Carpe Diem 1279 - Yekaterinberg Aleph

This time we are inspired by an incident in Paolo Coelho's novel, Aleph.

In the Aleph, all things are one, and all of the past, present and future are contained.

in our past lives

were we friends or lovers

now we meet again

~:~

i've always loved you

since the moment i was born

and perhaps before

~:~

our lives intertwined

spanning across space and time

choice or destiny

~:~

now we are old

when we say our last good-bye

know we'll meet again

~~::~~

This reminds me of a sonnet I wrote long ago.


                          THE SUBSTITUTE

There are those whose lives are meant to be entwined,
Lovers thrust together by the force of destiny,
When choice and fate converge, that they may be
Connected at the soul, the heart, the mind.

Within their closed circumference one can find
Two curves in perfect fit -- his yang, her yin,
That in each cycle once again begin
To cluster into love's sweet spiral bind.

But consider -- if in the vast span of infinity
One of them becomes displaced in small degree;
Is born a decade late, perhaps is sent
To the farthest corner of the continent --

The distant echo of an unfelt touch, an unseen face.
Who will be the one who comes to take his place?

~~::~~

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation - on the river

This time our challenge is to construct a troiku.

It is based on the haiku by Basho, seen below.

This took a light-hearted turn that surprised me.

I always strive to have proper form: phrase and fragment structure and 1st-3rd line interchangeability.

The last one took some effort, but I think I got there.   Actually, I think it works better 3rd line first.

~:~

on the river

lights float to the horizon

the dead rejoice

© Basho

on the river

children dangle their bare feet

fish nibble on toes

lights float to the horizon

as children stare in awe

a phalanx of fireflies

the dead rejoice
on the bank of the river

 lively children frolic

~:~

Thanksgiving

a family day

to ponder all your blessings
happy thanksgiving

Carpe Diem Tokubetsudesu #72 Use that quote

Hello haijin and long lost friends.  Once again I return return to Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.

For this week's episode of Tokubetsudesu themed "Use That Quote" I have a nice quote for you by the Dalai Lama. A real nice quote which gives you a lot of space to create haiku (or tanka).

Here is the quote by the 14th Dalai Lama for your inspiration:

[...] "The purpose of our lives is to be happy". [...]  Dalai Lama

It's a nice quote as you can see and it really gives you freedom to create / compose an all new haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form.

Since they speak of the human condition, I suppose the first two entries are senryu rather than haiku.

living the moment

happiness and a full life

found in simple things

~~::~~

the way of love

to find your own happiness

make someone happy

~~::~~

springtime vibrations

the hum of a fly-struck web

happy orb weaver

~~::~~::~~

Carpe Diem Tokubetsudesu #72 Use that quote

Six Word Saturday

Just got back from eastern Pennsylvania.

[only a six hundred mile drive]

[we have three grandchildren living there]

Carpe Diem Modern Times Haiku #3 Jerry Kilbride (1930-2005)

Of the four Jerry Kilbride examples, the potato one seems abstract and mysterious.  In the other three there is a deeply touching moment with a unique person - so something very concrete.   This appeals to me.

This has been a difficult summer.  Early in June my mother had a stroke.  She was fairly stable for a few days, then went rapidly down hill.  She spent her last few days at Hospice of Northwest Ohio, a beautiful location, where she received quality care.  Sadly, she was not aware in any obvious way of us or her surroundings.

That period was physically and mentally exhausting.  I really haven't fully recovered.  So I'm in the right frame of mind to be inspired by Jerry Kilbride.

mostly she just slept

as we sat by her bedside

a stroke of bad luck

and a flashback to childhood

a porcelain cup

filled with tea and memories

graham crackers with mom

Carpe Diem Time Glass # 24

HAIGA

"I love to challenge you to write/compose an all new haiku (or tanka) in response on that haiga ... and if you think you can make a haiga yourself within 24 hours than you may also submit a haiga."

Granddaughter Samantha a few years ago

this little girl

under her blue umbrella

has no need for rain

~::~

LOVE in the Imaginary Garden

 LOVE, friends, love! All you need is….

OK, then - a poem of love, that strange, mysterious primal life influence.  And one that is, to a fair degree, the story of my life.  Now you know.

I wrote this several years ago, - obviously a pastiche with a boat load of pirated iconic source material, stitched together with my own unique blend of herbs and spices, - and just reconstituted it from memory.  Some things just stay with you.


TIME AND ALL THE WORLD

When do I love thee - let me count the days:
One day in love’s first incomplete caress
When we were young and in young carelessness
Lost love we thought, we didn’t know the ways

Love comes, and goes, then comes again and stays.
Away you went, and I, or we, to press
Another plight, a troth, and then loveless,
Distressed returned to love at last in May’s

Warm glow surprised we loved on that day too:
Love ever fixed, not shaken, now we chose
To measure our souls’ reach and passion through
True minds quiet needs and old griefs lose.

