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

Friday, December 5, 2025

Trade War News Haiku

trade war news
a spiderweb on the eaves
sagging with raindrops

Prize Winner, 27th Haiku International Association/HIA Haiku Contest


Judge's Commentary: The first line is clearly topical, a concern of the moment, while what follows is natural, observed. The spider’s web is, I imagine, on the eaves outside the poet’s house, where the heavy raindrops gather and threaten to destroy it. The web is the spider’s lair and means of existence, yet one that may soon give way. Our lives too are delicately wrought, and may be easily disrupted. In the meantime we can admire the light refracted in the glittering raindrops, before they fall. I note the syllable count of 3-7-5.

Thursday, December 4, 2025

Gazan Shelter Haiku

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLIV: "'cold rain all day..."

cold rain all day ...
in a Gazan shelter
bomb craters of sky



FYI: The Rover, December 3 2025: Winter in Gaza: Rain and Deadly Frost Plague the Displaced

Access to new tents and essential winter supplies is strictly limited, forcing residents to face the cold and damp after two years of destruction, famine, and forced displacement.

Wednesday, December 3, 2025

Gazan Baby's Face Haiku

first frost …
a Gazan baby’s face
in pixels



FYI: Judge's Comment: The first sign of winter is juxtaposed with a baby in Gaza, likely seen under terrible circumstances. Pixels are the tiny units – or pieces (a shadow word, surely) – that make up a digital image. News is always to hand, refreshed continuously if we choose to look, but the devices we use can make us feel remote, less empathetic. The author’s intent (to me anyway) is unclear, which adds another layer of interest.

And this haiku is a sequel to my haiku below:

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CLXXXVIII: "A Gazan baby"
written in response to Haaretz, May 20, 2025: Opposition MK Says Israel Risks Pariah Status, 'Sane State Doesn't Kill Babies as Hobby'

a Gazan baby
the glitter 
in a sniper's eye

Tuesday, December 2, 2025

Wrinkled Paris Mail Haiku

twilit shadows fall
on my wrinkled Paris mail
signed Yours forever



Added:

the dark side
of a winter moon ... 
between us, the hush


Added:

the full moon
blurred through winter fog
a vow not kept


Added:

this snowy night
alone at the Gold Mountain ...
owner, me and rice balls


Added:

snowonsnow ...
in a world of one color
the sound of coughing 


FYI: This haiku alludes to Basho's:

winter solitude 
inn a world of one colour 
the sound of the wind 


Added: 

rain-beaded wire fence 
a child migrant's long stare
at southbound geese

Thursday, November 27, 2025

Dare to Be Happy

leaves turn through
yellow, orange, red, purple ...
back home again !

thanksgiving prayer
with each word I get closer
to my inner child

No Politics sign
on the dining room wall ...
turkey and ham dinner

thanksgiving leftovers
this relief when things remain
half-spoken



FYI: Helen Rosner, The New Yorker, Nov. 24 2025: The Best Part of Thanksgiving, Bones and All

Thanksgiving, as it tends to be celebrated, is the most honest American holiday: all appetite, no apology... Thanksgiving just asks us to be hungry together, and then to eat. In any year, this would be a potently simple path to commonality; it might be the last truly unifying experience available to us as Americans. This year, sitting down for a feast in a time and a place and a nation that seems to be actively working to become more brutal, more indifferent, more willing to make people suffer for the sin of being poor or sick or born in the wrong skin or to the wrong parents or on the wrong side of an arbitrary line, the absurdity of it all is amplified. We feed others, we feed ourselves, and what else is there? At the table, at least, we can control something: the menu, the rituals, whatever small ferocious beliefs we hold about the holiday itself.


Added: Trump Empire, Inc, LXIV
written in response to the Convicted Felon's "Gilded Age" proclaim/obsession

                 the first
           Black Friday
        closing store sale
    shiny Christmas trees
made of Louis Vuitton bags


Added:

doors burst open
in the early morning
kids wail in strollers
with their jackets zipped tight
as Black Friday sale signs flap


Added:

one power blink
another and another
this Cyber Monday
I gaze up from the screen
to ten thousand stars


FYI: "Power blinks are brief service interruptions, but they’re typically caused by a fault (short circuit) on a power line or a protective device that’s working in reaction to the fault. Faults can occur through a variety of instances, like squirrels, birds or other small animals contacting an energized power line; tree branches touching a power line; or lightning and other similar events. In fact, when it comes to power disruptions caused by critters, squirrels 🐿️ 🐿️ 🐿️reign supreme."


