Senryu
According to Haiku Society of America, a senryu is a poem, structurally similar to haiku, that highlights the foibles of human nature, usually in a humorous or satiric way. A senryu may or may not contain a season word or a grammatical break. Some Japanese senryu seem more like aphorisms, and some modern senryu in both Japanese and English avoid humor, becoming more like serious short poems in haiku form.
Conflict Senryu
a man with one leg hopping along with a stick to distant gunfire now clear saliva in a frozen stream is all binding him to earth hailstones in their hair spring clatters to the ground around shoeless feet rockets smear star dust and the moon swallows the stars-- the dead drink moonlight when the rockets stop frost brightens children’s remains in the roofless school a man shifts rubble looking for his lost children by crescent moonlight twisted crucifix half under the collapsed wall forever dying where a mine blew up Bible, Torah or Koran you can’t really say giving charity at the end of Ramadan a sheep blown in three* (*At the end of Ramadan, it is the custom to divide a sheep in three; keeping one part, sharing one with friends, and giving one part to the poor.) while spent shells leak gas winter rain washes the air and from the bricks—blood balancing the moon on a tip of dead cedar-- bare twigs crescent moon as trucks dump their loads the Mediterranean spews up on the beach the last few cedars of Lebanon dying in their hundredth dry year *** behind the haiku poet – a grove of dead bamboo going on record – pale faces pulled from their files just a guppy with colors in his tail for other guppies tea ceremony kneel to show humility –I'll need help up still following the one that let them into the swamp --sheep a thin bride she laughs when showered with birdseed bonsai twisted to a knot --haiku an old dollar bill that won't feed through the machine pokes from his wallet champagne wets the bows as she slides down ways already well greased huffing and puffing all but one birthday candle flutter out cracked cup moonlight pouring down-- fills the cup right up the broken cup-- all the moonlight drains away by morning she’s like her mother, never misses anything; he wishes she would. Know nothing, sure, say nothing; but don’t you twinkle those eyes. When old Glauner died no one else cried for him; he was proud of her. As the moon breaks off its kiss, it seems to shrink a little; Trimmed-away buck-rubs and dried-out orchard-prunings-- summer bon-fires. Ash is a true legacy, paid in asparagus spears. Frost turns the fern white– mantis eggs like Christmas balls to be collected. She can predict the weather by how the wind crosses the yard. What comes over cats in the middle of February, during the first thaw? tabula rasa a tablet full of pages-- this fine new felt pen Published in Failed Haiku, issue 13 a mother notices-- his girlfriend has a very nice cat Published in Failed Haiku, issue 13 haiku class learning by doing-- staring into space Published in Failed Haiku, issue 13 asked did I believe the end of the world was nigh-- I had to say Yes peering and staring at perspiring faces I keep finding her en route to somewhere the monk on a humpbacked bridge-- one warm cup then off scrubbing and scrubbing bloodstains from the bent bumper-- and giving up booze a step down the path for the bewildered-- the keys lost again the slamming screen door— what it keeps out is nothing to what it lets in |
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