Risible Haiku / Selvas de Santana


The shooter enters:
Deadly earnest in resolve.
Laugh heartily, friends.

 


PROMPT #5

write a poem in which laughter comes at what might otherwise seem an inappropriate moment –
or one that the poem invites the reader to think of as inappropriate.
O.K. I did the prompt.  Now here is one I had in my drafts:

Selvas de Santana

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.
Baudelaire
 . . . Be ye therefore wise as serpents,
       and harmless as doves.
  Matthew 10:16

Eternal in divine recurrence,
Wisdom summons to her feast.
Harmless dove as wise as serpents;
Meets the singing crying beast.

Rhythmic vision’s dark assurance
Made symbolically complete.
Borne upon upon nocturnal currents:
Comes the undulating beat:

Fabulous jungles of her love
Are glimpsed—as apes, excited, howl.
Dazzling plumage from above:
Cloudbursts startle tropical fowl.

I wait, that white Abraxas dove,
Poised in delight before her gate
And ready to partake thereof,
Entranced in wild hypnotic state.

Now metaphor’s dark humid heat
Is loosed with her cascade of hair.
Black magic beckons:  Take and eat.
That all taboo may tremble there.

Red chiles drying in the sun
Distill the thatched-roof village fire.
Rhythm’s laughing children run
Then plunge in pools of pure desire.

IMAGE CREDIT: Annunciation 
http://www.matiklarweinart.com

Japonaiseries

Haiku

I dislike haiku
it leaves me quite unfulfilled
unlike other things.

I’m part Japanese
But I have to tell you this:
Haiku is dullsville.

When I was seven
I visited relatives
in Japan (by plane.)

haiku 3

The truth of it is
I prefer rhyming poems
with a clear message.

5 to 7 to 5
talk about a freakin’ DRAG
(…in Hokkaido mists)

haiku leaves

Leaves upon water
after harvest festival
make me want to sleep

 

Children flying kites:
Kyoto monastery yard;
Basho-San, I’m bored

 

Rain upon bamboo
circles upon the carp pool…
Hey—what’s on TV ?

Haiku 4www.badhaiku.com

Big League Hollyweird

Our Left Coast sighs in a stupor of red
from evergreen beaches to casting bed.
Hollywood’s big leagues deal their fatal blow;
vapid perspectives from stars in the know.
Glamour holds court: socialite solutions
when celebrities talk revolutions.
But red alone would bring our nation harm
cut loose from white and blue—and should alarm
the audience, who pay to see their plays
while questioning their wanton West-coast ways:
Designer-reds, a stain upon our land
where red with white and blue ought take a stand.
Such fluff from the stage set who roll in dough
is Hollyweird yeast—rising now to show
beautiful and swelling irrelevance
unaware of its insignificance:
Hypocrite pretenders all paid to act
in films where decent values are attacked.

Let us turn then from Thespis leering smile
to lace up cleats and run the gridiron mile
where other plays get tossed in endless zones
as commentators rave in heightened tones
while fools raise fists—then take the well-payed knee,
their pigskin antics sold to you and me.
Thrust a fat mike before their muscled face.
Note well the dull reaction, low as base.
These tattooed thugs make vain attempt, through speech
multitudes of more thuggish fans to reach.
The sad attempt to use their words in vain
lacks clear interpretation. Yall nome sain ?
The musclebound elect, who toss a ball
(as if their silly game was all in all)
should stick to sports; decline to state their views
lest fans their spectacle no longer choose.
Thus stars of field and screen steal every show,
and cause our dying culture worlds of woe.

Contemplate the suck:
Boring nature imagery
Abrupt line-endings

Fishy Haiku

Nippon carp pool scene
media feeding frenzy
fake news: foul sushi

Great orange savior
magnanimous provider
feeds outside the box.

Eastern harmony
while fake news carps at Donald . . .
Media: go to hell.

Let Eastern dawn illuminate harmonious meeting of brilliant minds. Dear Leader, Orange Savior of Mankind, makes great deals yet also is kind to gentle fish.  From his all-providing hand the sacred Koi enjoy a portion of benificence. Great leader and fellow-citizen Trump strides boldly into enemies’ flashbulbs, like vanguard of populist nationalism confronting weak running dogs and reactionary landlords of globalist tyranny. Fish who refuse his generosity must hide in cold deep, risking hunger and loneliness, condemned by the People’s glorious movement toward revolutionary rebirth.

Traitors and false journalists: you are FISH-FOOD.

ALL HAIL DEAR LEADER AND FORWARD-THINKING PEOPLE’S HERO DONALD J. TRUMP