Urban Senryu

English Original:

two strangers stop
in the middle of a road
dogs wagging their tails

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

Portuguese Translation by Henrique Pimenta

Dois estranhos param
no meio da estrada - cães
abanando o rabo.

Urban Haiku

New Year's Eve fireworks --
smoke and flames pour out
of a rooming house

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

Urban Haiku

Labor Day
a 100-meter lineup
at the food bank

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

Beats of Eros and Death: A Gogyohka Sequence

For Yosano Akiko and Martin Heidegger

mesmerized
by Akiko's Tangled Hair
I encounter
eros as infatuation
blooms into love

dumbfounded
with Heidegger's Being and Time
I view
death, shadowy confessor
as a kindred spirit

eros'
tangled hair's breadth
separates
me from poetry
the mind wanders on the page

I am
in a stew over death's
bad breath
my poems suck up all
of its decay ordor

roaming
the lanes of my mind
I can't find eros
back in the hut of my poem
I smell death

death sighs
there is no room for my misery
in this hut
you and eros have left no space!
I cry in silence

my mind
is empty while something dangles
between the legs
where is eros
my muse of poetry?

death lurks
about the room
taunting
how can I stop him
from reading my poems?

the moon spills
her light upon eros’ face
I see
the red shades of her longing
expressed in a poetic form

placing himself
beyond the pale of humanity
death casts
his frosty gaze at me
while I write poetry

eros sways
her body before my eye
I want to talk
men here watch or talk me
into something else... Poetry?

death sits
on my shoulders with feet crossed
pushing me
six feet under
I'm writing my jisei

eros winks at me
licking her lips
I can't wait
and lunge at her on paper
moaning poems in the making

death smiles
flashing big yellow teeth
and asks, how are you?
I ignore him
and keep writing poetry

moonrays
reveal our coupled body
eros and I
pulsate to the rhythms
of our gogyohka

Augustine claimed
there is a hole in the soul
I decide
to fill it with poetry
death gives me a cold look

into the depths
of the long dark night
eros and I
make love on the page
the birth of a poet

under
the burning gaze of death
I am nothing
for I’ve been living
through paper

moonstruck
eros snoops through my drawers
trying
to find poem-scented lingerie
worn by my "other women"

I can't believe
I still see you
death!
You've reached your expiration date
I dumped you one poem ago

at the end
of Are You Lonesome Tonight
I kneel
and propose to eros with poems
poor thing! she laughs

I stare
into somewhere for hours
death clears his throat
bringing me down to reality
I am just a silverfish

eros sighs
no use in figuring me out
everything
I say to you is poetry
I lament, what kind?

death answers
you can't hide from me
in poetry
for I am your reader
I cry, the only reader!

when kicking
at the embers of my life
I see
the sparks in eros' eyes…
my poetry title

Lynx, XXVI:1

Snow Haiku

between
whiteness of sky and earth
a black hearse moving

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Snow Haiku

first snowflakes…
squeezing another poem out
of my mind

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Spring Haiku

my Bruce Lee dream
fades in a spring breeze...
Tai Chi moves

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Time, Changer of Seasons: A Tanka Sequence

don't touch me
your hand looks dirty...
I feel
something inside me fraying
something I drape spring dreams in

the inner voice cries
jump as high as you can...
summer heat
makes my feet stick
in white asphalt

accidentally
stepping on my neighbor's shadow...
he yells
at me, illegal alien
I see southbound geese fly overhead

first snow
a black boy gazes up at the sky
until his face
is covered with snow...
time to dye my hair blond?

unemployed
due to no Canadian experience
my little brother
stands at full attention --
writing poems needs nothing but time

Lynx, XXVI:1

Note: The concluding poem was reprinted in The Toronto Star (Sep. 10, 2011)

Christmas Haiku

Christmas snow
can angels dance
on a pinhead?

Honourable Mention (Shintai Haiku Selection), World Haiku Review January 2011

A Haiku about Politics

an empty chair
at the Nobel ceremony ...
thoughts of Tank Man

Haiku of Merit (Vanguard Haiku Section), World Haiku Review January 2011

(note: The Tank Man is the nickname given by the international media of an young man who stood in front of a column of Chinese tanks on the morning of June 5, 1989.)

