Thanks, Lee. If I figure out what I'm supposed to be doing, maybe I can do more! In order, these were my three drafts:


The bridge, ice-slick,
the canyon howling below--
how to go on?

in which I was mostly trying to get the feel of 2-3-2. Roy and Stephen noted that it was wordy.


The icy bridge,
the fog deepening--
How to go on?

Comments at this point helped me see that "How to go on?" contains too much interpretation, so now I'm trying to make it all images.

Icy walking bridge.
Below, the highway screams.
Even air is frozen.

Stuart (thanks for commenting, Stuart) notes that this is static, as all the versions are. What I learn at this point is that the observation I'm trying to build on may not contain a sufficient "leap" for a real haiku. I'm still looking for a true two-image idea.

Thanks again for helping us out here.

Yesterday, a haiku popped in my head when I first woke up, and then another one just before I fell asleep - this one -

black wing
white moon
first frost


Thanks, Lee. Yes, leaping is leaping! The moon in poems is always a risk, so I felt my full moon leap had to be especially huge. I don't know if the leap is as big in this new one, but so far the words are sticking and won't budge. That's what happened with the full moon one. I tried all day to budge it - wouldn't budge.

Writing ghazals helped me learn how to write with feeling - Michael Cantor calls it "shmaltz" and that advice is perfect. And the repeating word or phrase at the end of each couplet helped me learn how to leap. You have to leap when you're repeating the same word/phrase 6 to 10 times in one poem, if you don't want to bore everyone.

~~~
Here's another one I just wrote:

cherry tomatoes
teardrops of
a lonely old fool

~~~~
Lee, this post has three now, for your comments, if you get a chance, please.

muse
my vase is broken
without you




[This message has been edited by Mary Meriam (edited October 18, 2008).]

Of course not, but you have made it look easy a few times:


going out of my way
to crunch them as I walk;
first leaves of Autumn.



trying the old pump a mouse pours out



a spot of sunlight—
on a blade of grass the dragonfly
changes its grip



...a few of my all-time favorites. This has been great, Lee, thank you for spending time here. I don't know how long you are staying, but I will be leaving this afternoon to go teach poetry to middle school music students in the redwoods and I won't be back until Sunday night. So I wanted to say thanks in case you are gone by then.

Meanwhile, one more question, if it isn't inappropriate to ask it in this thread. We just heard this week that Bill Higginson died. I wonder if and how well you knew him, and what you could say about his contribution to the haiku universe. I know for me, The Haiku Handbook is an essential reference and one of my most used and beloved books.

Thanks again Lee.

David R.

Berthed in Key West Bight--
a cold front brooming the bay
sweeps boats to the rocks.

Lee, Steve, everyone. What joy to see this thread at four pages and growing! I am not seeking compression for my verse, rather expansion. But I offer this traditional 575 for Lee because he knows the Bight better than I do. Had I had access to a Zodiac that day I could have saved a Morgan 38 and taken title under the Law of Salvage. The insurance company would have paid the owner, and I'd have had the yacht. Woulda, shoulda, couldn't.

Thanks very much, Lee, for your info about openendedness.

One more from me. This should be the last one for now. Is this any better in terms of leaving something for the reader?

A small yellow blotch
in a meadow of snowmelt:
a dandelion.

Haunting, Lee. I feel like your haiku is talking to my haiku. Yours captures the forlorn farmers, already "paved over" by encroaching suburbs. The farmers tried to face it down, but lost. Now they're in a nursing home or their graves. No more sitting outside on firefly nights, after long days in the field and kitchen. Very sad.

Here's one by Billy Collins:

[This message has been edited by Mary Meriam (edited October 17, 2008).]

Originally posted by Mary Meriam:

Here's one by Billy Collins:

*

It's not much of a haiku . . . but it's a valid observation that we can all take heart in. (It goes for poetry in general, too, I think.)