Added: Trump Empire, Inc, LXV

tower after tower
of Trump 2028 hats
store closing sale 

Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Breadline Haiku

the breadline lengthens
new snow on bare branches
on shoulders, too



Added: 

a row of tents
snow slipping off bare branches
clings to faces


Added:

dust to dust ...
the priest's shadow lengthens
into the grave


Added:

my eardrums
stabbed by my son's rock and roll --
this wall between us

Monday, November 24, 2025

Friday, November 21, 2025

COP30 Senryu

No More Fairy Tales, XLVII

columns of smoke
YAK, YAK, YAK, blah, blah, blah
at COP30



FYI: BBC News, Nov. 21, 2025: Fire breaks out at COP30 as conference closes And The Guardian, Nov. 21 2025: Cop30 delegates ‘far apart’ on phasing out fossil fuels and cutting carbon


Added: Trump Empire, Inc, LXIII:

oak leaves drift down
through the smokestack haze ...
America first


FYI: The Washington Post, Nov. 7, 2025: U.S. skips COP30 climate conference, lobbies to sink new global deals

The Trump administration is using lobbying and economic threats to thwart emissions-cutting and environmental initiatives around the world.


“We want to bring our arguments to our opponents,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said, speaking at an energy summit on Oct. 22 hosted by the America First Policy Institute, a think tank aligned with Trump. “We’re going to come back to realistic views on energy, and President Trump is just all-in on American energy dominance. That’s a win not just for America, that’s a win for the world.” 


Added: No More Fairy Tales, XLVIII

COP30:
more fossil fuels
or green energy?
a question smeared in ash
from the burned Amazon



In 2024, fires were the largest driver of forest loss in the Amazon, ravaging an area larger than California in Brazil alone...

Between January and October 2025, fires burned 7.5 million acres (3 million hectares) of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, about 39 times the land area of New York City.

Thursday, November 20, 2025

Trump-Raged World Tanka

Trump Empire, Inc, LXII:

alone, putting
the Trump-raged world on mute
I take a sip
of morning black coffee
and listen to the snowfall



FYI: This is a sequel to the following poem:

One Year On

A notice pinned to the community library’s message board: The Post-Apocalyptic Fiction Section has been moved to Current Affairs.

Apocalypse Now
spine bent, margins yellowed …
on its last page
Trump 2028
inked in a shaking hand


(FYI: The Independent, Nov. 5 2025Eric Trump doesn’t rule out dad running for president again in 2028
President’s son also hints he would consider mounting a campaign himself ‘if there was no other choice and it got so bad that you had to do it’)


Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLIII: "'ceasefire' strikes"

heavenward
                    rising
fireballs
               fireballs
                              falling
heavenward


FYI: This could be read as a sequel to the following:

War Is Peace

pyramid
after pyramid of rubble ...
again "ceasefire" strikes

fireball by fireball ...
the length
of a Gazan night

smoky twilight
a cry sinks into the sound
of a gunshot

skeletal houses
these layers of silence
upon silence


Chen-ou Liu


Haaretz, Nov. 19 2025: Israeli Strikes Across Gaza Kill 28, Including Women and Children, Officials Say

Socialist Project, Oct. 28, 2025: The Illusion of a Ceasefire: Gaza Still Under Continuous Genocide

Despite the announcement of a deal between the Palestinian resistance movement and the Israeli regime, the latter continues to violate the ceasefire provisions. The world treats the ceasefire as if the genocide has ended, but the reality on the ground tells a different story: Gaza is in ruins; and starvation, displacement, and death continue as deliberate tools of genocide. This so-called ceasefire exists only in rhetoric; genocide continues while diplomatic actors debate who allegedly broke the deal.

And Haaretz, Nov. 20, 2025: Palestinian sources described Israel's border shifts and attacks as a 'measured experiment' to expand control and test Gaza residents and mediators, warning that even small changes could trigger mass displacement and erode trust in the fragile cease-fire


Added:

my drunken voice
fading further
into the hush of night
I wait, as ever
with Loneliness


Added:

childhood river's edge
a gray-haired man 
jumps into himself


Added:

a garbage bag
tangled in maple branches
autumn deepens


Added:

shout after shout
go back to where you came from
yellow leaves drifting