smiles and dust and joy
and the ball keeps on bouncing
bliss knows no color
---
dust and salty sweat
loud din of childhood play
time stops
all else fades away
---
I am futball king
No one can take me on
Soon come, I leave here
----------------------------------
My brothers got moves
I am small swift snake below them
The futball like me
----------------------------------
If we are good here
we can get government jobs
we can be rich men
----------------------------------
Caribs saw from cliffs
killed us but kept the futball
Afterwards we won
---
Big smiles say so much.
No brand name shoes needed.
Just kids havin' fun.
27 comments:
The world disappears,
a blur of sharp focus.
I hear my laughter
That was me before,
I posted the wrong haiku.
Shan't do it again.
smiles and dust and joy
and the ball keeps on bouncing
bliss knows no color
Bravo Miraculix! This has become my favourite blog. This is a gutter reserved for those of us looking at the stars. Ha ha ha. Is that the Pretenders? Or Oscar Wilde?
(bowing humbly)
If you've ever heard of Seattle area poet Jim Mitsui, you know who first unleashed me many moons ago.
My favorite teacher by a longshot and first real mentor in an intellectual sense, he maintained a policy in his first period creative writing class (which he would *only* teach first period) whereby each student must submit an "admit slip" by the beginning of class.
A blank piece of various colored construction paper -- you know the stuff -- from sheets cut into roughly 2-inch strips, your sole responsibility was to put down whatever you were thinking about right then and there. Anything. A word. An image. A quote. A thought. Basically, anything goes, within certain obvious rules of decorum.
I learned more from that particular little bit of teaching right there than in all the other mechanical language and lit classes combined, with the exception of Mr. Davis' modern media class. Looking back, I realize that he was a pretty odd duck at the time. A jockish sort of fellow with a deconstructionist streak a mile wide and an incisive teaching style. He coached tennis and tore down television with equal panache. But I digress.
Mr. Mitsui was the reason I carried a journal withe me everywhere; into the bathroom and the backcountry. The person solely responsible for enabling the use of the gifts I received at birth, which up 'til then had found some official outlets ("gifted" student programs) but had yet to gain any real traction on the road of life.
Haiku was always one of my favorite focusing forms, as the sheer force of the minimalist structure drives the winnowing process -- the tweaking of big mental dials and valves ala Metropolis -- at maximum intensity.
At once, it is a very relaxing act. Contemplative.
And so the dichotomy of life and feeling became apparent to a thirteen year-old rebel with too many causes and a penchant for free verse and weighty prose...
My life was a curve
Learning loving and leaving
Until I arrived
Miraculix, what an interesting fellow you are. Curious how it was always the idiosyncratic teachers who made the biggest impression. For mine, teaching a subject comes a poor second to teaching an enthusiasm for the subject. All of my favourite teachers did the latter. Actually perhaps I should substitute 'love' for 'enthusiasm' here. It makes more sense.
And briefly on the nature of haiku, if I were to put it into a cheesy psychobabble vernacular - haiku allow you to find another headspace. And an uncorrupted one at that.
(bowing slightly deeper)
"Interesting times" demand interesting people, no? =)
Exercising my 20/20 hindsight yet again, most of the teachers I encountered along the learning way were worker bees, putting in their time and doing what was asked of them -- like most of the students and as it turns out much of humanity, when confronted with what they must do to "fit in" with what the world they inhabit ultimately demands of them.
And yes, I experienced similar insight (you already know exactly when): learning as a rote process is at best soaking up a large puddle with a damp sponge. Measured against the results of a synergistic act of inspiration, inclination and motivation, there is simply no contest.
Nolo contendre
Humanity and spirit
Trump rules order and duty
Being aware of your love of and direct exposure to things Chinese, and a few of their most famous parables, I'm still not entirely sure that my "interesting" status is a good thing, seeing how we are already living in such times. Perhaps I'm better off sticking with "enigmatic" and "provacative".
Another observation that lit up my formative cranium lo those many years ago, was how even minor acts of transposition can radically reshape an idea -- or "break a meme", in the modern parlance.
Illumination
A shiny double-edged blade
Questions authority
Sun Tzu's "Art of War" becoming "Art of Word" unintentionally reveals a great deal about the game, as just one example. The deeper I bore into the meaning of language and the function of semantics, the greater my growing belief in the existence of the greater magic(k) hiding behind the words becomes.
Our moral and ethical choices as individuals are the same today as they have always been, despite the obvious issue of radically increased scale: which aspects of our own nature do we embrace and ultimately unleash upon the world around us?
Arms around the world
Legs astride the blue and green
My head in the stars
It was only years later that the aspect of life you propound here -- selflessness -- began to show itself as an intrinsically valuable and vitally important; its roots reaching far deeper than simple observations of socio-cultural custom.
A thousand petals face
skyward, timeless souls vibrate
eternally joined
For what it's worth, despite test "scores" and official statistics, I don't consider myself a better person. Quite the contrary, actually.