Hi Seree,

Lee has some interesting things to say about "openendedness" in his reply above to Martin. Specifically, Obviously the question of whether there's "something left for the reader to ponder . . . that is worth sharing" is going to be subjective to some extent, and as writers of course we always hope there will be. But looking at a specific text, it's sometimes possible to identify particular aspects of it that (arguably) close down interpretive possibilities, and thus lead to a less "openended," less inviting poem. I can't speak for what Lee is seeing, but since you ask me too, I'll try an "objective" application of the principle, and see what I can in fact DO.

Take, for example, your Rembrandt poem:

“The Jewish Bride” hosts
immaculate despite centuries
dead flies at her hem

I didn't know the name of the painting (I'm dreadfully ignorant of art), and so without your explanation above, I wouldn't have got this at all. Anyway, once that's cleared up, here's how I read the poem:

“The Jewish Bride,” immaculate despite (the passage of) centuries, hosts dead flies at her hem.

In other words (if I understand correctly), "hosts" is a verb here, and you are describing a scene in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: Rembrandt's "Jewish Bride" is still glowing and beautiful despite its (her) great age, but dead flies have gathered on the floor, or on the frame, below--the painted figure "hosts" the dead flies "at her hem." Frankly that's a fair bit to figure out (or it was for muddledly duddledy me!) and in that sense you certainly do leave some connections for the reader to "ponder." But--to use another of Lee's metaphors--do those connections "spark" across the gap, or are they too close (closed circuit, no spark) or too far (isolated terminals, no spark) to do so?

I think you have (paradoxically) both problems, though the "too far" issue is mostly my unfamiliarity with the painting. If I knew that you were referring to an Old Master--even without knowing the painting--I could bring the scene into focus much more easily, so that's my first recommendation: "Rembrandt's 'Jewish Bride.'" The more serious problem, however, is that your images are also "too close." To quote Lee again (from Haiku: Formal Elements), In other words, it's a question of haiku's preference for "cutting" and juxtaposition.

I think that the two images in question here-- "The Jewish Bride" and the flies--make for a striking and potentially quite powerful juxtaposition, so that's not a problem. But two other things stand out. First, by adding the verb "hosts" here, you eliminate the cut--in effect, you unite the two elements in a single sequence, instead of juxtaposing them:

“The Jewish Bride” hosts . . . dead flies at her hem

The intervening stuff about "immaculate despite centuries" does make for a kind of disjunction (it divides verb and object, without quite "cutting" them), but then it introduces a different problem. As Lee says, juxtaposition works best when images are placed "side by side without interpretation." And with that, we really get to the nuts and bolts of "openendedness." What is the meaning of the juxtaposition of painting and dead flies here? It could be any number of things, but crucially, you've supplied us with the start of an "answer" by adding in the interpretive, "telly" stuff about "immaculate despite centuries." In other words we do get the connection--a kind of ironic commentary on art (immortality) and nature (death), or however you want to phrase it. But the connection is too close. There's room for different interpretations--no text is ever completely "closed"--but crucially you have narrowed the range of possibilities for the reader, and therefore made the poem less "openended."

Does that make sense?

Anyway, that's a lot of explanation, but perhaps an example will help. You could rewrite your piece in any number of ways; this is just my attempt at a more openended, haiku-like version. So, assuming the flies are on the frame, not the floor . . .

Rembrandt's "Jewish Bride"
dead in a gilt-framed corner
two winter flies

(I say "winter flies" because they're the sort that wind up dying in our window sills etc. And yes, "winter fly" (fuyu no hae) is in fact a traditional season word in haiku.)

A last point: some readers might find a pun in "gilt" (guilt) here, and that too might be seen as a distracting, "interpretive" element. It may be safer to be plain:

Rembrandt's "Jewish Bride"
dead in a corner of the frame
two winter flies

But I do like that glint of dull gold beside the little black bodies. As for "two" . . . completely arbitrary.