If on a Winter's Morning, an Immigrant: A Tanka Sequence

the bird
of my dreams was shot
dead
my shadow
wanders aimlessly

breathing
in unison with my shadow
I wait
for his time
slain by night

my life
has withered
verse by verse
in the rhythm
of short, long, short, long, long

if I die
without footprints left behind
I will be lost
among floating snowflakes
in a world of one color

Lynx, XXVI:1

Urban Haiku

Toronto zoo
the setting sun in the eyes
of a lionet

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

Urban Haiku

foreclosed home
a half-smashed jack-o'-lantern
by the curbside

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

Urban Haiku

his toothless smile...
dropping a two dollar coin
in his coffee cup

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

Moon Haiku

mid-autumn
festival in Toronto...
the full moon and I

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Moon Haiku

the fire
fades in a dying wolf's eyes
new moon

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

We Are Haunted by Names

Living on Ilha Formosa,
we are haunted by a war of Names,
fighting for the Republic of China/Taiwan.
We Chinese, we Taiwanese
will never end our civil war,
a bloody bloodless civil bore.

No Kamikazes crashing,
no Dr. Luther King murdered.
To Uncle Sam and Brother Momotaro,
We are the good soldiers.
Lacking the ghosts of History
we are haunted.

Winter 2010 issue of Rust+Moth

A Haiku about Art

kokeshi doll...
she monologues on the girl
she never bore

World Kigo Database (Kokeshi)

Note: Many people believe that early kokeshi were representations of girl children that were aborted or put to death after childbirth due to the inability to support a poor family of greater size. Even the word, ko-keshi (ko o kesu), can be loosely translated as "extinguished child" or “a child wiped out”. -- an excerpt from the section entitled Kokeshi

Urban Senryu

streetlights lighten
the sign that reads No Parking --
under it, police cars

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

Urban Senryu

a boy left crying
Black Friday shoppers rush
for flat screen TVs

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

A Haiku about Art

Everyone's a star and deserves the right to twinkle -- Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe 
tattooed on her right forearm
lone star twinkling

World Kigo Database (Marilyn Monroe)

A Haiku about Art

seeing Queen of the Nile...
I hum Elope to the Moon
in the dark

World Kigo Database (Nefertiti)

Note: Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile is a film directed by Fernando Cherchio. It’s a romanticized story about the Egyptian sculptor Tumos and his love for Nefertiti that is embodied in his famous work, the Nefertiti Bust. For further information, see the Wikipedia entry entitled Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile.

A Haiku about Art

Queen Nefertiti
within the walls of glass
our gazes meet

World Kigo Database (Nefertiti)

Note: The Neues Museum in Berlin keeps the 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti (c. 1370 BC – c. 1330 BC), the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. This sculpture draws more than one million visitors annually. For further information, see the Wikipedia entry entitled Nefertiti.

Christmas Haiku

Silent Night
interrupted by popping sounds…
blood on the snowman

Haiku News (Jan. 25)

Urban Senryu

Revision:
thanks for Henrique Pimenta's Help

Zen Garden
birds cannot read
Do no enter!

Original:

into Zen Garden
none is allowed to enter --
birds excepted

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

Snow Haiku

airwaves jammed
the blizzard brings the highway
to a halt

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

Relationship Tanka

for you said
you would come and see me
I wait under our tree
bathed in leafy shadows
night after night

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Moon Tanka

I am dead
if I were an African
unemployed
a fiftyish American
gazes at the hazy full moon

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

New Year Tanka

waning blue moon
my forty-seventh New Year's Day
I still fail
to become a phoenix
a heap of embers...

