the sun is low,
but then it never gets high
this time of year.
Autumn Light [Haiku]
Reply
DAILY PHOTO: Temple & Palm Trees, Bangalore
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Monkey Courage [Haiku]
ten seconds after a dead limb broke under it: poised to leap again.
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Cold Sparrows by Yang Wanli [w/ Audio]
Hundreds of cold sparrows dive into the empty courtyard, cluster on plum branches and speak of sun after rain at dusk. They choose to gather en masse and kill me with noise. Suddenly startled, they disperse. Then, soundlessness.
NOTE: This translation from: Barnstone, Tony & Chou Ping. 2005. The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry. New York: Random House. p.422.
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Vaulted Dome [Haiku]
DAILY PHOTO: Bangalore Street Art
PROMPT: Podcasts
What podcasts are you listening to?
I don’t really, though I do catch YouTube rebroadcasts of Joe Rogan, Lex Fridman, and some standup comics.
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Rivers of the Dead [Free Verse]
So many cultures
make their dead
cross a river.
The Greeks' Styx.
The Hindus' Vaitarna.
The Norse Gjȍll.
The Gnostic's Hiṭpon.
The Japanese Sanzu-no-Kawa.
The Mesopotamians' Hubur.
Taoists cross Naihe Bridge --
over what (I'm not sure,
but) is probably a river.
No rest for the dead?
It seems kind of rude.
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BOOKS: MONKEY, Vol. 4: Music ed. by Ted Goossen & Motoyuki Shibata
MONKEY New Writing from Japan: Volume 4: MUSIC by Ted GoossenMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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Release Date: November 14, 2023
This is the fourth volume in a series of translated Japanese short creative writing (mostly poems and short stories.) The series (and this edition, in particular) features some of the best-known Japanese authors (e.g. Haruki Murakami and Meiko Kawakami.) Beyond a few major pieces at the beginning, this edition has a theme of music that runs through it.
Among my favorite pieces were: the novel excerpt Yoshiwara Dreaming about a young girl who is sold into the redlight district and becomes a helper in a brothel; Transformer: Pianos which is a work of surrealist fiction; The Zombie is Haruki Murakami’s fresh take on the zombie story; I also enjoyed many of the inclusions in the section entitled Eight Modern Haiku Poets on Music.
It’s a varied collection of writings. Not only does it include all forms of creative writing — prose and poetic — but the broad selection of writers and translators ensure that there is a diversity of styles and genres. That said, there isn’t a great diversity in quality level. It’s all strong writing, though some works will appeal to any give reader more than others. There’s something for everyone.
I’d highly recommend this volume for readers of literature in translation.
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Tiger Riding for Beginners 