An improved ability to handle information may give rise to a perceptibly easier acquisition of knowledge, but the path to wisdom has never been a logical one. One finds along the way that it is paved with the gaping potholes of rationalization and self-interest, neither of which are easily avoided -- until you stop trying to steer around them.
ship of state ship of
fools carry us blindly over
the edge of the world
And for what it's worth, all of the above are native to this post. Contemporaneous. And all of this is to explain why I like haiku, just like you... =)
Oops:
Nolo contendre
Humanity and spirit
Trump rules order and duty
s/b
Nolo contendre
Humanity and spirit
Trump rules order duty
Just another happy day @ Typos-R-Us...
noby & miraculix:
what a good time it would be to spend some time by the beach w/y'all.. drinkin rum, eatin good food and watchin sunsets...listenin to the witty banter:)
w/nina & penn too of course :)
my idea of a wonderful time.....:)
kikz, you are a genius. Fifty words - done deal. Mind you I'll go a G&T and a spliff.
And thanks for that Miraculix. Very cool. You kind of lit a bulb in my head. Certainly there are people out there who know infinitely more about the Buddha and selflessness than me. I will happily admit I am a complete neophyte. And with my rejection of impossible riddles I will remain one, ha ha. That's fine with me.
But the thing is, where are these people in a discussion of contemporary affairs? Actually I know why the serious Buddhists aren't here. They remove themselves from worldly concerns. And hats off. I'm not in that position and nor are many others. Where are those people?
Or more exactly, where is that mindset? It seems to be completely missing from the hurly burly of socio-political discussion. If one's aware of it, this absence is gaping. All the voices hogging the limelight (yep, dodgy metaphor) seem to be variations of more of the same. More fractiousness, more me me me, more us-and-them. And personally, I don't think there's a future in it.
Marvellous haiku mate. Do you mind awfully if I pinch this idea of interspersed haiku? It's brilliant. I'll have to try it sometime and see if it works for me.
Yoroshiku
Pinch away Yoro
Word magic is but a gift
Shared among us all
nope no genius... just an old tired broad... who's sorely lacking in decent down time among interesting mates. i'm well overdue by 'bout 6-8yrs.
i will get a sort of break next wk(10 days)...goin to visit relatives, and then spend a few at a cousin's condo a block off the beach in destin, fl. i've not been to destin since 93. sugar white sand and cokebottle green water.. i can't wait..:)
sure wish hubs could go. not enuff room in the car. :P very glad to take the girls though, they've never seen a 'real' beach. so anyway, we leave this sat.. so i'll be incommunicado while gone.. no laptop :)
oh and finally came up w/a lamer for the pic..
dust and salty sweat
loud din of childhood play
time stops
all else fades away
sorry bout the double post and delete... blogger is crazy this am...
Hey kikz,
Have fun mate. Catch a wave for me. And we'll all chill out in the meantime.
Actually I have been chilling out. I've got half a dozen pieces for the church and the cinema and none of them are quite coming together. I've been goofing around waiting for them to write themselves, ha ha. Ever lazy, me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:
People_associated_with_the_
British_East_India_Company
there's a good bit of info on the directors of the East India Company. The link I sent has 88 pages of people "involved with" the EIC.
Big smiles say so much.
No name brand shoes necessary.
Just kids havin' fun.
Thanks notamobster, I'm off instantly. By the way, your syllable count was out mate. But otherwise well done.
I am futball king
No one can take me on
Soon come, I leave here
----------------------------------
My brothers got moves
I am small swift snake below them
The futball like me
----------------------------------
If we are good here
we can get government jobs
we can be rich men
----------------------------------
Caribs saw from cliffs
killed us but kept the futball
Afterwards we won
I had trouble with this
Since balls have always scared me
So, I write nothing
;)
Buffers
I think the syllable count is good now :)
Big smiles say so much.
No brand name shoes needed.
Just kids havin' fun.
Buffy, just so you know, I actually tilted my head back and laughed good and proper. No front page sure enough, but a cracker nonetheless.
And thanks Nina, was that inhabited by the spirit of John Steinbeck? For some reason it reminded me of The Pearl. Cool.
Sorry I'm late, all. No excuse apart from laziness.
Michener, Derick Waldcott and VS Naipaul.
I read The Pearl too, a lovely book, that's why Steinbeck is so worth of rereads, he had incredible versatility.
I see you have a new one up Noby!
Kikz, have a wonderful journey. I hope you're passing though Louisiana and stop for crayfish and Zydeco. You're in the driver's seat you know. Bon Voyage
hey y'all frm beautiful destin fl!
cousin brought a laptop so here i am. well nina, we did run thru north la, but didn't stop, maybe on return to dallas we'll stop thru in the quarter @least for a bite @the gumbo shop, or central groc for a muffelata. in 3 daze i've driven 1130+mi. man o, i could definitely spend a few daZe out of the car... and hopefully my cool cousin will take my elderly aunt home early and we can hav some down time here b4 we leave.. sugar sand and cokebottle green water.. i'm home :)))))) haven't gotten back over this way since 93! still as beautiful as i'd rembd. but OMG i miss my bed and soft sheets!
Hey Kikz,
Ah, the saltwater. I have a beach 100m from me here but it's still Winter. Bring on the Summer. And you drove 1100 MILES!? Good God. That's nearly 1600km. After all that, you'll need a holiday.
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