Bigger Splash Tanka

In memory of David Hockney (9 July 1937 – 11 June 2026)

Inspired by "A Bigger Splash" (1967)

a cloud of droplets

from the blue swimming pool

and the diver gone ...

how long a life can linger

after the one who made it

NeverEnding Story, June 12 2026 

FYI: The New Yorker, June 16 2026: David Hockney’s Hidden Depths: Remembering a master of color and light who understood life’s shadows.

One of his best-known paintings, “A Bigger Splash,” which Hockney made in 1967 and which became part of the permanent collection of the Tate in 1981, shows a modernist house flanked by a pair of skinny palm trees, before which extends a brilliant-blue swimming pool equipped with a yellow diving board. There is no one in sight, but the surface of the water bursts with evidence of someone having just dived in, disappearing into the cool aqueous depths. The painting is suggestive of heat, with the palm trees offering no shade, and of a full-body relief from that heat: someone—probably male, probably young, almost certainly beautiful—is about to emerge from the pool’s sublimity, gasping with pleasure.

...what Hockney’s best works can make a viewer feel: the splash of water that, in reality, takes seconds to dissipate, captured over weeks of careful brushwork, then held in place forever on the canvas. Just as Hockney did, these works draw us in with their winning superficies only to hold us rapt with their enduring depths.

Added: Politics of Distraction, X

At an outdoor briefing, "military operation," "little excursion," "self-defense strikes" amid camera clicks in unseasonal heat.

smoky haze

war after war

of this wor(l)d

FYI: NBC News, June 11, 2026: Trump says U.S. will hit Iran ‘very hard’ tonight and take ‘total control’ of Iran’s oil industry.

And this gembun is a sequel to the following:

Politics of Distraction, IX:

blocking the blockade

to break the strait blockade ...

in gathering dark

a gin-soaked flight to nowhere

through the un/truth of this war

NeverEnding Story, April 18 2026

Added: Politics of Distraction, XI

the flat TV

mounted on the side wall

of a bookstore

blasting, a great deal!...

layers of dust on Trump books

Added: Politics of Distraction, XII

flip-flopping

on the ceasefire deal

amid camera clicks --

a dove's feather caught spinning

in the White House's wire fence

Added:

thunder rumbling

his talk of war turns dark

then darker still

Added:

a skinny girl

drags her Disney Princess

by its hair ...

the doll’s eyeless face turns 

to the orphanage window

Added:

lying on her back

arms and legs splayed open …

a refugee dead

then the shelter left alone

with its rows of empty beds

Cinematic Fray Tanka

for the 98th Oscars ceremony

in dim light

battle after battle …

muffled cries

screams, laughter, clapping hands

in this cinematic fray

NeverEnding Story, March 16 2026

FYI: L2 is a thematic and emotional play on the title of Paul Thomas Anderson’s comedic political thriller, One Battle After Another, a major movie with 13 nominations and six wins including Best Picture.

Added: Politics of Distraction, II

The Czech Shopkeeper Story Re-told

A row of neon shop windows in Washington, D.C., each holding a full moon. Above the doorframe hangs a sign: "Prices are stable. Everything’s fine."

fireball-lit sky

the reach of winter night

over Tehran

FYI: The title alludes to the parable of the shopkeeper (or greengrocer) in Václav Havel's 1978 essay “The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe,” where a shopkeeper posts the slogan “Workers of the world, unite!” to signal obedience to the system; such everyday rituals help sustain political lies.

This is a sequel to the first entry of  Politics of Distraction

oil-dark clouds

hang heavy over Tehran —

reporters squint

at row after row of black bars

in Epstein’s redacted files

NeverEnding Story, March 10 2026

(FYI: Politics of Distraction is my new writing project. The title is taken from Al Jazeera: February 26, 2026: Epstein and the politics of distraction

Scandal individualises corruption, creating a spectacle that redirects anger away from structural power)

Added: Politics of Distraction, III

Ramadan moon

sliced by one jet's contrail

after another

ink-dark columns rising

from tankers near Hormuz

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLXXXVII: "Ramadan sunset"

the last glow

of Ramadan sunset —

fingers lick hummus 

Added: 

Make Love, Not War...

candles in drifting snow

flicker, yet hold

FYI: "Make love, not war" is a legendary 1960s counterculture slogan advocating for peace, love, and sexual liberation over violence and conflict, primarily opposing the Vietnam War.