Anyway, this is just one way you might go. The possibilities are, ahem, openended. The key to writing a really striking haiku is to get just the right combination so that the images communicate and "spark" . . . then getting yourself out of the reader's way so he or she can watch, and interpret, the magic for him or herself.

Long answer. I hope it's useful.

Steve C.

Edit: Added link.



[This message has been edited by Stephen Collington (edited October 17, 2008).]

Lee, thank you for your comments about sound. I hope I'm learning and that you will take a look at a few more for me.


Christmas morning feed
icicles in the horses tails
little bells jingling

sudden wind gust
prairie dust rises
to meet the rain

satellite dish
a single raven is perched
foil in its beak

Donna,

Being haiku novices we are obviously under the gun. Lee said to me:

Most effective haiku are made up of two parts that interact imaginatively. It is more difficult to get the same kind of interaction with three parts--a three part haiku often feels disjointed and is harder for the reader to "put together."

This is the pitfall that I see here:

Christmas morning feed
icicles in the horses tails
little bells jingling

But I've been wrong before.

Although I suppose L2 & L3 could be considered linked.

[This message has been edited by Roy Hamilton (edited October 17, 2008).]

Lee,

Here’s another batch: it’s hard to find good critique on Haiku, so please chop 'em & cook 'em up.

I know that traditional Haiku poets and Tanka poets tend not to venture into the others domain, but I gave it a shot and have found Tanka quite a bit more than I thought it was.

Anyway, thank you very much for the time and energy you have spent on these little-big poems!

Fr. RP

PS: Hopefully I can get those other two ku up to speed before you flee this place!

first light
on the cabin porch
mayflies

late night—
spring’s first fly
bounces off the wall

summer evening
another quick chirp
from the microwave

yellow moon
along the icy prairie…
coming home

frost covers
an untilled field…
for sale

evening fades—
a rusty tractor
covered by weeds

blustery day—
an eagle crouches
on the white boulder

Orion rising
the sound of snow
beneath my feet

a few flowers
among the weeds
a rusted trowel

sudden wind gust
prairie dust rises
to meet the rain

I like this one, Donna. I'm not sure it 'interacts imaginatively', but I really feel clueless about what is and isn't, what does and doesn't. But I like this little picture. http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

Hi Peter, To begin with your question, haiku of course makes use of all the sound resouces of the language. I have not been emphasizing this because we have been discussing more basic issues. But here, for example are some poems in which sound is an important part of the message, that literally beg to be read out loud. The first, by Peter Yovu, is one of my top ten haiku of all time:

mosquito she too
insisting insisting she
is is is is is

(Please notice also that it is absolutely invisibly 17 syllables. It achieves this invisibility, in my view, by using the kind of short sounds that Japanese haiku use.)
here is a lighter one by Mary Alice Herbert, in which the vowels literally take flight:

All Hallow's Eve
swallows
loop the moon

here is one by Gary Hotham in which the weak vowels intensify the sense of loneliness:

dark darker
too many stars
too far

and finally one by Dru Phillipou in which the sounds are the subject of the poem:

Wet sedges
egrets unseen
the fleetest schwas


A look at your poems . . .

Coachwood
in the north wind - arrows
fresh shot, quivering

as my comments on other poems may have suggested, haiku with this sort of conceit don't do a lot for me

Panther pads
in the forest - vines
twist to the sky

not sure these images are close enough for me to connect, though that might be my failing

A skim of water
one foot of bank -
two hundred of sandstone

not sure i get this one

fallen logs
after dusk - fireflies
with quiet noels

interesting!

For this reader one hit in four, which is way higher than my own average, I can assure you.

Lee

Hi Lei . . . it's Lee!

