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Posted on 10/07/2007 6:40:02 PM PDT by Soaring Feather
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Haiku, Tanka and Choka...
The Castle Tall is sort of a choka, I guess.
I really love the Tanka form best for short pieces.
This one:
Swimmers
Tasting the current,
what do the swimmers ponder
in sunlight and shade?
Eagles hunt from high blue sky,
Bridges give sanctuary.
Goes with this photo:
http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs18/f/2007/213/1/2/Swimmers_by_knittingknots.jpg
Like the Tanka to tell a story, the 575 and 7,7 lines separated to create the Japanese story form.
Tiger eyes burn bright
in the tall grass of the plain
golden fires watch
Night is their true feeding time
under stars as cold as they
Farmers fear the night
when the striped lords hunt
as do soldiers brave
Humbling it is
to know the prince of night
stalks his dark kingdom
You can run this form a long ways and tell quite a story with surprising ease. Versatile indeed. I was stationed in Japan in the early 60’s, and attended a sword making school. The forge work songs were in this form and the timing worked well for the keeping of time for the hammer blows. Sort of a ‘blacksmith work song’ as it were.
Swimmers,
with the photo this is a great poem, it has a connection that makes the poem and the picture parts of the story. Nice work indeed!
I have been really surprised at how good it is, even in English. Been the dominant poetic form a long, long time there...
I’d gotten rather into one manga series, and then boom, this rekindled my interest in things Japanese lately. I’ve got a whole bunch of poetry written that is basically fan fiction, but is rather good poetry. Some of it’s won awards, but it would be rather difficult to post it here without explanations, I think.
My head is stuck in a fantasy version of approximately 1550ish Japan...but I’ve gotten some good writing out of it, at least. And a whole lot of books.
good, when can I read them then, I love the Japanese histories before the ‘opening of the East by Admiral Perry’ I even like the studies of Japanese woodworking of the periods then, such craftsmanship we need power tools to even get close to matching!
Well, I’m off to bed, gotta get up early tomorrow, so good night my friend, thanks for the poems, they were a delight!
Breakfast time is a treat
as we wake and sit down to eat
it tends to make us smile
while thinking happy thoughts all the while
and fuels us up for the day
as we merrily go on our way.
Bon Appetit,
Chef Tude
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On Balance
Good work!! Good images.
Hello, Knitting!!
Nice to see your work again!
Time Alone
Beautiful piece.
Hello Dutchman, great to see you! Love the graphic! Such a mystical place Stonehenge.
Glad you are enjoying the Up State NY photos. ‘Tis a pretty place we have here. The politics—well that’s another story for another day.
Hello there, Miz Feather. I’m glad I found your thread again!
Here’s one that’s silly I wrote for some friends of mine who like me, are just too fangirly for action/adventure heroes that have big swords:
______________
Too many heroes with swords in my head,
Crashing and bashing and waking the dead,
Heroic in leather, heroic in silk,
In plate and in chain and in stuff of that ilk,
Sigurd the brave, Cuchulain so fair,
Brian Boru boldly alone standing there,
Ulysses the cunning, Achilles the strong —
With heroes like these, how can any go wrong?
See them stand, see them howl as Beowulf joins the fight,
Grendal’s bane saving Hrothgar in his armour so bright.
There’s Roland, near forgotten, with his long sounding horn,
Lancelot stands alone looking lost and forlorn
Still they come, still they come, with their swords shining bright,
Come to rescue the weak, or just to have a fight,
Xena and Sonja, women of steel
come hither to fight or to just cut a deal,
Conan and Kull, nearly twins in their might,
The Eternal Champion fighting well through the night,
Tempus and Elric and the Gray Mouser so bold,
With Fafhrd to help him steal all my gold,
Samurai heroes with swords shiny and bright,
Shadow warriors spinning red dreams through my line of sight,
InuYasha, Sesshoumaru, Kenshin dance through my head,
Tessaiga transforming in black and in red.
The noise of them clashing, the sounds of each clash
Go echoing on as they hit and they bash —
It’s no wonder I have a headache.
Oh lovely scene, I’ll meet you for an afternoon walk.
We had some good stuff going on in the night. Seems nice, too. ;0)
The You Tube is fabulous, made me cry -the emotion and energy is so strong I could feel it.
Wonderful, wonderful, I love it. Good to see your work again, you are a fine poet.
Just as an aside Knitting, we are listed on the Front Page of FR under Daily Threads, you can always find us there. Tomorrow, I will post a new thread and I will ping you so we don’t lose track again.
MINE! #2000
WOO HOO
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