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Moon Tanka

seeing
the mid-autumn moon hangs low
over my attic
I'm in the mood to take bites
out of loneliness

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Relationship Tanka

I ask God
how could this happen to me?
Eve
is a spear
wedged between my ribs

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

The Cruelest Night: A Sijo

Loneliness seizes night with its teeth
and growls, I'll eat you up

Savoring the bright moon, flowering trees
my Li Po, my wine cup, and my dreams

until daybreak, it picks its teeth
with the thin threads of faint sunlight

Winter 2010 issue of Rust+Moth

Snow Tanka

loneliness
wears a T-shirt with passion
written in red...
snowing outside
I finally feel at peace

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

A Tanka about a Child

I see
myself in a child
playing
hide-and-seek with himself
under the scorching sun

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Snow Tanka

the space
between falling snowflakes
the black
between fading stars
I can't see what I see

A Handful of Stones (Jan. 22)

I've Dreamed of You: A Sijo

You come and go with no traces left
as the flame of my heart rises and falls

You laugh and cry with no sounds heard
as the beat of my heart waxes and wanes

Distressed in the wake of a dream
I hear time passing in the sound of snow

Winter 2010 issue of Rust+Moth.

Urban Senryu

dimly lit room
face next to face they watch
online videos

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

Urban Haiku

Easter morning
a pad-down at the airport
something erected

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

Urban Haiku

fleeting clouds
sale flyers scattered
here and there

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

Urban Senryu

ER waiting room
three white kids stare at me
I smile back

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

A Senryu about Thanksgiving

looking past
an Angelina Jolie face --
Princess Turkey

World Kigo Database (thanksgiving USA)

A Haiku about Religion

Kipling wrote, East is East...
a minaret overlooks
St. Mary's parish

World Kigo Database (Rudyard Kipling)

Note: L1 alludes to The Ballad of East and West by Rudyard Kipling

“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face,

tho' they come from the ends of the earth!”

A Haiku about Chinese New Year

passing Chinatown...
the scent of nian gao wafts
my way home

World Kigo Database (New Year Food)

Note: Chinese New Year's rice cake (Chinese: Nian gao 年糕) is a special kind of cake made of sticky rice. Eating nian gao symbolizes elevating oneself higher in each coming year.

Night Colors

in the black heart of night

I lie in bed fretting over
blue injuries of the past

bobbing up and down
in the white ocean of time
my mind drifts towards ...

the edge of this gray world

Winter 2010 issue of Rust+Moth.

Butterfly Haiku

Descartes said, I think ...
does the butterfly recall
its dream?

World Kigo Database (Chuang-tzu, Zhuangzi)

A Haiku about Jesus

a vigil candle
drowns its flame ...
wooden Jesus

World Kigo Database (Christmas and Jesus)

Winter Haiku

winter sun
a homeless woman asleep
by the stone Buddha

World Kigo Database (Buddha Gautama)

Autumn Tanka

at the far end
a dark green sea
kisses azure sky --
I stand on the shore
of an autumn dusk

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Relationship Tanka

I waste
my life away thinking
about her touch
that entered my dreams...
one poem after another

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

A Haiku about Zhuangzi

reading Zhuangzi...
I smile at the goldfish
smiling back

World Kigo Database (Chuang-tzu, Zhuangzi)

A Haiku about Franz Kafka

a cockroach crawls
through Franz Kafka for Dummies...
first day of spring

World Kigo Database (Franz Kafka)

A Haiku about Lâm Văn Tức

Tunisian unrest --
flames enveloped Lâm Văn Tức
Saigon, 1963

World Kigo Database (Personal Names)

Note: Lâm Văn Tức (1897 – 11 June 1963), a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk, set himself on fire performing a ritual suicide in protest against the persecution of Buddhists by the US-backed corrupt South Vietnamese government. The photo of his self-immolation was circulated widely and brought close attention to the larger structural and ideological causes of the Vietnam War.

Tunisian unrest began in December, 2010 after Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old unemployed university graduate who sold fruit and vegetables on the street without a permit, set himself on fire in a suicide attempt after police confiscated his grocery cart.

