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

Showing posts with label recession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recession. Show all posts

Friday, September 12, 2025

Monday, September 25, 2023

Anything new, is anything new?

Another round of tech layoffs after tech layoffs. Unseasonably cold spring weather now grips the city.

The food bank lineup curls around the street corner. This burden of silence between my former colleague, gazing at frost on the ground, and me, staring at the late afternoon sky.

trapped again
in this endless meantime ...
my past is dying
yet a new life can't be born
in this Promised Land

Ribbons, 19:2, Spring/Summer 2023

Thursday, April 27, 2023

Black Widow Tanka

a black widow
weaving autumn moonlight
through the net
an unknown bird settles
on the foreclosure sign

Monday, November 21, 2022

Santa Claus Parade Tanka

in morning chill
the Santa Claus Parade kicks off
the Christmas season
around the corner lineups
crowded at a food bank



Added:

the manager's look
at these half-empty shelves ...
the food bank's doorbell rings

FYI: CBC News, Oct. 27: More Canadians are turning to food banks than ever before, new report says

The annual report from Food Banks Canada said there were nearly 1.5 million visits to food banks in March, 15 per cent more than the same month last year and 35 per cent more than in March 2019, prior to the pandemic.

Fixed-income groups like seniors and employed but low-income people such as students have been hit harder because their paycheques can't keep up with inflation, Beardsley said.

The report also said that around 500,000 food bank clients — about one-third — are children, who make up around 20 per cent of the country's total population.

"Behind each one of these numbers is a person who is struggling too much to get by" -- Kirstin Beardsley, the CEO of Food Banks Canada.


Added: written in response to Inaugural poet and activist Amanda Gorman's remark: The truth is, "one nation under guns."

At the End of the Day

Club Q mass shooting ...
the same headwind on the way
back home from a party 

neighbor's home remodelling:
the No Trespassing sign
with a rifle-scope motif

FYI: for further discussion of this senseless mass shooting, see The New Yorker, Nov. 22:  "The Meaning of the Colorado Springs Attack" by Masha Gessen

"The essential precondition for mass violence is not guns or hate but a culture of terror, a common imaginary that includes the possibility of a mass shooting. It may be most useful to think of a politics of terror. People—and states—carry out terror for the sake of terror. The senselessness is the point, even as our brains desperately seek to make logical connections and find explanations.

Monday, July 11, 2022

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Ghost Town Haiku

rusty staples
on the bulletin board
a ghost town

Selected Haiku, Kissing A Ghost: 2021 NZPS Poetry Contest Anthology

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Stray Dog's Shadow Haiku

from one empty store
to another 
a stray dog's shadow

Modern Haiku, 51:3, Fall 2020

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Rain-Stained Notice Tanka

Ninety-Ninth Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary

her eyes fixed
on the rain-stained notice
of closure ...
will the ballerina dance
in her heart again?

NeverEnding Story, August 18 2020

Added: One-Hundredth Entry:

a late night call
from his grandmother
this stormy night
splits into before
and after the outbreak

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Lockdown Lifted Tanka

Fortieth Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary, written in response to Pawning During A Pandemic

lockdown lifted ...
a lineup stretches
10 blocks
from EZ Pawn
in the morning chill

NeverEnding Story, April 28 2020

Added: Forty-First Entry

death toll rising
in California sunshine
thousands flock to beaches

Note: This tanka is a sequel to the 33rd entry:

END the LOCKDOWN ...
protesters choke the streets
with their cars 
blocking ambulances 
from reaching the hospital

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Weaving Moonlight Tanka

a spider
weaving moonlight
through the web --
an unknown bird settles
on the foreclosure sign
 

Japanese Translation by Hidenori Hiruta

蜘蛛が
月光を編んでいる
巣を通して --
名の知れない小鳥がとまっている
質流れの看板に

Akita International Haiku Network, March 30, 2019

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Foreclosure Sign Haiku

foreclosure sign
where the snowman stood
morning chill

Japanese Translation by Hidenori Hiruta

質流れの兆候
雪だるまが立っていた所
朝の冷気 

Akita International Haiku Network, March 1, 2019

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Selected Tanka: Laid-Off Worker Tanka

more leaves
on the muddy ground
than on the tree ...
a laid-off worker turns
to look at the factory gate

Ribbons, 12:2, Spring/Summer 2016

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Ghost Moon Tanka

a phantom moon
in the midnight sky
one loud creak
after another coming
from the foreclosed house


Atlas Poetica, 36, 2019