This blog is about haiku. A classical haiku counts 5-7-5 syllables. Chèvrefeuille (the pseudonym of Kristjaan Panneman, a Dutch haiku poet) however writes his haiku in the Kanshicho-style. In the Kanshicho-style the classical syllable count isn't used. Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), a haiku poet, wrote his haiku in Kanshicho-style for several years, but he returned to the classical way of haiku writing. !!! Anonymous comments will be seen as SPAM !!!.
The Summer Retreat of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai has started. The Summer Retreat is an all new feature at my daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai ... and you are invited to participate in it. This first Summer Retreat is themed "One With Nature" and you have to write a haiku (or tanka) every day inspired on your adventures in nature. The Summer Retreat runs to August 15th 10.00 PM (CET). Yesterday I started myself too ... so here is my haiku "One With Nature" - themed for today:
A sweet little surprise ... a treasure found, a white pebble. This haiku is very minimalistic it's created in the way of Santoka Taneda, a classic free-styler haiku poet.
Maybe you know that I am the host of the daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai or else you know it now. At Carpe Diem Haiku Kai I have started the first Carpe Diem Haiku Kai Summer Retreat. This Summer Retreat will take 30 days and the goal is to write a haiku (or tanka) a day, so at the end of the Summer Retreat I will have created 30 new haiku (or tanka).
For this first edition of the Carpe Diem Haiku Kai Summer Retreat the theme is "One With Nature". As you maybe know haiku is known as the peotry of nature, so a lot of the haiku poets are living close to nature and respect the beauty of our Earth's nature.
This Summer Retreat will be awesome I think. So let's go ...
As you maybe know I am the host and owner of the daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. This month we are on a "ginko" (a journey) straight through the countries which are part of the European Union.
Today we visit Italy and specifically Tuscany. Tuscany is a wonderful part of Italy with its capital Florence. Tuscany has a lot of beautiful places, but especially the sunflower fields are in my opinion the most wonderful of Tuscany.
one yellow sea as far as I can see sunflowers on the piazza drinking wine with my love sunflower field in front
It has been a while before I could find time to publish here again on my personal weblog. As you maybe know I am a busy guy and I enjoy that very much. Next to this personal weblog I have a daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai ... a weblog that takes really a lot of my time.
Recently I had a Theme Week about the "Latifa Prayer", maybe you know that wonderful and powerful Sufism prayer, maybe not ...
I wrote several haiku (and a tanka) during this Theme Week which I love to share here too:
lotus
flowers
rising from the depths of the pond
everlasting love
like a river flows onwards
uncertain of its goal
Recently I created three (3) e-books which are published and free for download on my daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai (CDHK). The e-books are all anthologies of the Theme Weeks I have had on CDHK. I also published the first real edition of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai's own e-zine Souchou at CDHK.
It's a joy to read the e-books and it gives you a great feeling as a haiku poet (and publisher) to hear all the positive responses.
It's really a joy to visit other weblogs. One of the weblogs which I am frequently visiting is MindLoveMisery's Menagerie, a weblog where I am a co-host too, has several challenges. One of them is the photo challenge and that's the item where this post is about.
The above photo by Anne Worner is the source for the inspiration. What do I see? I see a public chessgame somewhere on a square. This woman and her boyfriend (?) are playing a game of chess. As I look at the title of this photo "mate", than it can mean that the game is over, but it can also mean that this woman and the man have just met eachother, or he is her mate or vice versa ... it's a nice scene and it inspired me to write the following haiku:
a game of chess while a skylark sings it's song - I lost the game
A nice one I think, several of you will know this haiku I think, because I used it earlier at my daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. See you next time.
Finally I have found a little bit of time to publish here at my personal website. As you maybe know I am a very busy guy, because next to my job as an oncoloy nurse I am host and owner of the daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai (CDHK). Last year (or was it in 2014?) I published an "essay" based on a quote from Khalil Gibran which I love to share here with you all.
Khalil
Gibran, a modern times (end 19th and begin 20th century, must be modern heh)
philosopher has written really awesome books. His thoughts were very much
different as the ideas of the government in his country Lebanon and so he had
to fled to the United States were he became a great man and author in the same
league as Shakespeare. It's awesome to read his thoughts and ideas ... I can
emphatize with him, because he has in a way the same thoughts and ideas as I have,
but ... I cannot really give the right words to it ...
Today I have another wonderful saying of him to share here at my personal weblog ...
[...] "We measure time according to the movement of countless suns; and
they measure time by little machines in their little pockets. Now tell me, how
could we ever meet at the same place at the same time?" [...]
