March 2013 Haiku/Senryu

You never know where the light will come from. Had a spell where inspiration was drier than a psoriatic elbow and then Boom! NPR sends out Tweets announcing this year's NaPoMo Twitter Poetry Contest and The NPR Cherry Blossom Haiku Contest, so I decided to get an early start. I initially decided not to submit any haiku or senryu deciding instead to submit excerpts from existing poems that I thought were interesting or could stand on their own. A funny thing happened on the way to internets. I started revising the excerpts to make them fit the 140 character limit and some of the poems got better. I also revised a couple to help them stand alone better and whaddaya know, but the new lines were not only better solo, they fit better in the poems too. I gained a new revision technique, one that looks to help my poems mightily. And then I decided to revise a few haiku/senryu and wound up submitting them too. Which has lead to me Twitterbombing haiku over the last few days. Including my first ever Portuguese haiku (Thanks Deborah). In fact, for NaPoMo I'm going to try to write at least seven haiku in Kriolu. I searched the web, but couldn't find any, maybe someone else is searching too and not finding any, so now there'll at least be something out there. No, my Kriolu isn't good enough to be writing haiku, but I figure this will force it to get better (wish me luck!). All the new ones felt like they wanted to pool in one spot, so here they are;

Mountain
of grey ash and scarred rock-
Her fuschia sweater

Shining sign
"Dangerous Curve Ahead"-
Her lower lip

Titanium screws
won't help these brackets hold-
March wind

Chuva miudinha
Cai nas ruas da cidade-
Floras de cereja

(Translation)
Light rain
Falls on city streets-
Cherry blossoms

Tears
of a boy charged with rape-
Late rain

Grass clips
from the Mailman's boots-
More Junk Mail

And these next two Ladies and gentlemen are my first attempt at haiku in Kriolu;

Sodade
de Cabo Verde-
Quel ventu seku

(Translation)
Longing
for Cape Verde-
This dry wind

Cigaru sem fumo
na beixu di homi-
Vulcan na Fogo

(Translation)
Cigarette unlit
on a man lips-
Volcano on Fogo

Cigarette smoke
drifting across a stage-
Cesaria's voice

Sunlight only
passes in both directions-
Door Of No Return

Nunny speaks 

Kriolu with her sisters -

Sudden sunbeams

Dealer's green eyes-
Lima beans in Nunny's
jagacida

Almost Thanksgiving-
Nunny stirs a giant pot
of Caçhupa

March morning-
Drapes open to
thick fog

Cotton between
me and the pills-
Morning fog

Out of
the whiteness of the fog-
Snowflakes

Big toolbox
I select the correct wrench-
Grandfather's smile

NPR Cherry Blossom Haiku
(These are the 5-7-5 versions for the contest)

March snowfall-
Her cheeks almost pink
as cherry blossoms

The man next to me
wearing no deodorant-
Not cherry blossoms

The shadows somehow
deeper after she departs-
Cherry blossoms fall

Vernal Equinox-
Our backyard halfway full
of cherry blossoms

Wet April morning-
Windshield wiper blades heavy
with cherry blossoms

Cherry blossoms swirl-
In morning's pink avalanche
we leave snow angels

(Here are the versions I prefer even though they aren't all 5-7-5)

Early March
her cheeks bright pink-
Cherry blossoms

Man with
no deodorant-
Not cherry blossoms

She departs
into deepening shadows-
Cherry blossoms swirl

Vernal Equinox-
Our backyard halfway full
of cherry blossoms

April morning-
Windshield wiper blades heavy
with cherry blossoms

Cherry blossoms swirl-
In the pink avalanche
snow angels


Until next we meet, may all your potatoes be sweet (and dusted with cinnamon.)