White Night

I hurl nostalgia
into a corner of my heart
feeling the weight of a night

January 2011 issue of Four and Twenty

Heart Haiku

two hearts
beat to each other:
street dog and I

January / February 2011 "heart(s)" Haiku Thread of Sketchbook

Heart Haiku

her faraway look…
balloon hearts flutter
in the spring breeze

January / February 2011 "heart(s)" Haiku Thread of Sketchbook (Editor's Choice Haiku)

Heart Haiku

her breasts
the space
between our hearts

January / February 2011 "heart(s)" Haiku Thread of Sketchbook

Heart Haiku

I love you...
she bites half the chocolate heart
I brought her

January / February 2011 "heart(s)" Haiku Thread of Sketchbook (Editor's Choice)

Karina Klesko's comment: Chen-ou Liu's haiku is symbolic of true love. Sharing of the heart, the life force. He takes only half as it takes two parts to complete them as one.

Spring Tanka

two unknown birds
coupling and uncoupling
on the path
through the spring sky ...
shadow and I stand still

Winter 2011 Issue of Simply Haiku

Snow Tanka

snowflakes
fall upon snowflakes –
I clean out
what's inside my mind
stuff it with white plum blossoms

Winter 2011 Issue of Simply Haiku

Autumn Tanka

autumn rain
pattering against the window
steadily
I put it to rest
in a verse of tanka

Winter 2011 Issue of Simply Haiku

Sunday Afternoon: A Haibun

For Benny

A gray screen suddenly pops into the scene of a dark alleyway as muffled footsteps approach a door. The door is left slightly open. The shaky, hand-held camcorder captures a cat that is let out of the house. Pan to a teenage boy standing nearby and pan back to the cat. A hand-held gun appears in the frame and is pressed toward the cat's forehead. Zoom-in. The gun is fired; the cat falls to the ground. The camcorder closely follows the cat's convulsing body. 

rain on the roof ...
he wonders

how to kill time

Winter 2011 Issue of Simply Haiku

Monday Morning: A Haibun

I see a yellow leaf being shaken loose and blown away from the maple tree on my front lawn. It floats along the sidewalk. Suddenly, the wind whips it about violently, and sends it soaring skyward.

autumn rain
comes drop by drop...
thoughts of her

Winter 2011 Issue of Simply Haiku

Autumn Tanka

autumn gust
unfolds my book of memories
heart-written
in blank verse...
silent, still, the moon

winter 2010 issue of Ribbons

If on a Summer’s Night, a Sojourner: A Tanka Prose

neon night
in Yonge-Dundas Square --
alone
I mingle
with faceless crowds

Everyone looks like they're connected to someone or something: talking on their cell phones, or growing plastic vines attached to tiny iPods from their ears. Still, others are steely-eyed, mouth-set and concentrated on getting where they are going.

in Toronto
the meeting place
I've nothing to do --
one two three...
people pass me by

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Note: The origin of the name "Toronto" comes from the Huron word toran-ten, which literally means meeting place.

Three Ifs by a Would-be Tankaist: A Tanka Prose

yellow leaves
whirled by the wind
struggling in mid-air...
my tanka is conceived
at the sight

I, too, dislike it: too short, too understated, and too difficult to write. But, it gives me joy if read, pride if published, and assurance if paid. After all, I discover in it a hiding place for my feelings.

shades of memories
fly about, collide, and land
I pick them up
and put them to rest
in the grave of tanka

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

New Year Senryu

New Year's fortune
cookie reads Be Happy!
bird droppings

Daruma Pilgrims (Mikuji sacred lots)

New Year Senryu

fortune cookie
on my New Year dinner plate:
don't ask, don't tell

Daruma Pilgrims (Mikuji sacred lots)

A Kyoka

gazing up
at an eagle hovering
in the sky
I think of
kung pao chicken for dinner

Prune Juice, #5

A Senryu

arguing over costs...
a man of few words
in the coffin

Prune Juice, #5

Urban Senryu

traffic jam…
inside the SUV
silence

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)

Urban Haiku

a 5k
traffic jam on 401
a V of geese honks

World Kigo Database (Urban Haiku and Senryu)
The Toronto Star (Aug. 24, 2011)