Time Is Chaos
"Time
is on our side", we say, but that isn't true, because, as I look at
myself, I don't have enough time. Several times I had to post a short message
on Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, because of a delayed post by lack of time. And then we say
"Time is on our side". Bull....
What is time? It's the movement of our wonderful planet Earth around the sun. A
day has 24 hours, must be enough I thought, but why do I have a shortness of
time than? I think I know it ... I just do like to much activities. All my
activities are sucking my time. I don't have enough time! I need more time! Why
has a day just 24 hours? Because that's the time Earth needs to complete his
journey around the sun. Why not 48 hours?
Hm ... that's an issue! As a day would last for 48 hours our lives would be slower,
we would be younger. Picture this (sorry I can't help it I love that sentence
"picture this", it's from The Golden Girls TV-series, Sophia uses it
to tell her stories. I like that TV-show) a day lasts 48 hours. (Do you have
that picture?) I am now 52 yrs, as a day would lasts 48 hours, I would be 26
yrs! Awesome! I would be still a young guy and would have time enough.
Would that be true? Of course not as the days lasts 48 hours (a day) than I
would still have a shortness of time, because I still like what I do. I would
have more time for my patients. I would have more time to compose haiku and
share them at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai or here on my personal weblog. I would have a lot of time, but more time brings
me more energy, more ideas .... and for sure I would have to little time. What,
in Gods name, is my problem!?
I
think I have an idea to become rid of my problem ... I just throw my watch away
and let those countless suns make my day. I have to adapt to nature's time, I don't
need to stay awake until 2 o'clock in the night. I just have to go to my bed as
the evening falls and get out of bed as the morning rises. Wouldn't that be
awesome? Just going with nature and the way of the sun ... That's the time of a
haiku-poet. As I stated in another episode at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai haiku-poets are the poets of
nature, they are the keepers of nature ... so I have just to listen again to my
own words and the words of our classical haiku-poets. We just have have to
listen to our ancestors ... Did they have a shortness of time? I don't think
so.
A lack of time is an "illness" of modern times ... I am a guy who
lives in the modern time, but does that mean that I have to confirm to the
fastness and lack of time? I don't think so.
From this moment on ... no time problems anymore. I just go with the flow, just
go with the movement of countless suns and with the tides.
I hope 2016 will bring you all good fortune, good health, much love and especially a lot of inspiration. I hope to post more often here this year if time is at my side. As you all know I have a daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai and that takes a lot of my time. Recently I launched "Souchou" an e-zine about haiku, tanka and all other Japanese poetry forms. The first "try-out" issue is NOW ONLINE and you can download it for free at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.
At Carpe Diem Haiku Kai (CDHK) we are on a journey through the Altai Mountains. Once the silk road ran straight through this region and our guest host at CDHK, Hamish Managua Gunn, has written a wonderful post about this silk road. You really have to read that post (as I may say so). I wasn't inspired enough to write an all new haiku in response of that post, so I dived into my archives and found a few wonderful haiku which I love to share here with you:
arousing my senses the sweet coolness of silk blankets shared with my love
silk tree blossoms in a soothing summer rain trembling in silence
trembling in silence silk tree blossoms, so fragile, in a summer breeze
It has been a while that I published here at my personal weblog. As you all (maybe) know I am Always busy with my daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. This weekend however I have a guest host Hamish Managua Gunn (a.k.a. Pirate), because I needed a weekend off. Hamish published his first post yesterday (November 13th) and told us more about a wonderful musical instrument, the Kobyz, a violin-like instrument with two strings and played with a 'fiddlestick'. It's a wonderful instrument, but maybe you ask your self ... what is a kobyz and where those it come from?
It's a musical instrument from Central Asia especially the region of the Altai Mountains. This month at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai we are on a journey through this beautiful region following the path of the shamans. For the shaman the kobyz was a sacred musical instrument and according to legends it had the power to banish evil spirits. Listen to the following piece of music, this is how the kobyz sounds:
As I read the post by Hamish I really was in awe ... I had never heard from the kobyz, but as I listened to several videos in which the kobyz is been played I was "sold" to this wonderful musical instrument. I used it to meditate and contemplate about "how to write a haiku inspired on the kobyz, as I listened to the music I felt wonderful and relaxed and inspired I wrote the following haiku:
sound of the earth an eagle points the path of the shaman finally free
Well ... I hope you did like this post. By the way if you have time you have to tune in on You Tube and listen to the music of Kazachstan .... really awesome.
2018 July: Re-published on Carpe Diem's Summer Retreat 2018