Added:

our street overflows

with dogs, laughter and snow balls

first day of March break

Added:

snow on snow ...

the shadow curls up

with me

Added:

a raven settles

on the burnt olive branch—

winter deepens

Added:

both sides

of a border crossing

honking geese

Clown Tanka

street theatre improv:

in gathering dusk a clown

marches back and forth

jumps up and down, sways left and right

to cast off his shadow

German Translation

Stegreifstraßentheater:

in aufkommender Dämmerung stapft

ein Clown vor und zurück

springt auf und ab, schwingt nach links und rechts

um seinen Schatten loszuwerden 

Chrysanthemum, 34, 2025

Stick Figures Tanka

This Brave New World, CXX

spots of dried blood

in a soldier's diary:

a stick-figures sketch

shows recruits as "bait"

to shoot down a sniper drone

NeverEnding Story, January 16 2025

FYI: 

War is a defeat for humanity. 

-- Pope John Paul II

And 

War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

-- Bertrand Russell

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CLIX: "breaking news" 

breaking Gaza news

my friend's kin, far away

in life as in death

FYI: This is a sequel to the following entry, CXXII: "bombed schools"

a drift of olive leaves ...

my Gazan friend's kin living

in various bombed schools

NeverEnding Story, November 4 2024

France 24, Jan. 10, 2025: Gaza death toll 40 percent higher than recorded, Lancet study estimates

A study in the medical journal The Lancet estimated that 64,260 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, which would mean the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip had under-reported the number of deaths to that point by 41 percent.

And Democracy Now, Jan.16: Israel Kills at Least 70 More Palestinians in Hours After Ceasefire Deal Announced

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CLX: "the weight of winter rain"

pause between fireballs

the weight of winter rain

on ripped tents

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CLXI: "skeletal school"

silhouetted

against Gaza's ashy skies ...

a skeletal school

FYI: Democracy Now, Jan.6: American Historical Association Votes Overwhelmingly for Resolution to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CLXII: "raven after raven"

smoky ruins

raven after raven

circling

Added: Between Heaven and Hell, XXI

the downward tilt

of his chin and forehead

and the knitted eyebrows ...

Convicted Felon's official portrait

[l]awfully like his mug shot

Guernica Exhibit Haiku

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXXI: "Guernica"

for Pablo Picasso who claimed that "art is a lie that makes us realize the truth."

a keffiyeh-draped youth

gazes at grey-haired men in kippahs

Guernica Exhibit

NeverEnding Story, June 22 2024

 

FYI: Probably Pablo Picasso's most famous work, Guernica -- 11.5 feet tall by 25.5 feet long -- is an eye-catching, gigantic 1937 protest/"certainly his most powerful political statement, painted as an immediate reaction to the Nazi's devastating casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War." (Pablo Picasso.org: Guernica, 1937)

Added:

scorching heat

grandpa remembers the smell

of wartime defeat

Added:

reading War and Peace ...

old neighbors' quarrel drifts

through my fence

Teenaged Niqābi Haiku

her long gaze

at The Birth of Venus …

a teenaged niqābi

tsuri-dōrō,  16, July/August 2023

Longlisted Poem, 2023 Touchstone Awards 

Spring Day Mural Haiku

No More Fairy Tales, XXVII

spring day mural:

green paint sprayed across the wall

behind leafless trees

NeverEnding Story, March 212024

FYI: A definition haiku or tanka, a subgenre of definition poetry, begins or ends with a short phrase or statement, followed or preceded by a description of the phrase or statement in concrete imagery. The visually and emotionally suggestive power of a definition haiku or tanka is NOT rooted in the explanatory relationship between its two parts, but in the "dialectical relationship" between them.

For more examples about "definition haiku," see To the Lighthouse: Definition Haiku and Tanka

Added:

mayor's office:

"Yes, We Can"  hangs in the frame 

above the desk

and reed orchids languish

in a dusty corner

Added: 

engineering 101:

not a tunnel 

of icy-dark equations 

but an AI-lit foundry

of 3-D ideas

The Scream Haiku

alone 

yet not alone …

The Scream and I 

         

tsuri-dōrō, 16 - July/August 2023

Teenaged Niqābi Haiku

her long gaze 

at The Birth of Venus … 

a teenaged niqābi 

tsuri-dōrō, 16 - July/August 2023

What is worth more?

Art or life? Shouting with her fist raised in the air, the pink-haired climate activist turns around, throwing one can of tomato soup after another at Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers. A pin-drop silence envelops the gallery.

