Better Than Starbucks!

Cast A Cold Eye

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Haiku poets eschew metaphors, similes, rhyming, stock associations with mythology or history, romantic love, extended narratives, and all the other conceits employed by the traditional Western poet. Haiku will never express the drama of Baudelaire’s “Don Juan leaned on his sword / And offered not a glance around,” or Blake’s “Invisible worm that flies in the night / In the howling storm.” The haikuist can admire great standard poetry such as Yeats’ “Cast a cold eye / On life, on death / Horseman pass by.” Beautiful are these lines, expressing deep philosophical truths. But this is not the work of a haiku poet. A well written haiku does not rely on allegory or symbolism. Haiku is simply the Fact.

From the garage eaves,

A fallen wasp nest fragment:

One wasp tends the eggs.

K. McLaughlin

Martin Golan has twice been among the finalists for the Allen Ginsberg Award. He published the novel One Night With Lilith.

The old are autumn

     as it spreads its rainbow death

          leaves are aged hands.

(Profound truths stated simply that apply to humans and to trees.)

Mountain rock, I drag

     this jagged stone across you.

          Make you shriek, poor thing!

Father, dead one year,

     looked out my window—so bright

          was that ancient snow!

Forty winters' chill

     has not stilled his startled voice:

          “The street’s so bright, look!”

This warm day of spring

     on a bench by the river

          fur-coated women

Martin Golan

James Babbs from Stanford, Illinois, has employed an inspired haiku floating line. Note his usage of “A strange looking star.” Used in each of his verse, it is not a refrain. This line has a uniquely different function. The reader comes to seek the image, enjoying Mr. Babbs’ focus on that strange looking star.

a strange looking star

up there in the sky

shining down on us

(Mr. Babbs follows the Self and discovers a Star. What could be more satisfying?)

a strange looking star

bending in the river

water splashes on rocks

something we leave behind

reflected in the glass

a strange looking star

sunrise through the fog

a strange looking star

the way she says my name

James Babbs

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Sylvia Semel’s poetry approaches the Absolute, the Wheel of Nature. Her second verse is as fine a haiku as I have ever read. Consider the lilies of the field. Consider the water lily floating slowly by.

sinking sun

swallowed by the earth

this summer day

Previously published in Japanophile.

the water lily

floating by in slow motion;

the still sandpiper

fireflies’ flashes

splashing flora bright;

incandescent night

sand sparkling saffron—

my feet burning from its touch;

gulls walk slowly by

Previously published in Innisfree.

a hot summer day—

the sprinkler is turned on

children shout with glee.

Sylvia Semel