Chen-ou Liu's Translation Project: First English-Chinese Haiku and Tanka Blog

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Wrinkled Face Tanka

winter moon
on my wrinkled face
in the window ...
I peel off loneliness
in the form of tanka

Cattails, 4, January 2015

Monday, January 26, 2015

Morning Mist Tanka

the morning mist
shrouding me from my past
this tenth winter
my body in one place
my heart in another

Cattails, 4, January 2015

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Suspended between Life and Death

On my way to work at the meat factory, a dewy green leaf is shaken loose and blown away from a maple tree. It floats along the sidewalk. Suddenly, a wind whips it about and sends it soaring skyward. Then, the wind stops and the leaf falls to the ground.

evening chill ...
pressing the razor
against my skin

Cattails, 4, January 2015

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Leap of Faith?, A Tanka Prose

After a morning walk, I stand in the front yard, looking at the bare maple tree. It relinquishes the riches of the season without grief, going deep into its roots for sleep and renewal for the new year.

the smell of cold air
in my attic room:
a desk, a chair
and a single bed
with piles of resumes

Contemporary Haibun Online, 10:4, January 2015

Monday, January 19, 2015

Christmas Eve Haiku for Pope Francis

In his Christmas message, Pope Francis warned against "a lust for power, hypocritical double lives and the lack of spiritual empathy among some men of God."

Repent,Ye Sinners!
winter rain sweeping
the church steps

NeverEnding Story, December 24, 2014

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Get-Well Card Haiku

a get-well card
between the pages of Job
winter light

Take-out Window: Haiku Society of America Members' Anthology

Note:  below is excerpted from the Wikipedia entry, The Book of Job:
The Book of Job (/ˈdʒoʊb/; Hebrew: אִיוֹב Iyov) is ... the first poetic book in the Christian Old Testament. Addressing the theme of God's justice in the face of human suffering -- or more simply, "Why do the righteous suffer?" -- it is a rich theological work, setting out a variety of perspectives.

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Old Clock Haiku

my night punctuated
by hometown memories …
old clock ticking

This World: Haiku Society of America Members' Anthology

Ring Tones Senryu

poetry reading
the summer air alive
with ring tones

Prune Juice, 14, November 2014

Friday, January 16, 2015

Cocksure Air Kyoka

the critic
who has the cocksure air
of a squatter
thinks he owns
the reading space of my poem

Prune Juice, 14, November 2014

Name Change Tanka

written in response to The Colour Of Democracy: Racism In Canadian Society by Frances Henry & Carol Tator

on his mailbox
my friend's name, Ganguli
changed to Gangulireen
in this new suburb
snow falling on snow


Note: Ganguli is an Indian family name of a Bengali Brahmin caste.With "uli" crossed out, "Gangulireen" in L3 looks like "Gangreen," which sounds like "gangrene."

Thursday, January 15, 2015

"Slanted Eyes" Tanka

behind my back
they whisper slanted eyes ...
in a dream
I unzip my skin,
put on another


Highly Commended, 5th Kokako Tanka Competition (2014)


Note: In "behind my back," the effect of verbal abuse is communicated in striking fashion, through a dream, which somehow connects us all. -- commentary by the judge, Owen Bullock, Kokako, 22, 2015

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Racialized Chinese Canadians, A Haiku Sequence

written in response to The Accidental Asian  by Eric Liu, Bill Clinton's  deputy domestic policy adviser and speech writer

chinks go home!
all she sees in the mirror
are slanted eyes

chinks go home!
the spit on my face
cold as snow

chinks go home!
again and again
he scrubs his hand

Whispers, December 10 2014

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Monday, January 12, 2015

Temple Square Tanka

Written in response to the official disclosure: The Mormon founder Joseph Smith had up to 40 wives, some already married and one only 14 years old.

in twilight
Joseph Smith and Emma
holding hands
on Temple Square, I stand firm
with my drunken shadow

NeverEnding Story, December 15, 2014

Sunday, January 11, 2015

A Short Story about Love, A Tanka Prose

at her window
two shadows entwine
in one embrace ...
like vampires sucking blood
from my memories

Sitting at my desk, swathed in darkness, I use the new telescope to zoom in on them – watch her rise and fall as the man guides her slow circular movements. His hands slide up from her hips to her breasts, continue to her shoulders, altering her rhythm, pulling her down onto him...

I open the drawer, take out a pocket knife, rush down to the basement parking lot, and find his piercing red Jaguar. Crouching, I plunge the tip of the knife into one of his tires with climactic fierceness; then I stab and I stab...the second, third, and fourth.

I rip out
each page of our life
this sultry night
the dream soaks my bed
with her moaning

hedgerow, 12, December 12 2014

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Night-Entangled Maple Tanka

alone again
at my bedroom window ...
branch by branch
the cold moon releases
the night-entangled maple

Frameless Sky,1, December 2014

Friday, January 9, 2015

Thursday, January 8, 2015

#JeSuisCharlie (French for I am Charlie) Haiku

One of the things a cartoonist is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions -- paraphrasing Salman Rushdie

under
the
Paris
sky
blood
stains
in
the
shadow
of
a
minaret

NeverEnding Story, January 7, 2015

Note:  #JeSuisCharlie: Twitter solidarity follows killings at Charlie Hebdo by John Bowman:
In the wake of Wednesday's attack on the Paris office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie — French for "I am Charlie" — was trending in France, Canada and the U.K., with more than 130,000 mentions on Twitter....

East Meets West

 written in response to the 2014 Ottawa Terror Attack (a series of shootings at Parliament Hill, Ottawa)

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet
-- Rudyard Kipling, opening line of "The Ballad of East and West"

a flurry of white
against the sunset sky
the smell of blood

gunshots from afar --
on the wall of a mosque
Go home spray-painted

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Absence Haiku

the shape
of her absence
new moon


Honorable Mention, 18th Annual Mainichi Haiku Contest (2014)
Galaxy of Dust: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2015

Child Is Father of the Man, A Haibun

winter twilight ...
Father stands firm
in diapers

He can't remember what he had for dinner but can still hear The Spring Rain Will Come Again. It was playing when Sarah Rose danced topless on the bar at Janus in his freshman year of high school. Now, he mumbles to himself, Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day, my boy...

A Hundred Gourds, 4:1, December 2014

Monday, January 5, 2015

Dead of Winter Tanka

alone again
in the dead of winter            
memories                                           
tiptoe back to the night
of my emigration

A Hundred Gourds, 4:1, December 2014

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Friday, January 2, 2015

This Drifting Life, A Haibun

I am here -- and not here. Every night I sleep in Taipei, but wake up in Ajax. My mind is winged by a yearning for things not yet lost. It flies into the garden of hometown memories.

between morphine drips ...
feeling the weight
of cold air

Haibun Today, 8:4, December 2014

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Map and GPS Senryu

a fork in the road ...
she opens the map
while I read GPS


Note: Below is excerpted from the comment by the Judge (Jim Kacian):

The fork, we are led to believe, is not solely in the road. This is the sort of experience that reveals character, as both of these actors already know (Author's Note: L1 could refer to Robert Frost's ever-famous poem, "The Road Not Taken").

NeverEnding Story Tanka

first sunrise ...
my midlife drained of all
but hungry
for these magic words,   

NeverEnding Story

PoemHunter, January 1 2015