Three poems for the third month

Continuing to kill time in Yasu, a particularly fecund ground for writing, this trio crawled out from beneath my hairline just in time for March and all it provides.

only one crow flies home
where 10s used to;
March winds blowing in changes.

cold March winds ruffle
a single crow's blackness;
I draw my own down tighter.

dusk; snow flurries ruffle my down
and that crow's blackness;
where shall we sleep?

Playing with words is what we are all up to in this Blog. Such fun, to balance sounds together to create images, real and imagined. Personally, I don't mind if a haiku is 3 or 4 lines long; either works if the poem itself works. But I do love punctuation. It is so vital a vehicle for carrying the sounds' meanings correctly.

Poetry

"If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?" Emily Dickinson

March 12 (Sun.) 小倉山が泣いている

SPRING March 12 (Sun.) 10:00 or 12:00 - 16:30 小倉山が泣いている Mt. Ogura Is Shedding Tears (MOIST, Part 7, in conjunction with ACE). Will go ahead in light rain. Rendezvous either 10:00 Kyogendo, Seiryouji, Saga for a morning of volunteer rubbish clearance on the mountain (gloves supplied); or 12:00 gate of Okouchi Sanso (top of path behind Nonomiya Jinja) for an afternoon of hiking high above Hozu-kyo and poem composition for 'Ogurayama Hyakunin Isshu' publication. You can do both. Both rendezvous spots are 15 mins. walk from JR Saga Arashiyama. Lunch: bring own bento/sandwiches/drink. There will also be a third rendezvous opportunity for those not wishing to climb the hill - 15:30 at Rakushisha (also 15' from JR Saga). From there, we will visit Saigyo's Well and Utazume Bridge, where Saigyo famously failed to come up with a tanka. 16:30 finish. Organizers: Stephen Gill & Okiharu Maeda.

日本語でどうぞ！

へイルストーン・ハイク・サークルの皆さん
日本人の皆さん、どうも静かですね！日本語でお詠みになった俳句はHotspot向けではないかも知れませんが、他の詩人の作品を読んで思い出したことや、ご感想など、また、ご自分の英ハイクを投稿される際に添える文章とか、イベントの提案とか、関西でのお勧めのハイク・スポっトとかは、英語で書かなければいけないということはありません。日本語でどうぞ！勇気を出して参加してください。まだ contributorになっていない方も他の人が投稿した英語ハイクへの'COMMENTS' のところをクリックすれば自分のコメントをのせることが出来ます。日本人の方のインプットがぜひもっと欲しいです。せっかく作品をHotspot に投稿してくださる方々への反応がないのも、残念ではありませんか。どうぞどしどしご投稿、コメントをお願いいたします。

I WAS BURIED

Breathing at last, it has taken me and others such a while to survive the correct penetration proceedure into Hotspot. Seems I can now take in the refreshing airs of poetry cum haiku. Nay, even add my salivaric syllables directly without Henry nor David digging them out and displaying them in their hot spot. Obviously, this calls for a celebratory offering:

buried, I come up, in spring,
like other budding hopes
nevertheless

Addendum: The above post was written a few days back out of the sheer joy of being found and redirected to the Place to Be. That joy overcame me, caused me to swoon, and lead my fingers to dance o'er the keys to the music swirling in my head. As such, I am not fully responsible for them (the above words, not my fingers). I assume the EDIT flag nailed to this post means that some souls feel the above was at the very least, unpoetic. Could be. After all, what is poetry? But, anyway, I now state in gray-and-white that no offence was intended, merely a little fun. But, more than poetry, humor is more dangerous in Correct Society. Poets are usually considered to be just a bothersome spot on the face of society, whereas humorists are scrubed away wherever they can be found (viz.: Danmark of late). Glad to be a harmless poet.

Ashiya International Haiku Grand Prix

Tito's haiku

Hydrangeas
Flowering on the tumulus -
A terrifying deep blue.

was awarded the Ashiya International Haiku Grand Prix 芦屋国際俳句大賞 on Feb. 11. Teiko Inahata (Kyoshi's granddaughter and president of the Nihon Dento Haiku Kyokai) is seated in kimono beside Kai Hasegawa (haiku selector for the Asahi Shimbun) on the left and Tsunehiko Hoshino (director of Haiku International Assoc.) is standing. The moral of the story: if you want to win a haiku prize, write in three lines!

A Tanka for Valentine's Day

For every tear
The blame was mine,
Yet she absolves me
With snowdrops -
She, my Valentine.

(South Kensington, London, Feb.'77)

A Triad for Winter by Richard Steiner

Once again, a Richard Steiner offering was found buried in the comments section. Unearthed, it reads ...

for dead cat's eyes,
crow lands in the fast lane
and quick becomes crows' meat itself

do I feel this snow's cold
deeper than this white-covered mound?
does she, too?

the Far East, so near yet
(her kisses just countless snowflakes now)
so far