Punctuation. Punctuation can be used to break, equate, throw forward, stop. Traditional japanese haiku don't have punctuation, but have kireji or cutting words that perform that function. (And make up a part of the sound count of the haiku. So if you insist that 17 syllables is the correct form for haiku, which is of course your right, then you should count each of these marks as one syllable.) So please punctuate away if you please. The important thing is that everything in the poem should contribute to the poem. There should be no "default" punctuation in a haiku, like a period at the end to tell the reader "this is the end of the poem." I use punctuation maybe half the time,but only to a purpose. In fact, I have only once ever used a period in a haiku. Here it is--you can decide for yourself whether you think it belongs:

his side of it.
her side of it.
winter silence

(Please note that there is not a period at the end of the poem.)

Enough on punctuation for now?

And now to your poems . . . which I am going to look at with an "editorial eye." I have a haiku buddy i get together with every month so we can critique each others poems. I am going to comment on these as if they were Randy's and I was sitting across the table from him.

Behind the house
apple branches break
bears grow fatter

OK, I have several questions about this one. First, why behind the house as opposed to in front of it or next to it? I am good with the branches breaking, depending on what else is going on in the poem. I am not sure why you have "bears grow fatter" to finish the poems. Is the point that they are eating the apples? Or is there some other reason< the season, perhaps? As a reader, I am not sure. If it is the season, then it seems redundant since the apples have already told us what the season is. If it is because they are eating the apples, i wonder what the point is. After all, bears can climb trees, can't they? Now if the bears are breaking the branches, that is something else, but i don't really get that out of the poem.

cold sails
billow in the wind
a moonlit lake

nice.

Brown eyes follow me
tail wagging, mouth apant -
I prefer the cat.

I prefer the second haiku. By the way, I love "apant". At first i thought it was a typo! (Duh!)

Lee

Quotes are fine. My question indicates the level of my own ignorance. Seeing where you were from, I thought maybe it was a TV show!

Lee

Christy, sorry, but i missed your poem! I like this version best (except i would lose the period):

black tree white skies
filmed framed packed
to fly away.


I like the three participles in the second line and like the ambiguity of the third line.

Lee

Feel free to do whatever you like with my poems!

Lee

Yes, it is a paved country road, as opposed to an unpaved one.

Lee

donna I like the first one and the one lee liked. Here that one is in my lingo


a willy willy
surprise surprise fairy dust
in eye then in eye


odds are not just dust but a tree trunk might whack you on the nose as well; that right cally?


Robert

I like the mayflies as well maybe begin


first light mayflies

Lee a thought!

What about caps for names and places as in May-flies?

Maryann, thanks for sharing all the versions. I think this is a great example of the process of haiku self editing. When I do that, which of course i do with every poem, by the time i get to the last version i often find i begin leaving things out. For the first line, I line "the icy bridge" or "ice-slick bridge." (Doesn't "ice-slick" take your feet right out from under you?) For the rest, i like the first version. Though i don't generally like rhetorical questions in haiku, it think it works here as something very natural. Here it is an actual dilemma (with enlarging overtones) rather than a fanciful one of the poet's invention.

Lee

P.S. Sorry folks, but i am running out of gas--had a long day at work. I promise to have more tomorrow and the next day and . . . in fact, i am off work for the rest of my visit, so i should be able to give you more, maybe more than you want!

Hi Lee,

Thanks so much for today. You've been positively heroic!

And yes, do come back again tomorrow . . . just don't forget to eat your Wheaties!

On behalf of everyone here, thanks, thanks, thanks!

Steve C.

*

(Edited back to add Google NOINDEX code for the new page.)

[This message has been edited by Stephen Collington (edited October 17, 2008).]

Maryann-- if I may steal your image for a kids version --

Heed iced over pass
below air frozen fog deep
that troll still nimble

now that has set me off-- again lol thanks

(Edited back to add Google NOINDEX code for the new page.)

damnit stephen you are speaking in tongues again http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/biggrin.gif

Steve C. is the hostest with the mostest! I'd been wondering if every page had "the code." This class is a great experience. I really appreciate all your caring attention, not to mention the wealth of links.

I still like your first version best, Maryann. It captures shivering fear. I'd pare it down like this -

bridge ice-slick
canyon howling below
how to go on?

