swans and seagulls a lot of s's by the lake

spider web unwinding the robin's song

Cosmic O

whirlpool of detouring spermatozoa starlit wormholes

hemispheric incense breath bisected

  
between thunderclouds the spade strikes a stone

    

midnight the flash bulb of the egret's warning

(cloudburst)

cloudburst you rain away from me

coping with water one horizon curves another

.

Pharmakós the name you scratch inside

A nod to the senior military officer who wrote a poem after he witnessed the 911 Pentagon attack. His poem is now part of the big poetry and art project led by Bob Holman and Jeff Koons.

memory of starlight wink of a one-eyed dog as it sneezes

gut full of nails perforated pulse

coiling the few words I know weightless

(whippoorwill)

whippoorwill your words interstitially

the weakness of his tea-bagged words

(nine names)

nine names for being set upon by wolves

gull funeral sea brush tearing the horizon

  
in the droning blossom losing myself finding myself

  

circumscribing a zero with black ink the Patriarch dozes off

wishing on hand-me-down stars

(the sound)

the sound the air makes when it’s not wind

Melissa, I thought this might play along:


hindsight the impossible maths of crowd dispersion

scent of lawn fertilizer divides the promise of spring

(probability)

probability a tree full of sparrows rearranges itself

denial walking away from the sunlight

sun bundled in kaleidoscopic hawks

the sky has gone dragonfly blue

simmer of mist hunger undone

puzzle piece sinks in a parking lot puddle expat

choking on an Asian pear cherry blossoms

falling into summer yellow tulip petal

as the world cracks a dancing contest

crumpled tissue origami tears

spite fence aurora borealis

six notes sleeping in the stillness of a wind-chime

zen monk dives in lake half ripple

evensong in the I-church mist over mist

summer

summer child at the hip swaying as she gathers wildflowers

ahead of the cold front all the things airborne willow fluff

driftwood protesting minimalism

sparrow song picking the lock on a cage of fog

dusk thickens the blackbird's song...

my clumsiness with chopsticks the egret's feast

(your life)

your life is not enough a pound of shiny screws

where river meets sky a cormorant...

Samsara

vinyl dunes circulating a square Samsara

you went to the cubicle of your grief and changed

cauliflower horizon I remember pushing clouds

mostly water I crawl back up the rain

mist on the mirror the length of her smile

(not without)

not without a last look back salt lick

hanging love on a sky full of nails

busy night tangled up in your dream-catcher

as the sky disappeared a feather

(between)

between your words the last few stars disappear

liberation day existing again I wear a hat

wings of the crow shredded air chunks

rain comes and goes blackbird's song

a paste of clouds still dawn breaks

Johnannes, your monostich reminds me I did something similar for NaPoWriMo:

field of dreams an unborn child's color isn't rapeseed 

(moons of Jupiter)

the moons of Jupiter this is a life I didn't know existed

Nightmares

nocturnal thing a nightmare until it dawns on you

frantically ironing the creases in my chances

infinity a farmer in a future rapes field

Bayou

Paper boat on the mountain bayou soon maybe ocean cruiser

quicksilver

 kwkslvr  my need for the next biblical cubit  

(one to get started)

wading through a forest of stamens towards the holy grail a bee

monostich

the crease of the horizon, a permanent press

(the words)

wolves howling no obstacle to finding the words

monostich

falling sideways the street and the empty and the lamp lights

Welcome

May 1, 2011

This blog is entended as a place to show and develop the so-called monostich haiku or the 1-line haiku. Many Western poets writing haiku, senryu and related short form poetry writes monostichs from time to time. The 1-line haiku often arises from a reluctance to break up an image in 3 lines - a desire to compact the haiku further. Sometimes it is used to cut away what is not needed in the poem – a discipline most short-form poets use more or less consciously in their daily practice or they take it on in an effort to make their language even more precise. But there can be all sorts of reasons for why a poet chooses the monostich form.

Haiku as such is generally written in one line in its native Japanese form. But the life of haiku in the West - where it is usually written in 3 lines – has made it undergo various re-interpretations mainly due to the differences in Western and Japanese culture.

True, many Western poets have written minimalistic poetry of various kinds through the ages, but the aim for this blog is to show forth monostichs written by poets rooted in haiku and related forms.

The monostich can present itself as extremely condensed. It is apparently fast read, but it can be intriguingly complex despite its shortness, “lack of words” and is easily overlooked. They can linger on in your mind as very complex images with the same magnetism as the childhood pictures-within-pictures.

The monostich thrive in the underwood of the haiku forest. The purpose for this blog is to provide an extra place for the monostich to grow and hopefully show forth its worth and special character.

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