, Notes, and Introduction by John Ashton (1882) was a lucky find for me at Open Library. I spent a number of hours looking through it, and discovered some great woodcut illustrations. I was inspired to use the illustrations and pair them with poems. This has resulted in a number of haiga (haiku/senryu with illustrations) and illustrated short poems. I'll be sharing them over the next few months, mostly on Sundays, which are Happy Haiga Day! here at Random Noodling.

This first one is a senryu written right after Christmas and is based upon a real incident from Christmas Day.

In Chap-Books, I came across The History of Sir Richard Whittington Thrice Lord Mayor of London. The cat in the illustration below, looked more dog-like to me and I thought it would work well with my poem.

[Note: you may know the legend of "Dick Whittington and His Cat," which was the subject of children's books by Robert Lawson (1949), Marcia Brown (1988), and Margaret Hodges (2006).]

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Illustration source, click here.

Text:

first time
meeting the family
he brings his dog


Here's another:

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Illustration source, click here.

Text:

Mephisto
the crowd still expects
he'll remove his mask

Violet Nesdoly | Poems is this week's Poetry Friday hostess. Do stop by.

Haiku Sticky #393

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Happy Haiga Day!

Many thanks to Amy Souza, creator of the quarterly Spark challenge, who posted the photo of her dog that inspired today's haiga.

Haiga © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Photo © Amy Souza, used with permission.

Text:

overnight snow
our morning routine
loses its rote

Poetry Friday--I Hope by Now It's All Gone!

If, like me, you hate to see a turkey carcass tossed out after a holiday dinner, then you probably make soup. I did. I managed to get a lot of meat off the frame and made a typical soup, that is, whatever is found in the refrigerator and/or the cabinets, goes in. If I have to make a special trip to the store, then a-follow-the-recipe soup won't get made.

Not surprisingly, last Friday's Round-Up found at least two offerings of soup poems. Tara Smith at A Teaching Life contributed "Everybody Made Soups" by Lisa Coffman and Kay at A Journey Through the Pages cooked up an original titled, "Simmering Echoes."

Those two posts, and the fact that I had recently finished off the last of the seemingly never-ending pot of turkey soup, inspired me to add my own poem to the canon of soup poems. (If there isn't a canon of soup poems, then I suggest we have the beginnings of one!) And, although there are some similarities to the two poems shared last week (there are some basic ingredients that you'll find in every turkey soup), mine comes to a slightly different conclusion.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Click on the image to enlarge. The text is also found further down the page.

I normally don't use the word "gift" as a verb, but it seemed to fit the poem. I also heard this segment on NPR, which gave me permission!



Visit Keri at Keri Recommends for the Round-Up and have a great weekend!

Poem text:

After the Second Turkey Holiday

After the carving of portion-sized
pieces, after the dog has been
gifted with the innards, the nearly
naked carcass is given one more life.

These bones that were subjected
to full-bore denuding will release
a surprising amount of flavor
when boiled in a pot of water.

Add to the pot the following
chopped (finesse is not necessary)
vegetables: garlic, onions, carrots,
--maybe a potato, and celery.

Don't forget seasoning: a little
salt, a little more pepper, and
whatever else you find in a small
jar that still smells appealing.

Then add barley. Is half-a-cup too
little? More won't hurt, and, if it
turns into a stew, is that a problem?
If you prefer rice, wait until later.

Gently simmer, simmer, simmer
until time to eat, eat, eat, eat, eat.
After five days of turkey soup cross
it off your menu for another year.

Haiku Sticky #392

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

graveyard
a dusting of snow changes
one's perspective

Happy Haiga Day!

On New Year's Day, the chirping from a flock of sparrows on sun-warmed shopping carts was wondrously joyful and loud! Ah, the simple pleasures...

I snapped this photo with my phone and paired it with a haiku.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Poetry Friday--Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu

Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu = Happy New Year! This is the eighth year I'm participating in a New Year's postcard exchange (Nengajo). Before this year, the exchange was arranged through a international group of haiku poets. Sadly, that group is no longer a group (at least not currently). Jone MacCulloch, has stepped in to organize an exchange of poems from Poetry Friday participants. Thanks Jone! By now, everyone should have received their postcard from me.

I am continuing with my New Year's haiku and I'm using the Chinese zodiac animal for 2017--the rooster. The rooster of 2017 is also known as the "fire rooster." Learn more here.

My haiku includes a reference to the rooster, also fire, and, it mentions "first dawn." "First" implies the New Year without coming right out and saying it. These type of seasonal shortcut words are known as kigo. Other examples of kigo: daffodils = spring, barbecue = summer, pumpkins = fall, snow = winter.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

The background image is taken from a painting by Mihály Munkácsy (1844-1900), titled "Yawning Apprentice." The teapot is contemporary. I added the rainbow coloring to make it appear dawn-like. The red of the lettering is for good luck (although red tends to bleed, so it probably wasn't a wise decision to use it).

The Nengajo is a big deal in Japan, here's a site that explains more.

This was posted on New Year's Day, in an article on Japanese New Year's traditions, published in The Mainichi:

And in the Tokyo district of Nihonbashi, known as the birthplace of Japan's postal system, a ceremony was held Sunday morning to mark the start of the delivery of New Year's greeting cards. About 40 mail carriers departed the branch to deliver New Year's cards.

Have a good year, everyone! Start it off right with poetry being gathered by Linda at Teacher Dance.

I have plenty of postcards to spare, so if you'd like one, let me know.

Haiku Sticky #391

Let me just say, this is the most appallingly unpresidential missive ever! EVAH! (As they say here in the Boston area.)

Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don't know what to do. Love!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2016

So in the spirit of our PEOTUS, here's Haiku Sticky #391:

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

I don't generally write haiku/senryu 5-7-5, but, this one came out that way! As for political correctness--it doesn't exist with this man. And, it no longer exists for me with regard to the man. (With everything else, though, I'll try to be PC. It's a way of looking at people as neighbors not as "others.")

This is the last poem about Mr. T***p that I will post here. He's a massive suck on my time and energy and I will not fall for his distractions again.

Happy Haiga Day!

A pair of senryu for the first day of 2017.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.