The best is yet to be, our one from two
Now we have time and all the world to use.

Is Love a Tender Thing in the Imaginary Garden

Can you imagine?

For a suitable thorn and flower visual, I'll refer you to MMT's recent post.



i saw her today
that girl i once loved

years ago when we were young
chaste foolish catholic kids

nobody planned this
i turned and there she was

a muddle of memories
joy and pain the awful pain

heartbreak that was long ago
so why do i feel this longing inside

those agonizing memories
let me go i’m leaving now

and then she smiled

Wordle 198

Link

Some Thoughts on Life Love and Pain

we‘re wound together

like brambles of a thorn bush

i will not wound you

~:~

for a brief moment

our tumble in the hay loft

i’m falling for you

~:~

my moth to your flame

scent of lust that you emit

might be pheromones

~:~

she promised her love

on a lamb’s wool filled with fleas

i was fleeced on fleece

~:~

i sang her love songs

rasping loud and out of tune

not a sound idea

~:~

after the cloud burst

in clothes all wet and clingy

she burst into tears

~:~

ink stamp on paper

this official document

does it seal our love

~:~

once like an hour glass

now so much sand has drifted

more like a tumbler

~:~

your love has wandered

I can fill that empty spot

until he returns

~:~

in a still moment

i could instill in your heart

loving thoughts for me

~:~

left for another

bring the pieces of your heart

i will comfort you

~:~

with my silliness

am i the joy of your life

or just a sad clown

Imaginary Garden - Sunday's Mini Challenge

Carilda Olivar Labra

She is a Cuban poet who wrote on philosophical and social topics, but also of love and passion.  You can read about her and see some examples of her work at the link above.

'Our challenge is to write a new poem or prose poem in response to Carilda's words."

My response is to the last one presented at the link.  No politics or war in this one; only the  .  .  .

~~::~~

FORBIDDEN FRUIT

when the tip of my tongue moistens

the tip of your sweet breast

i think of naked coquette eve

and how she enticed the serpent

it was the fruit she pleaded

its syrup cloying sticky on her chin

and adam could no more resist than gravity’s apple

plummeting headlong into boggy mother earth

that is how i fell into you crazy love-crazy

turbid salacious over-ripe and bursting with seeds

Carpe Diem Time Machine Plus Imaginary Garden

Blue

UPDATE 2/11/15 for The Imaginary Garden Tuesday Platform [a day late]

Since it's all about the stage and the applause, I'll take this opportunity to blow my own horn - literally.

~~::~~

Carpe Diem theme originally from Nov 7, 2012.

My grandson Nate is a smart, healthy boy.  He'll be 12 1/2 on Valentine's day.

But he got off to a rough start.  He was born with transposition of the great arteries - his pulmonary artery and aorta were hooked up in reverse.   So instead of a complete circulatory system, he had two closed loops.  Fortunately, this condition was observed in an ultrasound.  So he was born at Mott's Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where fixing these things is a matter of routine.

When he was born, he turned blue immediately.  But the neo-natal cardiac team was on high alert and quickly performed a radical procedure that stabilized him until the open-heart surgery could be performed a week later.

It was a success, and everything turned out well.    Which is pretty remarkable since they opened him up like a clam, and the great arteries in a newborn have about the same diameter as a pencil lead.

So I wrote this song for him.  A blues of course.  A minor blues for a little guy.  The barely audible bass riff at the beginning and end is supposed to represent a heart beat.  There is other symbolism in the song's construction, some of which was unconscious.  Trombone solo by me.

I tear up every time I tell this story.

new little blue boy

here is a song of the heart

from my horn to you

Carpe Diem #663

Starry Night

venus moon and stars

seen by eyes knowing darkness

listen with your heart

Imaginary garden

The Tuesday Platform invites us to share our poetry, new or old.   So I will.

 I'll admit I'm a romantic: I believe in true love, and happily ever after.

Howevah  . . .

When love and fate mesh, it is a wondrous thing. But so much can go wrong, even if we are careful. Here is a wistful look at love, destiny, and the vagaries of fate that I wrote quite a few years ago.

THE SUBSTITUTE

There are those whose lives are meant to be entwined,
Lovers thrust together by the force of destiny,
When choice and fate converge, that they may be
Connected at the soul, the heart, the mind.

Within their closed circumference one can find
Two curves in perfect fit -- his yang, her yin,
That in each cycle once again begin
To cluster into love's sweet spiral bind.

But consider -- if in the vast span of infinity
One of them becomes displaced in small degree;
Is born a decade late, perhaps is sent
To the farthest corner of the continent --

The distant echo of an unfelt touch, an unseen face.
Who will be the one who comes to take his place?

~~:~~

reduced to a haiku-shaped word cluster

 come to me my love

you who would complete my soul

not a substitute

Six Word Saturday (almost)

Grandkids in Fiddler on the Roof

Great show, great cast, good time

Saw their performance tonight. Alexa was a villager, Danny did that as well. Ryan was the Rabbi. Both boys were bottle dancers.

