Northern Lights Haiku

war news on mute ...

the skies painted in hues

of green, pink and blue

NeverEnding Story, May 11 2024

FYI: This could be read as a prequel to my haiku below:

the reach 

of my selfie stick ...

northern lights

PoemHunter, April 1 2022

And  CTV News, May 10: Spectacular aurora light show to be seen across Canada Friday night

The U.S. government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued the first geomagnetic storm watch at the second highest level of G4 since 2005. Geomagnetic storms have five ratings based on severity of their impact, from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme).

Added: Game Show, 2024, XLIII

in this ghost town

not everything gone ...

a MAGA billboard

FYI: This is a sequel to my haiku below

rusty staples

on the bulletin board

a ghost town

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

Nursing Home Senryu

nursing home visit

my uncle's same old story

with a twist

Modern Haiku, 55:1, Winter/Spring, 2024

Moonlit Beach Haiku

moonlit beach

the brush of her skin

against mine

Charlotte Digregorio's Writer's Blog, Feb. 14, 2024

Immigrant Past Haiku

this paper trail

of my immigrant past ...

motes in the moonlight

 

tsuri-dōrō, 19, Jan/Feb 2024

One More Glass Senryu

one more glass 

to make it this year's last ...

pre-AA meeting

tsuri-dōrō, 19, Jan/Feb 2024

Heart in Exile Tanka

first "leaping tanka" written for Robert Bly

I fill the void

of my heart in exile

with word after word

from a jar of pickles ...

the absence breaks in me

NeverEnding Story, May 6 2024

FYI: For more about leaping tanka, see To the Lighthouse: Leaping Tanka

Normal Life, A Soap Bubble

my friend turns

forty the age his father died

he mutters

the Grim Reaper haunts me

like my walking shadow

breaking news

at the first light of spring dawn

my friend's stooped back

bends a little further

from grief after grief

thick foggy air

with no sun visible

my friend murmurs

how many mornings are left

for me with something new

my friend dies

alone in his attic room

but the shade of death

has been always on his mind

since his mother hung herself

NeverEnding Story, May 5 2024

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXI: "aid worker"

please bury me

with no casket, no prayers

face down, away

from this shrapnel-filled world:

the note in an aid worker's hand

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXII: "Holocaust Remembrance Day "

written in response to Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day, evening of Sunday, May 5, 2024 – Monday, May 6, 2024, observed by  the State of Israel and many Jews around the world)

And inspired by the following remark by Marek Edelman, the deputy commander of the "Warsaw Ghetto" Uprising and the only leader to survive the war

To be a JEW means always being with the Oppressed and never the oppressors.

a standstill

for two minutes in Israel ...

fifty miles away

fighter jet after fighter jet

silencing everything below 

FYI: This is a sequel to my tanka below:

for Phil Chernofsky, author of And Every Single One Was Someone ("Holocaust Told in One Word, 6 Million Times," Jodi Rudoren's review)

line upon line

page after page

the word

Jew

six million times

NeverEnding Story, January 27, 2014

And in contrast with the following entry:

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, XI: "Holocaust"

written on International Holocaust Remembrance Day

in response to UN top court's/ICJ's genocide case against Israel ruling

and for Jewish Israelis 

Aftermath

blot out Amalek ...

clutching his bible a rabbi 

lost in thought 

Holocaust Remembrance

Together We Will Win

[peace... peace only]

candlelight virgil

a tattooed survivor holds

a Stop the War sign

NeverEnding Story, January 27, 2024

And The Nation, May 7: Biden Must Condemn Israel’s Attack on Al Jazeera—Now

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government shut down the network’s operations in Israel. Press freedom advocates are raising an outcry, and Americans should back them up.

Netanyahu’s decision—which came just two days after World Press Freedom Day—has been condemned by the leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz (“Israel Must Not Shut Down Al Jazeera”) 

Middle East historian Assal Rad posted images from Rafah with the message, “This is why Israel is shutting down Al Jazeera. They don’t want us to see what they’re going to do in Rafah, the last refuge for Palestinians in Gaza,” while former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said, “Israel’s banning of Al Jazeera is one aspect of its War On Truth. It aims at preventing Israelis from knowing what goes on in Gaza.”

