A Solution (A Haiku)

 


As a companion piece to the haiku "Knife Fight in Shanghai", which I wrote for my friend and teaching colleague Doc G, I wrote one for his wife, Doni, about a true experience from her time in Shanghai:

A Solution

Cold night in Shanghai

What can be done about it?

Hot water bottle.

Knife Fight in Shanghai (A Haiku)

For National Poetry Month (April), here's another haiku I wrote, but first, the backstory. When I was teaching, one of my best buddies was an English teacher, Dr. Don Gallinger, known to his students (and some colleagues) as "Doc G". Once, one of his students noted a prominent "worry line" across Don's forehead, mistakenly thinking it was a scar, and asked how he got it. Don jokingly replied that, several years back, when he'd been on sabbatical in Shanghai, China, he'd gotten into a knife fight. His students, not realizing he was joking, were greatly impressed that he'd been in a knife fight, and had survived against an opponent who, likely Chinese, must have been an expert fighter, as seen in many cheesy "Kung Fu" movies. When Don told me this story, I was quite taken with the phrase "knife fight in Shanghai", and decided it was worthy of a haiku. (I know: Haiku is a Japanese, not Chinese, poetic form, but it still seemed apt.)

Knife Fight in Shanghai

Knife fight in Shanghai.

Dat's how Doc G got dat scar.

He ain't no punk, man.

The Leopard

April is National Poetry Month in the U. S., and I post poetry each day of April on my Facebook page. I sometimes try to write and post my own work. One of my more recent pieces is the limerick below. The challenge was to write a limerick whose first line ended with the word "leopard".

The Leopard

A curious cat is this leopard

Whose coat is so wonderfully peppered.

He doesn't eat sheep.

Their fleece is too deep,

And he's sure that THE LORD is their shepherd.

 

Any comment or criticism is welcome.

Telling "Fibs"

Since April is National Poetry Month, I've been reading a lot of poems and posting a number of my favorites on my Facebook page. Some have been boyhood favorites, some have been ones I studied in school, especially in my sophomore year of high school in the English class of Brother David Rogers, the very best teacher I have ever known. I even posted a link to some of my own haiku posted earlier on this very blog.
I recently came across a blog post describing a poetic form I'd never heard of before. It's called a "Fib", for the Fibonacci sequence. Well, I was intrigued by this blending of mathematics and poetry, so I had to try my hand at this. Here are my first two attempts:


"Fib":
Verse
based, not
on haiku,
but on sequences
Fibonacci. How cool is that?


and


"Lone",
"Sole",
"Unique",
"Singleton".
"My name is Legion,
for we are many," said the Ones.



I like the second better than the first, and I'll be attempting more of these, I think. Feel free to make your own and share.

The Ideal (A Haiku)

The ideal: Do right
for no other reason than
because it is right.

Wordplay (A Haiku)

"Monosyllabic",
despite its definition,
has five syllables.

Backscratcher (A Haiku)

Little wooden hand

On a stick of curved bamboo

Blissful itch relief.