She glances around the room for a moment or two, as though interested in these confused but curious people. Then with legs crossed, she sits silently on the floor and glues her hands to the wall. The clicking of cameras becomes loud ... and louder. 

beams of sunlight

a polar bear and her cub

drift on an ice-floe

Cattails, April 2023

Melting Clocks Senryu

Dali's Melting Clocks 

on the waiting room wall ...

heat haze

NeverEnding Story, July 30 2023

Added:

I'm lovestruck

by her Mona Lisa smile ...

the divorce lawyer

Added: to Andy Warhol

Campbell's Soup Cans

falling out of their frames ...

hunger trance

Note: For more ekphrastic senryu, visit To the Lighthouse: Ekphrastic Senryu 

Artist Tanka

evening rain

drip-painting cafe windows ...

my blind date's words

"Oh, you're an artist"

grow heavy and heavier

Gusts, 36, Fall/Winter 2022

Dance of Life and Death Tanka

Tandava,

this dance of life and death ...

alone 

I'm bathed in autumn sunset

as leaves swirl in circles

Pages Literary Journal, Oct. 23, 2022

Last Drawing Tanka

reading between the lives and writing between the lines, XXXIII

my friend stares

at her son's last drawing:

on a bald head

Zoloft, Prozac, Lithium ...

and a cracked heart

NeverEnding Story, November 27 2022

Added:

the triage line

snakes around hallway corners

a grey-haired nurse

mumbles ... then collapses

in a sobbing heap

Added: 

All the Words in Battledress

some hundred miles

from his home stuffed with books

in Kherson

my friend writes poetry by screams 

-- the last stage of lyricism

more war poems

sent by the Ukrainian poet ...

in smoky twilight

the head of I  being cut off

the roof of M falling through

Note: L5 of the first tanka alludes to the following remark:

Miles away from poetry, we still participate in it by that sudden need to scream—the last stage of lyricism. 

-- Romanian philosopher and essayist Emil Cioran, whose work has been known for its pervasive philosophical pessimism, style, and aphorisms

And CBC News, Nov.26: Hundreds flee Ukraine's Kherson to escape 'real hell' of Russian shelling: Kilometre-long line of vehicles on Kherson's outskirts as civilians leave recaptured city

The exodus from Kherson came as Ukraine solemnly remembered a Stalin-era famine and sought to ensure that Russia's war in Ukraine doesn't deprive others worldwide of its vital food exports.

Under The Midnight Sun Tanka

The Brave New World,  LX

written in response to loud climate activism

a young activist

throws mashed potatoes

at a Monet ...

is there anything new

under the midnight sun

PoemHunter, October 25 2022

FYI: The Tyee, October 20, 2022: What Makes a Successful Protest? From throwing soup on van Gogh to trucking a convoy to Ottawa, there’s a difference between loud and effective activism.

Direct action meant to shock the public or disrupt everyday activities has a long history in activism...The unfortunate truth is that the public can get accustomed to certain forms of “polite” protest, such as marches. In turn, media outlets become less interested in covering those events.Just Stop Oil’s soup dousing was loud enough to be heard all over the internet, but it still failed — because theatrics need to be coupled with a clarity of mission. This was an activism non-sequitur, all sound and fury signifying… something?

A noble effort, but right now everyone’s still talking about soup instead of oil.

Orthodox Easter of War

leaf buds

tremble at the edge

of a twig ...

the look in a girl's eyes

at the Polish border 

on Kyiv's street corner

a combat-suited man sings 

Oh, Red Kalyna ...

a boy pointing his stick

trills along in morning chill

five thousand

blue-and-yellow Easter eggs

hung in Lviv's 

Corridor of Life ...

a distant roll of thunder

NeverEnding Story, April 23 2022

FYI: The red kalyna is a berry that symbolizes Ukrainian culture rich in dance, music, and folk tales. "Oh, Red Kalyna In the Meadow" was written during the First World War to honour Ukrainian riflemen. And most Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians and celebrate Easter on April 24.

Added:

alone and lost

in the fog of dementia

a veteran

turns on the TV daily

for news of the Ukraine War

FYI; People, April 21: Some Older Ukrainians with Dementia Are Experiencing Russia's War Anew Every Day

Olga Boichak, a sociologist, is based in Australia but speaks with her grandparents each day. "She's going through the daily trauma of rediscovering that war has begun, and keeps trying to evacuate," she told the Times.

Boichak wrote about the situation on Twitter, sharing how her grandmother has been in a "never-ending loop for 41 days straight."

Covid19 Heat Map and The Scream Haiku

Covid19 heat map
face to face with The Scream
on my wall

Covid19 Haiku Anthology, 2020

Dripping Red Haiku

Graffiti Alley
10-foot letters dripping red
I can’t breathe

PoemHunter, June 14 2020

50-Foot Letters Tanka

Black Lives Matter
painted in 50-foot letters
stretch from one street 
to another leading 
to the White House

PoemHunter, June 11 2020

Cubism Art Class Kyoka

halfway
through the cubism art class
I stare at a window
and see myself
differently

Prune Juice, 26, 2018