Depth of Absence Tanka

the depth

of this absence of home,

of belonging ...

my face in the rearview mirror

this eviction day

Cold Moon Journal, Feb. 5 2024

Virus Outbreak Haiku

virus outbreak

the hospital fountain

fills with coins

tsuri-dōrō, 21, May/June 2024

FYI: I'm the featured poet in this issue

Pink Blossom Rain Haiku

the spoken and unspoken

between my wife and me

pink blossom rain

tsuri-dōrō, 21, May/June 2024

FYI: I'm the featured poet in this issue

Featured Poet in Issue 21, tsuri-dōrō

Issue #21 – May/June 2024

Featured Poet – Chen-ou Liu

       a white lie

      to cover another

      early snowfall

                    light of dawn

               a tai chi master

               pushes the silence

AA meeting

the stony silence

after I used to be …

                 my wife’s kiss

               on the yellow post-it

               paper anniversary

           im-mi-grant ...

           the way English tastes

           on my tongue

Chen-ou Liu is currently the editor and translator of NeverEnding Story, and the author of two award-winning books, Following the Moon to the Maple Land (First Prize, 2011 Haiku Pix Chapbook Contest) and A Life in Transition and Translation (Honorable Mention, 2014 Turtle Light Press Biennial Haiku Chapbook Competition). His tanka and haiku have been honored with 154 awards (as of May 1, 2024)

Border Checkpoint Haiku

border checkpoint

I leave my past and shadow

behind the red line

First Place, Fifth Annual Mukai Haiku Festival Awards, 2024

FYI: My haiku will be displayed on the grounds of Mukai Farm & Garden throughout late April and May.

Butterfly Kite Tanka

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LIX: "Rafah's border wall"

the kids stare

beyond Rafah's border wall

the slow descent

of a butterfly kite

severed from its string

NeverEnding Story, April 29 2024

FYI: Al Jazeera, Feb. 20: Kites fill Rafah’s skies, a symbol of hope amid Israel’s war on Gaza

In Rafah’s horrifically crowded camps, children find one bright spot of play and smiles, up in the skies above.

And this symbol of hope and its significance are articulated in Refaat Alareer's farewell poem:

Watch the Scottish actor Brian Cox read Refaat Alareer's poem, “If I Must Die,” posted on December 1, 2023 on Twitter/X, a heartbreakingly prophetic farewell poem that has now been translated into more than 40 languages.

“If I Must Die” by Refaat Alareer

If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

to sell my things

to buy a piece of cloth

and some strings,

(make it white with a long tail)

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza

while looking heaven in the eye

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze –

and bid no one farewell 

not even to his flesh

not even to himself –

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up

above

and thinks for a moment an angel is there

bringing back love

If I must die

let it bring hope

let it be a tale.

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LIX: "amputee"

written in response to The New Yorker, March 21, 2024: More than a thousand children who were injured in the war are now amputees. What do their futures hold?

clenching

the toothbrush in his teeth

a Gazan boy

squeezes the tube left-handed

before his cracked mirror

FYI: The Wall Street Journal, March 18:Gaza Amputees Fight for Survival in Hospitals Hollowed Out by War

Doctors, running low on painkillers and antibiotics, struggle to treat thousands of Palestinians who have lost limbs

And most importantly, The Amputee Crisis in Gaza BEFORE October 7th, 2023

For example, in 2019, Israeli forces open-fired on Palestinian protestors resulting in 120 amputations, 20 of which were children.

To help with the amputee crisis in Gaza, the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) has created the Gaza Amputee Project to help provide surgery, treatment, and prostheses for child amputees.

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LX: " Israeli flag vs keffiyeh"

still still, face to face ...

one man with an Israeli flag

and one in a keffiyeh

FYI: Haaretz, May 1: 'A Voice Louder Than Their Bombs': For Gazans, U.S. Campus Protests Are Cause for Hope

We wanted to thank them with messages written on our tents, since we cannot display them on the walls of our homes, which have collapsed over our head

Added:

my old dog moves

from one patch of sunshine

to another ...

this lonely April weekend

chills me to the bone

Eviction Notice Haiku

eviction notice ...

roof icicles 

dripping moonlight

Setu, "Masters of Wabi," 2024

FYI: Visit  Setu's Masters of Wabi: Chen-ou Liu for detailed comments

Snow Light Haiku

snow light

in her hospice room

stillness

Setu, "Masters of Wabi," 2024

FYI: Visit  Setu's Masters of Wabi: Chen-ou Liu for detailed comments

Sonless Dark Tanka

I turn off lights

to calm myself once again

in the sonless dark

the worm of sin crawls

out of my wandering heart

NeverEnding Story, April 26, 2024

Setu's Masters of Wabi: Chen-ou Liu

With every pilgrimage one encounters the temporality of life

-- Matsuo Bashō 

Across a prolific and acclaimed publishing career Chen-ou Liu has displayed time and time again a phenomenal command of rhythm and motion in his stunning poetry, adopting stimulating indicators to signal landmarks and topography across that terrain, the tool of wabi being one vital resource toward conveying visceral aims. There is little to no movement in a vacuum, on a sickbed, across a desolate winter landscape or quiet night, save perhaps the slightest trickling, reminiscent of grains falling through an hourglass. These pieces spectacularly reveal the duo and tag-team this style can make paired with sabi to liken and contrast, implement setup and punchline, execute a boxing combination in a sense. The common theme of undesired departure, imposed hard deadlines, ties these pieces very fittingly together; while exploring different subjects and settings, in unison the reader almost gets the perception they form a sedōka discussion of sorts, on the topic of fate and determinism, acceptance and the human condition. 