The Human Stain: A Haiku Sequence

ten-right ticket
what did you say? she yells
first falling petal

a boy pokes his head
out the window, shouting chink
summer heat
sometimes, you people
the officer stares at me
withered stalks

the judge delivers
arguments about racism
snow on snow

December 2010 issue of Taj Mahal Review

Winter Light: A Haiku Sequence

daybreak
the wrinkles deepen
in my dream

December rose…
looking at the photos
of my youth

before the altar
don't close your ears to my cry
wooden Jesus

edge of the bridge
I measure the weight
of snowflakes

pass each other
without casting glances
footprints in new snow

twilight
my shadow one step
ahead of me

power failure --
losing the world
I start to see myself

December 2010 issue of Taj Mahal Review

Loneliness Tanka

nothing new
under the sun --
I wage
one fight after another
against a poet’s loneliness

Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine

Holiday Tanka

cut, fold, tape.
the girl does it again
and again:
gift-wrapping
her life in holiday seasons

Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine

Christmas Haiku

Silent Night…
KKK snowman with dark eyes
holding a noose

Haiku News (Jan. 8, 2011)

Love Haiku

I love you...
that hazy moon
in Rashomon

14th Mainichi Haiku Contest (2010)

A Haiku about Leaves

a fork in the road ...
I stand still
to hear the leaves

Revision, Honorable Mention, the Winter Moon Awards for Haiku 2010

Judge's Comment: I could make this symbolic: what do the trees tell me, which direction should I take; but I choose to imagine myself standing at the fork, closing my eyes, just listening to the sound of leaves before I move on. I like that the poem is larger than itself.

Nostalgia Haiku

Pacific shore ...
my poem 

folded into a boat

Honorable Mention, the Winter Moon Awards for Haiku 2010

Featured on Per Diem of The Haiku Foundation website

Judge's Comment: What will the poet do next? Leave the poem to the sea to be collected by a wave? I’m invited to wonder. To decide for myself.

Winter Tanka

constantly
standing before the attic
mirror
on these winter days
makes me feel less alone

Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine

A Senryu

watching Survivor...
they all wear Che Guevara
T-shirts

Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine

Scarecrow Haiku

first day of fall
the scarecrow greets
another sunrise

World Kigo Database (Scarecrow, kakashi)

New Year Tanka

New Year’s Eve
my half-finished poetry drafts
pile up --
I hone my skill and fold them
into origami rabbits

Eucalypt Challenge, #9

New Year Tanka

the first day
of the Year of the Rabbit:
the Chinese
stand in a snaking line
at every lottery store

Eucalypt Challenge, #9

Note: 2011 is the 4708th Chinese year, the Year of the Rabbit. According to Chinese astrology, people born in the Year of the Rabbit are the luckiest among "the twelve animals.”

New Year Haiku

English Original:

New Year’s morning
standing before the mirror　
it’s me, and yet …

Japanese Translation by Hidenori Hiruta

元旦の鏡に映るは我なりや

Akita International Haiku Network (Jan. 3, 2011)

New Year Haiku

English Original:

New Year’s Eve
a white rabbit falls　　　　　
into my dream

(Note: 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit, which is said to be fortunate)

Japanese Translation by Hidenori Hiruta

大晦日夢にあらはる白兎

注：２０１１年は兎年で、幸運であると言われている。

Akita International Haiku Network (Jan. 3, 2011)

Hertory of Love: A Haiku Sequence

rocks
under the melting snow
last love

moonlight
through spring rain clouds
her eyes

her hair
spilling over us
summer stream

harvest moon
floating in our glasses
her mouth on mine

her ashes
vanishing into the sky
first snowflakes

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Note: "Hertory" is a new word coined in the late 1960s, referring to history (re-stated as "his story") written from a feminist perspective.

Zen Mind: A Haiku Sequence

Zen class...
the rectangular shape
of blue skies

the humming
of an air conditioner—zazen

between
the ticking of the clock...
scent of Chanel

fleeting clouds
at an autumn sunset
why zazen?

November/December 2010 issue of Sketchbook