what you left behind river canyon

(for Woody)

these words eat tyrants

a beggar singing in the rain pennies from heaven

jingle bells the tinkle of frozen crabapples

winter solstice at Gitmo darkness forever

(shifting the weight)

winter solstice I shift my weight from one foot to the other

with one breath the mourning dove's high coo

just a doorway on an empty street homeless refuge

(without a hat (again))

sometimes a man or vending machine 'neath clouds without a hat

(crossing)

crossing a river off my to-do list

Salvation Army kettle the difference between want and need

my little girl's smile first snow

buttering pans the room's only sound

how heartlessly you bring me to tears sweet onion

(again December)

again December looking for a womb

(ellipses)

year's end the ellipses of crows...

wind sound shapes the winter darkness

(old soul)

no stiff water yet you have an old soul she tries

digging trenches digging graves dignity

(immigration)

spacious skies above the border line

itallcomestogether in the darkness for the owl

(don't forget)

don’t forget your name fritillary

”the weather continues …” I zap on to confrontations with a shark

winter stars so few poets

father and son on opposite sides of darkness

Black Friday what we didn't learn from Black Tuesday

no moon nights he never came home

[Rose]

loosing what is left her name is Rose again

business trip results conventional sex

Arab spring-European winter epoch hunter coin flip

cold kisses the night of your farewell

the woodpecker breaks the silence of the dying evergreen

the distance between us the closeness binary stars
 

burned coffee waking up to Monday

raindrops, too, have nowhere else to fall

broken filaments starless autumn sky

subtext the layers of the empress' kimono

(still)

gone the spider still the web

holy war: death by ancient literature

(modern haiku 38.2)

absent light for most things a coin with holes

(gravity)

gravity we settle on a name for it

moon landing the metallic thud of the mylar balloon

Ringo 3:16

poof day of the dead moth returned to dust

Happy Halloween

spooked by the autumn wind leaves scatter

laundry Sisyphus sighs

broken moonlight I will have to know you again

dragon's claws ripped the indigenous karst

ripe persimmons bowing three times with mother's memorial prayers

frosty morning without a home Hell looks inviting

squirreltail each thought overleaping in leafdance light

[onion]

this onion never finishes after all I'm a ordinary man

moss covered stone Buddha's bare belly winterized

leafless elm the wind takes a bough

(autumn rain)

autumn rain my reincarnation as yellow

as if it didn't matter October rain

today a little of everything midnight soup

(memory holes)

moth wing memory holes in the moonlight

the clouds the day most of his son came home

windswept willow singing to the moon

black holes a fugue by Bach caught in gravity

(dragonflies)

dragonflies charting the silence between me and the clouds

cars stopped in front a movie theater's reels

lingering by the sunlit asters hoverflies

bluejay the voice of dawn

(no more)

no more thinking runnels of rain

[sunset]

sunset don't read too much into it

September 19th

The dirt in the pot of mint smells like mint.

 

under the blanket of time a dissolving face and mine

midnight unwinding a string of dreams...

(unhemmed)

unhemmed haiku this length of neck threaded

(the anniversary)

the anniversary our shadows standing slightly apart from us

[ . ]

speaking my mind in one word loneliness

(autumn coming)

autumn coming a long slow hunch

autumn wind laughing with the crows...

I than many swallows going south

(cross-eyed Jesus)

cross-eyed Jesus the Buddha blinks

yellow school bus wild geese flock into a V

three kisses: first again always

[sombre reptiles]

sombre reptiles among umbrellas I walk for the abyss

endless

endless dried grasses of a sparrow's gathering

the open gate

the scent of flower constellations remembering twilight in a restless dawn

one line more or less won't matter...

a seventy pound pack < the weight on a soldier’s soul

 
water striders as ever i'm between two worlds

 

unsure of how this works letting my face onto a lake

snowandthenithappens

notes of autumn in the cello-dark dusk

(fists fall)

fists like incense ash fall

(old pond)

old pond its acoustic properties

paul tibbets’ mother’s name was enola gay

stock market prediction asking a psychic for medical advice

(after the haiku)

after the haiku about fireflies the fireflies

[flying ants]

flying ants in everything and monkeys

a pitcher’s dirt-covered batting gloves: the national league

varicose veins the wait my grandmother carried

deep sea fossil Altantis cruises

light carpentry: the priest strikes a nail, winces

Norway

black water a rose looses it's reflection

same moon Nairobi

(frogpond 31:2)

(unravels)

weaving backward blood unravels

if I had corners inside what could have died there?

male the shark on the slab what's left of it

(new wine)

new wine the messiah spits out the cork

(bees buzzing)

bees buzzing my dread of namelessness

Forgetting

Forgetting my midnight poetry I hunt for glimpses in your faces

one-child policy all the stars in the universe

(cloudburst)

cloudburst he rains away from me

I tried for myself and missed

[F sharp minor]

F sharp minor the rings of Saturn and my fridge

--

(years ago a Danish composer, Per Nørgaard, who have also composed over I-Ching, Mahabharata and Gilgamesh, held a lecture over the Nasa recordings of various planet made by Voyager)

under the beat the bass player breathes

twentyone guns one gun

anarchy the perfect mathematics of the stars

(outside)

of the slicing of strawberries seeds on the outside

 
summer night ascent of honeysuckle to the hazy stars

[moth and flame game]

born again the moth and flame game starts over

(solar flares)

solar flares fireflies shift allegiance

June 30th

The rain drums one thousand fingers on the porch roof

idle threats wait on blank journal pages

Perikles's patchwork yacht flooded with democracy

silently a blue heron lands behind the steep bank and vanishes

(individually wrapped)

individually wrapped pieces of rain

pardon me

pardon me governor pardon me

not just the dust of stars insects too

chapped sky peeling husks of summer

stitches in his eyelids ripening plums

cerebral spinnerets silence spun

(luna moth)

luna moth her see-through skirt

cathedral spire lost priest in a thunderstorm

future whispers echo acoustic redundant

soup kitchen former people form a line

[modern haiku 42.2]

the mosquito oblivious shortest night

[black hole]

turbulent sky the holy city pointed out by a black hole

summer solstice thyme blossoms

full moon rising crows with tattered wings

monk's no-poem spilled his no-mind in his no-hat

(suspecting)

suspecting rain in everything he does

red lights: illegal tenderness for legal tender

slowing down traffic the decommissioned cop car

butterflies – how fitting – in my language it's about summer and birds

three doughnuts a hole in the bakery cashier's math

thick these scabs obligation of blood

even the time we spent together was a shadow

(at once)

white sheets all your prayers at once

(that stone)

if you aren't going to skip that stone I'll eat it

flowerbed empty dead crow's eyes

death: what’s outside the fishbowl

neighbor's money flies out the window cable TV

cool april tulips spring first kisses

spirit owl full the hollow of her call

not my fault later and later sunrise

in the baby shampoo postpartum tears

empty dandelion stems recovered memories

grinding an axe to split hairs the troll

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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This text is also posted under "About"