The clock struck midnight as I was posting, making this a 6 word Sunday.

Carpe Diem "Analyze that haiku" #2, "seeking for relief"

seeking for relief
aching of a broken heart -
love isn 't forever

© Chèvrefeuille

Analyze the haiku, try to tell the story behind the haiku ... let the given haiku come to life ... see it in front of your eyes ... feel it with all your senses ... be part of the haiku ... maybe it helps to read the haiku aloud more than twice ... try to come in touch with the haiku. Share your thoughts, your analysis with us all ... and try to write/compose a new haiku with the story you analyzed from the haiku.

I could make this very personal.

Instead, though, I'll talk about a scene from the movie Crazy, Stupid, Love. [You can see my review of it here]  Emily Watson [Julianne Moore] is driving slowly down a residential street with her husband Cal [Steve Carell] in the passenger seat, when she confesses to him that she is having an affair with David Lindhagen [Kevin Bacon], and now wants a divorce.  Cal's response is to open the car door and spill out into the street.

The rest of the convoluted plot weaves a web of relationships and proto-relationships involving Cal and Emily's family members.  One of the major sub-plots is Cal's attempt to find relief through an extended series of brief and meaningless affairs.

Through it all, though, he never gets over his love for Emily - at least not within the scope of the movie's time line.  Her feelings are not so clear.  So - though love isn't necessarily forever - it could be.  Then again, maybe not.

though that thing happened

I can't pinpoint the moment

I fell out of love

Carpe Diem "Analyze that haiku" #2, "seeking for relief"

 

Carpe Diem "Sparkling Stars" #6, Sodo's "There is Nothing"

yado no haru nanimo koso nanimo are

in my hut this spring,
there is nothing, -
there is everything!

© Sodo

 

~~::~~

 

because of my love
i give you all that i have
i give you nothing

 

Carpe Diem "Sparkling Stars" #6, Sodo's "There is Nothing"

 

Carpe Diem's "Remember This Music?" #1

Nate gets a hit, June, 2014

In August 2002, my daugher Karen had her first baby, My grandson Nathaniel.  We call him Nate.  While Karen was pregnant, an ultrasound revealed that Nate had transposition of the great arteries - his pulmonary artery and aorta were hooked up in reverse.  So instead of having a complete circulatory system, he had two closed loops.  Life expectancy with this condition is only a few hours.  But it is correctable, so Nate was born at Mott's Children's Hospital at the university of Michigan.  The neo-natal cardiac staff was on high alert, and as soon as he was born performed a radical procedure - opening a hole in the wall between the ventricles to allow mixing of the two blood streams - that stabilized him temporarily.

When he was a week old, he had open heart surgery to reverse the misplaced piping.  Everything went well.  He is now a smart, healthy 12-year old.

When he was very little, I wrote this song for him, and arranged it for big band.  Since he was tiny and turned blue, it's a minor blues.  The melody has two motifs.  Each is played, then repeated upside down - the reversal.  In the middle, the melody is taken apart and passed around the band - that is the surgery.  Then the recovery, and we take it on home.  The bass riff at the beginning and ending represent a heart beat.

That's me on the trombone solo.

This is too emotionally intense for me to write a good renga, but here it is anyway.

a child is born

not built according to plan

little boy blue

in the first hours of life

they must pierce his tiny heart

oxygen revived

he lives to see the dawn

waiting surgery

at one week pipes reversed

all is well now go and live

Carpe Diem's "Remember This Music?" #1

Romancing the Haiku No 1.

Kristjaan tells us:  Basho once said "now you know the rules forget them immediately and write from your heart". That's what we are going to do in this new feature ... writing straight from the heart ... without the classical rules ... just one theme "romance".

i knew i loved you

what great surprise to find that

you could love me too

~~::~~

so many long years

we were apart ~ but now time

is just a heart beat

~~::~~

my heart tells me that

you are the one i should love

and my head agrees

 Carpe Diem's Romancing the Haiku #1, a new feature

Carpe Diem #545, Tolerance

From Kalil Gibran's Sand and Foam:

[...] " Tolerance is love sick with the sickness of haughtiness". [...]

Even with Kristjaan's explanation, I'm pretty sure I don't understand this.

But I won't let that stop me from writing relevant senryu.

i'm intolerant

because i won't tolerate

your intolerance

~~::~~

No person is perfect.  So my lovely wife and I share what might be a little conceit.  When one of us feels that we might be a bit hard to live with, we'll say, "Thanks for putting up with me."  And the other will say, "It's not putting up with."

with the love we share

i embrace not ~ tolerate ~

every bit of you

~~::~~

[Hmmmm - upon further review, maybe I do understand.]

 Carpe Diem #545, Tolerance