Haiku Sticky #531

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

end of year list
the name we need to see
...not there

Happy Haiga Day!

I don't often use the phrase "I hate" in relation to particular people, but there are exceptions.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

Working Overtime

Early Christians believed turtles
were a symbol of infernal forces.

The last remaining chelonian
to fit the description dwells
in the muck at the bottom of
a Kentucky sinkhole, except,

when he's working in complete
coordination with the demon
resident of the White House.

Haiku Sticky #530

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

in the air
there's a feeling of panic
...Christmas eve

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

making sure to
leave plenty of crumbs
scattered about

I swallow the last
of Santa's cookies

...smoke and mirrors

Haiku Sticky #529

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

winter blues
...and the solstice
still days away

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Image source.

Text:

dawn reveals
fall pushed out of the picture
...bowl of oatmeal

Haiku Sticky #528

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

early December

Christmas cactus yet
to show flower buds

perhaps this year
it has nothing worth
celebrating

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

wooden dragonfly
on the wall

cozily wrapping me
in memories of lily pads
and inner-tubes

...snow continues

Haiku Sticky #527

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

first snow...
the inevitable hunt
for the scraper

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

Thanksgiving weekend
Black Friday spent washing
a load of dark

Haiku Sticky #526

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

Thanksgiving
this year more veggies
less politics

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

rainy autumn Friday

a flash of golden light
as the day nears it's end
takes some of the heft

from her grey cloud
of despondency


Please excuse the typo in the haiga! I didn't notice it until after posting.

Haiku Sticky #525

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

downsizing
tee-shirts two sizes too small
what was I thinking?

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

November cold snap

an uninvited visitor
takes up residence

is it possible to ignore
this daddy's long legs
for the next six months

Haiku Sticky #524

This is a rare haiku for me--it is 5-7-5! I think it could be trimmed, but every word seems to be necessary in this one. Come back on Sunday when I'll have a spider cherita.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

no longer able
to banish daddy long-legs
I too, feel the cold

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

lapsed, now atheist
guest at a church service

the words basically the same

new is an option
for receiving the Lord's Supper
gluten and alcohol free

Haiku Sticky #523

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

a hint of dusty rose

the battered dresser
in the secondhand shop

--with a stuttering slide
the drawer closes on a
grandmother long gone

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. "Green Pears" by Charles Demuth (1929), cropped.

Text:

autumn pears

their shapes
unapologetically zaftig

it's hard not
to succumb to purchasing
more than one

Haiku Sticky #522

I completely forgot to post Sunday's Happy Haiga Day! and nearly forgot today's Haiku Sticky. I'd like to think that next week I'll have full use of my faculties, but I seem to have lost all sense of normality. Once again, a haiku or senryu is not sufficient, and thus I must squeeze a cherita onto a sticky.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

Halloween 2019

the ghoul wears a tie
his white skin masked
by tanning lotion

and a horror film plays
out before our eyes

Haiku Sticky #521

'Tis the season! A cherita since a haiku is just too terse.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

dollar store in October

picked-over candy
and goblins share the shelves

with plastic turkeys
red-glittered elves and other
things we won't need

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Image by Hokusai.

Text:

making an effort to sound
authentically pathetic

he leaves voice mail

without a doubt the cure
to his malady will include
large amounts of water

Haiku Sticky #520

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

Forty-Five...
self-loathing for the person
he's forced me to become

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

vintage bazaar
collectors in danger
of losing their heads

Haiku Sticky #519

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

paper birch woods
fall's yellow no substitute
for the sun

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Illustration from the Hokusai Manga.

Text:

October again
our reintroduction
to the blister

Haiku Sticky #518

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

early autumn
fisherman lands a
clump of milfoil

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

the ceilings high
the hallways dark

the discovery
of the sun in an
unexpected corner

Victorian home

Haiku Sticky #517

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

70th birthday
a wish for nothing
but a slice of pie

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

mid-September

fading summer sun
caters to the delusional

but the ice in the
eyes of the herring gull
demands to be heeded

Haiku Sticky #516

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

sleepless night
Harold's purple crayon
redraws the moon

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

backyard camping

I pretended to see
the dipper at the end
of her index finger

having no clue
I was near-sighted

Haiku Sticky #515

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

September cookout
salsa and a sweater
and busy bees

Happy Haiga Day!

