Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

day at the shore

the blinding reflection
of sun on the surf

motion, smells,
the squark of gulls,
and, his imagination

Happy Haiga Day!

After seeing what I refer to as "the push heard round the world," I dug up this illustrated poem that I hadn't posted before because I had grown tired of posting poems of repugnance and recompense.

The repugnancy, unbelievably, continues to increase, and really, some sort of payback is necessary for all the damage done to our country's reputation. If you saw the video, you couldn't help but note that the featherless peacock looked clueless standing in the crowd of legitimate leaders.


© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

The Emperor

Respect
is not a suit an emperor
can have tailor made.
The nakedness of
his insecurity
results in barely
suppressed giggles.
Giggles lead to guffaws.
And where might
guffaws lead?

Poetry Friday--Not a Mass Poetry Festival Review

I had all intentions of posting a review of last weekend's Mass Poetry Festival, but I just couldn't get it together for this week. Maybe next week...

For today, I have a woodcut project poem from my ongoing series. The poems use woodcut illustrations found in Chap-Books of the Eighteenth Century. I'm still playing with the cherita form. (Cherita is a mini-poem of three stanzas. The first is one line long and sets a scene. The second and third stanzas are two and three lines and tell a story.)

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

mid-May afternoon

birds in territorial
disputes

the newly coupled
unaware there
are birds

Be sure to head over to A Teaching Life where Tara is the Round-Up hostess with the mostess.

Poetry Friday--Saint George

The feast of Saint George is celebrated on April 23, this coming Sunday. (April 23, 303 is the reported date of his death.) Saint George, is the patron saint of England, Portugal, Romania, and several other countries, and the story of his slaying the dragon has been told and retold over the centuries. Saint George and the Dragon: A Golden Legend adapted by Margaret Hodges from Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman, is a modern children's classic. It was awarded the Caldecott Medal in 1985.

My poem for today references the sainted man, but is not directly related to his story. It was really written as a woodcut project poem.

So as not to distract you by the vocabulary, let me explain that borborymus is a stomach/intestinal noise (plural = borborygmi). A great word, isn't it? (I believe I originally was introduced to it by Janet B.)

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:
Dragons

A baleful growl at the edge
your consciousness? Or,
simply the borborygmus
of your also-dozing cat?

The air warm, rising,
quivering, with the energy
of a dragon's breath?
Or a fever of your brow?

A swamp crawling with
reptilian creatures hideous
and noisome? Or officious
expressions of power?

We are all of us St. George
daily faced with the task
of curing the imagined and
slaying the borborygmi.

Learn more about Saint George in this book published 110 years ago; click here.

I wrote another Saint George poem two years ago, see it here.

The lovely Tabatha is hosting the Round-Up at The Opposite of Indifference.

Poetry Friday--Woodcut Project

This week I've been working on some woodcut project poems. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Here are two. The first is not quite successful visually, but I like the poem.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

her schedule filled
she always manages
a daydream


This next one actually depresses the hell out of me. In the background I have forest facts from Save America's Forests. But all aspects of the environment are in danger. Enough said.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

when greed
has overcome need
how to survive
if our only pathway
ends in annihilation


Look for a brighter batch of poems at the Poetry Friday Round-Up being held at Today's Little Ditty.

Happy Haiga Day!

Playing with image and text and effects--it's always a process of discovery!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

late winter walk
the amity of their dogs
infectious

Happy Haiga Day!

For Valentine's Day, a tanka. Asters symbolize love.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

in the garden or
among a graveyard's stones
asters
overwinter, germinate
unfalteringly present

This is also part of my woodcut project. Here's the original, from a chapbook of riddles:

Don't you love the title: A Whetstone for Dull Wits?

Poetry Friday--"Advice for the Modern Woman in February"

Valentine's Day will be here on Tuesday. I wanted to write a holiday poem, continue with my woodcut print series, and, I was feeling a little snarky. This is the result:

Click on the image to enlarge. © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Source of the woodcut illustration.

Text:

Advice for the Modern Woman
in February

If there's snow don't look for love,
for arrows won't fly true.

Wait for hyacinths to bloom
with all their sweet perfume.

Gently bend to take a whiff.
Present Eros with a target.

One that is too broad to miss
by a flying little god-let.

If, perchance, he misses the mark,
love wasn't meant to be.

Sue the god for incompetence,
then earn your Ph.D.


I've been forcing hyacinth bulbs indoors. So far, two have bloomed and two more are shooting up nicely. (I've posted about hyacinths many times in the past, look for the label on the right.) I suppose if the modern woman leans over a bulb being forced on the windowsill, Cupid could take aim. Still, it's nicer to be in love, outdoors, in the spring.

Katie at The Logonauts will be hosting the Round-Up this week. See you there!

Happy Haiga Day!

&3169; Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Click here for the source of the illustration.

Text:

feet up
the lure of a tale
this winter day

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.