Visit  Setu's Masters of Wabi: Chen-ou Liu for detailed comments on the following two of my featured haiku:

snow light

in her hospice room

stillness

eviction notice …

roof icicles

dripping moonlight

Setu, Masters of Wabi, 2024

Towers of Plastic Bottles Haiku

No More Fairy Tales, XXVIII

written in response to the climate summit held in Ottawa, Canada to create a "legally-binding plastic pollution instrument through the United Nations."

entrance to UN's summit

row upon row of towers

of plastic bottles

NeverEnding Story, April 22, 2024

FYI:

“We won’t ban our way out of plastic pollution, we won’t recycle our way out of plastic pollution, and we won’t reuse our way out of plastic pollution. We need to do a better job of all these things at different steps and different types of plastics,” Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault said at the conference Tuesday.

-- Global News, April 23: What UN plastic waste treaty talks in Ottawa want: ‘Won’t recycle our way out.’ 

Added: No More Fairy Tales, XXIX

Earth Day

this childhood river now a stream

going nowhere

Freedom and Mass Graves Tanka

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LIV: "mass graves"

hosting Passover

the festival of freedom ...

a neighbor's TV

blasts news of the mass graves

found at Gaza's hospital

NeverEnding Story, April 23 2024

FYI: The First night of Passover 2024 is on April 22nd, which is the most important day during the 8-day Passover celebration. 

NBC News, April 22: Dozens of bodies exhumed from mass graves at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis. The hospital was raided by Israeli forces before their recent withdrawal from the area.

And Haaretz, April 21: The Israel-Gaza War Will Make This Passover Seder Different From All the Others

the the Four Children will be an Israeli, a Palestinian, a Peacemaker, and One who has no words left within them:

The Israeli, what does he say? In this generation, we must all see ourselves as hostages in Gaza, doing all we can to bring them home. Achshav!

The Palestinian, what does she say? The destruction, dispossession, starvation and death must end. Ceasefire Now. Halas!

The Peacemakers, what do they say?

We both love this land and neither is leaving. We're in this together. Between the river and the sea two peoples must be free.

The final child has no words; they sit silently in tears with two bowls of marror before them, tasting the bitterness of all, dreaming the dreams of the holy and the broken.

And maybe they will all say together at the end:

"This year we are slaves

This year we are hostages

This year we are hungry

Next year in Jerusalem

Next year in Freedom

Next year in Peace"

-- Ittay Flescher is a peace educator, podcaster and the Jerusalem correspondent for The Jewish Independent. 

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LV: "seder meal"

the seder meal 

these three empty chairs silent

for six and half months

FYI: Haaretz, April 22: Israel's 10 Self-inflicted Plagues Since October 7

The Plague of Abandoning the Hostages

Yes, Hamas is to blame for kidnapping and holding them, but Israel is to blame for abandoning its people. Hamas is going nowhere and, meanwhile, the hostages are dying in captivity.

And Reform Judaism, What to Expect at a Passover Seder

The seder, a festive holiday meal, actually means "order." It is called this because the meal is done in a certain order which takes us [the Israelites] from slavery to freedom. The Haggadah - which means "the telling" – is the book used at the Passover seder. The Haggadah explains the foods on the seder plate, recounts the highlights of the Exodus, and includes songs, prayers, questions, and vignettes.

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LVI: "empty seder table"

protesters erupt in chants

and some cry for the release

of all hostages

outside the PM's home

a seder table set ablaze

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LVII: "Passover"

headlines bleed

into this sunlit suburb

on Passover

chants of Free Hostages

mingle with Free Palestine

FYI: Passover, the Jewish Festival of Freedom, begins on April 22, 2024, marking the Israelites' "Exodus from Egypt," the first step toward redemption. The theme of freedom dominates this 7-or 8-day festival.

Gardening Haiku

for Earth Day Reflections

gardening ...

breath after breath

of turned earth

Wales Haiku Journal, Winter 2023/2024