The picture was created in response to a Spark challenge, and I added the haiku for today's haiga.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

the yearling's
capricious challenge
...daybreak

Haiku Sticky #514

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

errant wasp
a bottle of Windex
determines its fate


Whenever possible I try to lead errant creatures to a safe exit. Sometimes they refuse to follow directions and I regrettably have to reach for the window cleaner.

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

child on the beach

she bends to pick up
one last treasure

adding it to her bucket
filled to the top with all
the other "one last" treasures

Haiku Sticky #513

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

ripening peaches
each August outsmarted
by the wild ones

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

basic design
elements learned
unexpectedly

Poetry Friday--In Memory of Lee Bennett Hopkins

I decided to step away from my Poetry Friday hiatus to participate in a celebration to honor children's poetry champion, Lee Bennett Hopkins. Lee died on August 8, 2019.

I have used a line from his poem, "City," which is found in City I Love (Abrams, 2009):

A hydrant is my swimming pool.

It is the inspiration for a cherita and I've altered a photo by John Vachon, taken in 1941, to illustrate it.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

a hydrant is my swimming pool

a respite from city heat
mere minutes in the moment

laughter of friends the memento
--a valve waiting to be reopened
at a moment's notice

I never had the opportunity to meet Lee in person, but I did participate in a Highlights Foundation workshop back in 2017 in which he video conferenced with the attendees. I corresponded with him briefly about a poem being considered for a future anthology. Sadly, the project was subsequently canceled by the publisher and I wasn't able to brag, "I'm in a Lee Bennett Hopkins anthology!"

Find more tribute poems at The Poem Farm where Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is hosting today's special celebration #DearOneLBH. Many thanks to Jone MacCulloch for originally suggesting we share LBH's poems by using them as a springboard to something new.

Haiku Sticky #512

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

clap of thunder
the walk home darker
with each raindrop

Happy Haiga Day!

Haiku © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Photo © Andrea Murphy, used and altered with permission.

Text:

the resident cat
totally unreadable
...visiting dog

Haiku Sticky #511

Only the second week of August and already change is upon us.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

first turning leaf
first vee of geese
first fall funk

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. "Camellia and Bird" print by Hiroshige Andō.

Text:

upside down

we're still capable
of hearing the music

have we become
too reliant on our vision
to decipher the words?

Haiku Sticky #510

This past weekend, with two mass shootings within 24 hours, most people were shook to their cores. Still there are those who refuse to accept responsibility for their words. There are also those who say talking about gun control at such a time of grief is merely political opportunism. However, with more mass shootings in 2019, than the number of days expired thus far, when is there a time when someone affected by gun violence is not grieving?

On Facebook, many shared a poem, from three years ago, written by Brian Bilston, "America is a Gun." Read it here, if you somehow missed it.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

the gun defines us
will our hearts, too,
turn to steel

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Image courtesy NYPL Digital Collections.

Text:

on the cusp of summer

reacquainted with
voices of neighbors
through open windows

congeniality lasting
until the first heat wave

Haiku Sticky #509

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

heat wave
even the bananas
refrigerated

Happy Haiga Day!

There are daylilies known as chocolate daylilies!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

her first memory
was of tasting a chocolate
bunny

her first dream was to
become a chocolatier

now she gardens

Haiku Sticky #508

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

downsizing...
in the back of a drawer
a skeleton

Happy Haiga Day!

©, Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

shaved ice vendor
pink and blue all sold out
...summer heat

Haiku Sticky #507

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

July's news...
we're no longer beautiful
only damned

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Photo courtesy Pixabay.

Text:

July morning 6 am

robin loses its grip on
the worm that wriggles

back into the coolly
moist soil made fast
by roots of clover