winter garden
her collection of stones
shaped like hearts

read haiku in the news at The Japan Times Online . . .

too much time on my hands . . . (maybe pat's right, i DO need to get out more).

winter doldrums
worming the cats
just for fun

thanks to ayumi's haiku links page i've found a couple of new haiku pages, check out English Haiku and Slimey's Haiku notebook . . . and haiku & ryo . . .

the photojournalist's
black-and-whites --
so many shades of gray

as if things
might turn out okay afterall
the colors of sunrise

the beggar
i gave a buck to --
his scratch-off ticket

my friend ayumi has discontinued her blog but set up Orange Cloud as a website. be sure to read her haiku and diary entries . . .

a Jane Hirshfield quote from CruelestMonth: "Attentiveness is what opens us into a conscious human experience, different from that of a tree or stone. And yes, I do see the development of a continually deeper and more clarified and refining attentiveness as the path through which art and craft as well as life are more fully realized. The realm of the poem is a small cosmos in which the large cosmos of our existence is also held. For me, it's something like the Heraclitean formulation, 'As above, so below' - as in life, so in poems."

where did the years go?
this old thorn
on an aged branch

jaNuaRy thaW
the dOg dRAgs hoMe
anoTheR dEer cHuNk

is there a name for blending/overlapping 3 words? seems i used to see this where? Raw Nervz perhaps?

here's a small piece by Anja Maria and how wabi-sabi applies to her life that worth a read . . . and here's a bit at A Road Less Travelled entitled 'of Haiku and Smoking Volcanos' that's worth a read (make sure you also read the comments). . . T.A.T. at Coffee.Tea.Haiku announces a new journal, Wisteria seeking submissions . . . in Muncie, Indiana, haiku by local high school students is on display on the local buses . . .

I'm going to quote a few lines from A Dark and Quiet Room by Seth Ben-Ezra: ". . . part of haiku is pointing attention at the overlooked. Haiku can therefore be used to call attention to overlooked people. . . . haiku cannot merely be read; they must be contemplated. I might even say that they need to be meditated upon. This attitude of contemplation or meditation carries over into the rest of life. Suddenly, you find yourself watching leaves blowing along the road or cream swirling in your coffee and realize that these things matter. . . . And then, perhaps, you look at the unnoticed people around you, the ones that are mere details in your life, and you realize that they also matter. Like the cashier at the grocery store, the one that everyone treats as though she were merely the biological wetware of the point of sale system. Maybe even she has started to believe it. But you know better, don't you? Because there is immeasurable worth in the commonplace. . . . All that from haiku? Absolutely."

reading her poetry
he begins to understand --
widower's moon

something different . . .

another new-to-me livejournal blog with the haiku/short-poetry news of Deborah P Kolodji . . .

just getting by
day to day
these gnarled branches

found more new-to-me haiga at The Southern View . . .

a childhood memory
this withered leaf
cradling yesterday's snow

Bay City news reports that Caltrain is offering a contest for a short love poem of less than 100 words (haiku & tanka welcome) . . . Matt Morden found an awesome page on hermits & solitude . . .

honeymoon suite --
his finger gently tracing
the fire escape route

lightly touching
her snow angel
tree's shadow

T.A.T. at Coffee.Tea.Haiku has posted a reminder of Gin Bender's 2006 Pinewood Haiku Contest. check it out. . . . found this quote: "Rather than striving for it, you have to sort of position yourself so it drops in your lap, and then be modest and gracious about your status." at namedb.net comparing geeks, hacking and Wabi Sabi. . . .

winter sun through haze
not seeing clearly
what she wants of me

i just discovered a new-to-me haiku blog, thanks to kami's links -- spotted woodpecker . . . and here is a must read haibun sequence Yellow Bird by Erin Noteboom . . .

in the shadow of the pine
snow
a lesser white

is this journalist being humorous, or do computer error messages in japan really show up on the computer screen in haiku??? does anyone know? . . . in the quest for japanese words that defy english definition i stumbled across mokita and got side-tracked on a tangent (happens ALOT) with this blonde joke (sorry) . . .

i can't put words
to the ache in my heart
ice slowly forming

meeting an old friend
how slowly the stream
moves through the pines

winter weariness
this fern leaf
heavy with snow

here's a news article that suggests that text-messaging let's you court your lover like the japanese of old: "The brevity of a text message gives it a certain poetic beauty, said Washington resident Erik Lung, 34. As in enigmatic haiku, there is lots of space for reading between lines, particularly in an early-stage romance."

