Tag Archives: Senryu

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And the Results are in…..Autumn, Then Winter Haiku Contest

First, an apology for those of you who may have checked out this blog several times today looking for results. I am sorry for not keeping my promise. The cynical may view it as a plot to up my blog hits for the day ;)

At any rate, at long last the results are here!

And, dear reader, if you live in the United States, I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day and were able to enjoy some good food, some better fellowship, and to be able to take a moment to be thankful for the blessings in your life (which we can do no matter where we live). In fact, I need to take some do that right now! Amongst too many things to mention (I am a very blessed man), I am thankful for you, my readers, who encourage me to keep honing away on various avenues of creativity.

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Haiku Contest Deadline Extension

Hello, all. I am very sorry to be posting the haiku contest late, but I would really rather wait until I have a few more entries, so I am extending the deadline to this coming Friday. I apologize to those who already have gotten me their haiku. I will still endeavor to post the results by Thanksgiving.

See the rules and enter here!

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inked in cardinal red – A Haiku for All St. Louis – Baseball Poetry

today all the lines,
city county divide, inked
in cardinal red
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I am not a fool (at least not all of the time). I know it is just baseball. Tomorrow St. Louis will be the same city with sad racial and economic divisions between black and white and city and county. In a month, even if we win the series, baseball will not have had the power to create change. That lies in efforts elsewhere. Even the beloved ball park, Busch Stadium, itself, is a microcosm of the city – if you notice who sits where and who it is who mostly sit and who mostly serves, even who rakes the infield between innings, sort of fun glory job.

Even so, it is amazing just who Cardinal baseball gets talking to one another, often in excited or worried fashion, as they articulate shared hopes and fears and sweat out the games togethr. Just now a bunch of biddies in the Goodwill, in search of a tiny red jacket for a rally squirrel, were talking baseball, even if they were all confused about the status of the series, as “Play it Cardinal Style” pumped out on the radio. Yeah, it’s that kind of town.

So, if for a couple of weeks in October even if only our dividing lines get drawn in Cardinal red, well, that ain’t too bad.

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Autumn, Then Winter Haiku Contest – 2012 – Fall, Winter Poetry

Well, it has been far to long since this blog has held a contest of any kind, so it is high time to do so. So, though most of you come here for the photography I suspect, we will begin with a haiku contest which was the first contest I ever held here.

So, if you are interested, check out the details. Pay attention to all the instructions if you would like to win!

Also, Lord willing, coming in November will be the second iteration of “A Christmas Carol: A Photography contest.” Check out the first contest here.

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On Grief in the Young – Some Poems from Das, Housman, and the Sons of Korah

Last night at tutoring I saw the teen son of man who was killed in a car accident last week. As he was busy with his tutor, it was not the place to go over and offer a word or a hug, but when back at home I wondered what I would say to him. Upon reflection, here is some poetry from Das, Housman, and the Sons of Korah, respectively. The image of a continent sinking is from C.S. Lewis’s account of his feelings when his mother died.

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what could i who’d known
such loss tell him; knowing is
none of the battle

what is there to say
of continents sunk, mountains
cast into the sea

walking new landscapes
joys tucked behind shadows in
the contours of grief

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Twice a week the winter thorough
Here stood I to keep the goal:
Football then was fighting sorrow
For the young man’s soul.

Now in Maytime to the wicket
Out I march with bat and pad:
See the son of grief at cricket
Trying to be glad.

Try I will; no harm in trying:
Wonder ’tis how little mirth
Keeps the bones of man from lying
On the bed of earth.
-A.E. Housman from A Shropshire Lad

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God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
-Psalm 46:1-3

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The last is comfort, indeed…but comfort which I confess even after all these years I am still learning to believe in.