around the time when separatists sought freedom
from the crown, a ship, the Mayflower, set sail
across the ocean blue, amongst its passengers,
a girl named Mary, of renown, so claimed,
the first to step on Plymouth’s rocky shore
~kat
Category Archives: Haibun
Autumn – Stanza 5
Melancholia – NaPoWriMo 2018 Day 19
For NaPoWriMo 2018 Day 19 Prompt: write a paragraph that briefly recounts a story, describes the scene outside your window, or even give directions from your house to the grocery store. Now try erasing words from this paragraph to create a poem or, alternatively, use the words of your paragraph to build a new poem. I used bold text to show you which words I lifted from the prose to create the poem that follows.
This prompt plays out like a deconstructed haibun, using free verse rather than a tanka or haiku/senryu. It also reminds me of doing “black/white out” poetry. At any rate it is a fun way to create a poem. This is my day in day out. Wrote this little break out on my lunch break…back to the grind in 3-2-1.
I spend my daylight hours in a cubicle under a dropped ceiling fitted with fluorescent lights. There is a vent above my head that grinds and blows intermittently throughout the day. I believe that the stale air blasting is laced with dust and black mold from the shadowy crawl spaces in the upper mezzanine partly because I burst into coughing and sneezing fits when the HVAC system kicks in. I heard that the company decided not to do a mold sweep of the building because it didn’t fit in with their ever shrinking budget. Such is life in corporate America where the shareholders and executives are king and the workers are paupers, slaving day in and day out, pinching pennies from the company’s bulging profits. I would likely go crazy, perhaps I’m already a bit mad, if it were not for the floor to ceiling picture windows that flank the outer wall of my cube. At least I can glance out briefly, when my nose is not buried in a spreadsheet and watch the world drift by. It’s a small perk that makes coming to work at dawn and leaving at dusk, bearable. Sometimes, when I dream at night, I dream of dusty gray cubicles but sometimes I dream in color.
daylight in a cubicle fitted
with fluorescent lights,
stale air laced with dust and
black mold burst, coughing,
sneezing mold sweep,
ever shrinking is life, where workers
slaving day in and day out, pinching
pennies, go crazy. windows flank
the outer wall. I glance out
briefly, watch the world drift;
sometimes, when I dream
I dream in color.
~kat
In the City – NaPoWriMo 2018 Day 12
I am a windy city, mid-westerner transplanted in this land of giants, a southern city nestled between looming blue mountain peaks. My home sits under a giant star on a century-old plot steps away from the site of World War victory gardens that have sprouted rows of two-storied townhouses.
I will likely breathe my last here in this place of contradictions; of backwoods red-neckers and modern progressive high-risers, old-timers and Gen Z’s. It’s ironic that I moved here to be closer to my children and grandchildren. I rarely see them, life and busyness nipping at their heels, but I love it here just the same. This strange place, with its lilac-honeysuckle infused breezes, evergreen spaces, magnolia trees and mist-draped hollows, is growing on me. My Chicago twang has noticeably tempered to a smooth southern drawl. Y’all come see me sometime.
pause with me a spell
where sunlight bleeds through pine trees
and mourning doves coo
we’ll sip sweetened tea
and talk about the weather
while nor’easterns swell
~kat
A Haibun/with 2 Senryu for NaPoWriMo 2018 Day 12 Challenge Prompt: write a haibun that takes in the natural landscape of the place you live. It may be the high sierra, dusty plains, lush rainforest, or a suburbia of tiny, identical houses – but wherever you live, here’s your chance to bring it to life through the charming mix-and-match methodology of haibun.
Daily Poem #9
I imagine words that become poems are like fireflies, floating in my head; flying embers, glowing amber-red, ever so briefly, lost forever if I don’t snatch them up, singeing my fingertips ink black.
shush, can you hear it?
the flicker of a new thought
becoming a word
~kat
An “Extreme Haibun” (55 words maximum for the whole poem) for Jane Dougherty’s Daily Poem Prompt.
Core Beliefs – MLMM Sunday Writing Challenge
“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.” Of course this is true and reasonable, allowing us to agree to disagree in many cases, while still respecting the person holding said opinion.
Except…(Now if you are thinking, here comes the “but” you would be right. This is a very big BUT!)…except when opinions are touted as absolute, unwavering truth, despite known indisputable facts to the contrary, I am afraid I cannot agree to disagree, and I most certainly cannot respect people who hold these erroneous opinions. That is the rub, isn’t it? It is why we can’t get along anymore. It is why our society is so polarized and fractured.
The opinionated for opinion’s sake will often say, “It’s impossible to know the truth anymore, anyway.” It is tricky, I’ll give you that, especially in this age of special interest-influenced news outlets and hostile other-government attacks on us through social media, as well as our softening aversion to lies and alternative facts. It is especially troublesome in this age where winning elections for power rather than for service’s sake is the modus operandi of our politics; where facts are inconvenient truths that must be obstructed.
I have decided I will not have opinions anymore. I know I am entitled to them. That’s not the point. Opinions are rubbish if they are not informed by truth, (in my opinion of course) and since we are living in a time of open season on the truth, it is best to keep any opinions I might have, even though I am now loath to have them, to myself.
It goes without saying that I would appreciate others keeping their opinions to themselves as well. If I want someone’s opinion, I will certainly ask for it. In other words, I won’t be asking for it. As for the truth, I don’t particularly care to know that either. Truth in the absolute sense is dead. It can’t be trusted. Which creeps into a new category…faith.
Let’s not go there. Let’s just not.
Oh no you didn’t…
how do you do it, straight-faced,
believe in the lie?
~kat
This Haibun for MindLoveMisery’s Menagerie Sunday Writing Prompt: For this challenge I want you to examine one of your core beliefs.
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