another day without sun
the acorn cap
fills with snow

here : : : :
: : : : to there
mouse across snow

an announcement at magnapoets that jason sanford brown won recognition at the Fourth Ashiya International Haiku Festa for one of his haiku . . . check-out Go-Shici-Go the haiku column of the Daily Yomiuri written by Susumu Takiguchi . . . penguin books invites you to compose a 5-7-5 haiku to mark the publication of 'One Hundred Great Books in Haiku' . . . i added another haiku-blogger link, Sher Ku . . .

Friday the thirteenth
the parking-lot seagull
hovers over my car

haiku in the news: "The satin bowerbirds of Australia and New Guinea apparently build nests in layers that mimic the 5-7-5 syllable count of Japanese haiku." . . . and a negative film review of Memoirs of a Geisha includes a haiku by basho "The butterfly is perfuming Its wings in the scent Of the orchid" . . .

haiku and jazz. here's a description of haiku that i found at Magnificent Octopus reviewing the book Jazz ABC "What a good haiku must do is create a sharp, pure, and resonant image, like the deep-song sound of Thelonius Monk's piano and the short, distinctive themes that characterize his compositions."

Laurel Johnson's Blog mentions that Shadow Poetry does a hard copy journal called White Lotus that's haiku & senryu.

twenty-third anniversary
the 'not-an-exit' sign
flickers

january thaw
the snowman's smile
turns to coal

New poetry blog to check out, Magnapoets a couple of familiar names here and some new-to-me ones.

haiga in the news at university of minnesota ; and how a politician is using Basho to piss people off . . .

haiku places stumbled across: Mushimegane magazine; Children's Haiku Garden; a new-to-me essay here; and a news article in the San Francisco Chronicle; a website with an archive of 6,000 + Issa poems; found this quote at tinywords: “I believe that it is crucial for haiku to tell about the truth as if it were false.” -Yatsuka Ishihara; a quote from gary gach: "if poetry puts a magnifying glass to language, haiku puts poetics under a microscope."; and please forgive me, but this is too funny, Honku; and look! I found Paul's name in a Boston Globe news article;

wabi-sabi found: "perfection is a gooey chew toy on a worn out old blanket" . . . "Wabi Sabi art comes in many forms, such as a pile of crumpled paper." . . . "It is the cracks in the bark of trees that lets us know it is a mature and healthy tree" . . . all around, no flowers in bloom / nor maple leaves in glare, / a solitary fisherman's hut alone / on the twilight shore / of this autumn eve (Rikyu) . . . and look, you can even buy a wabi-sabi bumper sticker . . .

meandering
the winter meadow
my solitary footprints

interesting post here (dbqp) on Paul Reps

and i just found these blogspots:

Bueabod It Akeanon ; Shane Gilreath's Reflekshins haiga; Jerry Dreesen has some beautiful artwork and fantastic haiga in his archives; Origa's blog of Haikai; falling leaves by laryalee; the colour of silence by Geoff Sanderson; and big shoulders.

its branches also
made heavy with snow
the littlest pine

just to hear itself
babble
winter stream

she's been gone
two winters now
snow clings to the pine

even though
i came for the view . . .
how beautiful the fog!

laughter from the pines
ice
in my whiskers too

more wabi-sabi --

Maitri quoting Sue Bender:
". . . when a prized bowl broke in Japan, they didn't throw it away but repaired it with gold and silver, and the bowl once treasured was even more valuable than before."

and

wabi-sabi in the Seattle Times news

and from voices:
"our souls each being of the same paper but that which makes us unique is the creases left in the paper from all the folding and unfolding of experience"

and The Deep Longing of Wabi Sabi by Richard Powell (see my wabi sabi link of still in the stream for more by Richard) . . . dealing with CS Lewis, wabi sabi and haiku!

and judy the pianist

and motherload

and Wabi Sabi decorating tips

and wabi sabi at 37signals

and wabi sabi and market culture

and wabi sabi the feng shui slayer

the photographer
snaps
winter asylum

hoping for magic
a stolen calf heart
inside the snowman

in the cemetery
snowing
like there's no tomorrow

wren's feet
music notes
in the snow

new year's day
the stink of pine needles
in the vacuum cleaner