Hi, Lee! And thanks again.
I guess I need to return to the drawing board on this one. It's behind the house because behind the house is usually less visible - of course, it depends on where you are standing. The bears are growing fat because they break the tree branches in the process of getting the fruit. I've seen some trees that are nearly ruined because of the bears.
So I was trying to say that here are these bears who are already fat, destroying the apple trees in order to get fatter still, and doing it mostly out of sight. Too much for a haiku, maybe?

Thanks also for the punctuation clarification. http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

Really appreciate this, Lee. I would be delighted if you'd consider some of my small poemlets. Haiku not being my forte, I'll leave it for you to decide if one of these can be called haiku.

Firefish
on firewood.

*

sun
trade yellow silk
for moon and dark batwing nights.

*

hawkweed seed in wind
moon in birdbaths
floating

*

bring a raincoat
clouds bring the weight
of sky in their bellies

*

seventeen fireflies
make a puddle two toes
in front of my shoes.

*

waxwings scallop
a part of Innisfree
with wingtips and will

*

unfolding white chadors
on green roofs
mountain and treetops

*

clouds play crocket
cuba women
scuttling for cover.

*

seven cows
death's greeters*
searching for an exit in the sky

*

sahara desert
shapes stretchïng over sand
shadows walking

*

bats
and dreams
gone at suntime.

*fixed from "gretters"



[This message has been edited by Chiago Mapocho (edited October 18, 2008).]

Bloody oath, Henie! Almost got whacked by a falling gum branch the other day. The rangers have since taken the whole thing down with a chainsaw before the wind gets another chance.

Mary - your

Quote:

black wing white moon first frost

etched on my retina at first sight.

Walking through the cemetery today, I found these two.

native grass
the widow bends
to drought and grave

ghost gum roots
cracking the headstone
r -- i -- p

Cally


[This message has been edited by Cally Conan-Davies (edited October 18, 2008).]

Is this too end-stopped? Too clear or too unclear?

The lightning-split oak
is leafless this summer; she calls
herself widiot.

David, Thanks for the kind words. I haven't thought about these poems for a long time--the newest one of them was written over 20 years ago--so i don't even think them as mine anymore. The first one was once in a grammar school literature textbook, so I think of it as one of my childhood poems.

Yes, The Haiku Handbook is an essential reference. And for me, it was a lifeline. I "discovered" haiku through a book of R.H. Blyth's translations when i was in high school. I wrote bad haiku on and off for almost 20 years, not realizing there was anyone else interested in it. And then one day i opened up a Newsweek, and there was a review of Bill's book by Cor van den Heuvel. (Many of you will recognize him as the editor of three editions of The Haiku Anthology, another haiku classic.) This opened up a new world to me--the living world of haiku. I will always be grateful to Bill and Cor.

Early in my new "haiku career" Bill was very kind to me and generous with his time. When he and his wife Penny, also a very fine poet but he way, moved to New Mexico in 1991, our house was one of the places they stayed on their journey, of which they wrote a travel journal ala Basho's Oku. And again, when the moved back to New Jersey several years ago, we had the pleasure of opening the doors of what Bill referred to as "The Haiku Hotel".

I am not sure i can sum up Bill's contribution in a few words. First, there is The Haiku Handbook. Then there is his insistence that people in the West understand that haiku is a living tradition. He insisted we pay attention to contemporary Japanese haiku, furthering this contact through his own translations of contemporary Japanese poets. His work resulted in the flowering of relationships between Japanese and gaijin haiku poets and an explosion of cross fertilization. He worked tirelessly to evangelize an understanding of the vitality of the seasonal image in haiku. On the other hand, he also insisted we not get stuck in a quasi-religious, "zen haiku," championing diversity of approach to the genre. He also very early on understood the potential of the intenet to provide poets and readers with a deep understanding of haiku. (If you look back at the initial list of resources Stephen shared, you will see several of Bill's resources.) My understanding of haiku, as well as that of many others, would be considerably poorer without Bill's tireless work. I considered him a friend and a mentor and will miss him greatly.

