black tear drops hang
like bird nests; one opens to
inverted bat signal.
Bat Hang [Haiku]
Reply
“Mulberry Picking” [採桑子] by Ouyang Xiu [w/ Audio]
West Lake is beautiful from a small boat.
Green water wends its way through the lotus,
Sweet grass grows thickly all along the bank,
Faint music wafts from unknown points ashore.
When the wind quits, the Lake is glassy smooth;
The boat is perfectly still for a beat,
Then its movement is betrayed by ripples
And startled waterfowls' furious flapping.
Note: The title “Gathering Mulberry Leaves” was used by Xu Yuanchong for his translation. The Chinese title is: 採桑子 (Cǎi Sāngzǐ)
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Market [Haiku]
vendors sit behind
identical piles of fruit;
a consumer slows...
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Meerkat [Lyric Poem]
The Meerkat stands, right and proper,
Like a skeptical eavesdropper.
Its spine aligned and eyes all wide
As if to say, "I know you lied!"
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DAILY PHOTO: St. Philomena’s Cathedral, Mysuru
“The World Below the Brine” by Walt Whitman [w/ Audio]
The world below the brine,
Forests at the bottom of the sea,
the branches and leaves,
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers
and seeds, the thick tangle, openings,
and pink turf,
Different colors, pale gray and green,
purple, white, and gold, the play of light
through the water,
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks,
coral, gluten, grass, rushes, and the
aliment of the swimmers,
Sluggish existences grazing there suspended,
or slowly crawling close to the bottom,
The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air
and spray, or disporting with his flukes,
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the
turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the
sting-ray,
Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes,
sight in those ocean-depths, breathing
that thick-breathing air, as many do,
The change thence to the sight here,
and to the subtle air breathed by beings
like us who walk this sphere,
The change onward from ours to that of
beings who walk other spheres.
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PROMPT: Pet Peeves
[Note: I will assume this to be the colloquial usage of “pet peeves” as I have no peeves about pets whatsoever (in fact, compared to most human children I see running around, I find pets to be positively civilized.)]
With that in mind:
1.) Forcing a “favor” on another person in expectation of some kind of reciprocation (usually outsized in scale to the fake favor.)
2.) Using the Q & A section of a program to make one’s own speech (the subtext being that one — rather than the lunkhead who just presented — should have been the one invited to speak in the first place.)
3.) Acting as though one particular set of cultural norms is the only moral / ethical way to live.
Bonus response: As we are presently on a blogging platform, I should mention a blogger’s peeve: Using another’s comment section as an advertisement for one’s own content — particularly with no actual comment about the post to which one’s “comment” is attached. I realize blogging is inherently a self-centered activity, but let’s not fall full-Narcissus into it.
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DAILY PHOTO: Chikka Gadiyara, Mysuru
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DAILY PHOTO: Melaka from Bukit Cuna
Tiger Riding for Beginners 