I should still be here when you come back, so I will look forward to hearing your voice again.

Lee

P.S. Off to breakfast and feeding the animals! See you all in a little while!

Thanks, Lee and others, for sending me back to my ice-slick bridge. Perhaps I will figure out "how to go on"--

I notice something about this one from Robert P:

summer evening
another quick chirp
from the microwave

It makes me stop and ponder what's wrong, or what's right; is it for a good or a bad reason that the N. is inside, using a microwave, on a summer evening? I think that's what open-ended means.

Hi, Tim! Great to hear your voice here. It is is your fault i am here, and i want everyone to have a chance to blame you!

Of course, you know the Bight much, much better than i do--i have only ridden by it on my bicycle, you know. I think it is fair to say that we are all seeking expansion, though not necessarily in the number of words. YOur story makes me think of my dear friend Reef Perkins, legendary wrecker and comic poet sublime!

And speaking of key west, i would like to invite all of you to the Robert Frost Poetry Festival there next April 15-19, 2009. Here is the link, in case anyone is interested: http://www.robertfrostpoetryfestival.com/ (I hesitate to share this since there are a couple of stupid pictures of me from a couple of years ago on the site.) I will be giving a workshop there and there will be half a dozen other workshops by poets better than i, i can assure you. Here is one of the haiku i wrote there this past April,also 17 as you might notice:

sunset in the keys--
the puzzle of my life
with one piece to many

Lee

Martin, the longer I think about this the richer it becomes. The split oak is a figure for the man who has died; the widow is blaming herself for not knowing things--I think it must be for not knowing, in the husband's absence, how to take care of things--or is she also blaming herself for the deaths, the tree's and the man's? It seems to me the very opposite of end-stopped.

I only ask myself if there can be such a thing as too heavy a dependence on one word. "Widiot" is so full...

Martin, Certainly more open than the others, though this one also has its own weaknesses, i am afraid. It is really only one image, presented in the first two lines, followed by the third line telling you what the first image is. There is a sense of discovery here, which is good, but you have already done all of the discovering yourself. Not sure what to do to help you with this one, though you might consider replacing "yellow" with "color" or some other word that allows some change of perception in the poem. Please don't think i am telling you how to write, but maybe you can see a difference between yours, and say:

a dab of summer
in a meadow of snowmelt:
first dandelion

Of course, you may prefer your original to this, but i hope this give some idea of what i am trying to get across, which is that the poet must somehow "add value" to the scene by expanding the reader's possible response to it.

Lee

Thanks for the kind words and the interesting reading of the poem! Like you, I am a big fan of Billy Collins. Over the past 5 or 6 years, we have had the pleasure of publishing his haiku in Modern Haiku and publishing a fine press chapbook of his haiku, SHE WAS JUST SEVENTEEN. Though I like much of his work in haiku, the poem of his you quote is not, in my mind, a haiku but what i will refer to as a "17er", haiku in form but not in content. My favorite of his, which MH gave him a "best of issue" award for:

Mid-winter evening,
alone at the sushi bar—
just me and this eel. (MH 35.2, 2004)

By the way, next year is the 40th anniversary of Modern Haiku magazine!

Lee

Steve, Fabulous explanation of open endedness! Wow! And speaking of winter flies, here is one of my favorite haiku, by LeRoy Gorman:

last slow dance
winter flies
couple on the bar

which i find rich with resonances. Talk about open ended! Who is dancing here? And the flies at the bar . . . are they little winged creatures or, dare i say, "barflies" or both? Let the reader explore this three-line universe!

Lee

Sure--i'll be glad to!


Christmas morning feed
icicles in the horses tails
little bells jingling

sudden wind gust
prairie dust rises
to meet the rain

i think you have something here--the last two lines together are fabulous--but i think you have sort of "wasted" the first line. After all, we know there is a gust when we get to the second line. Somehow it seems you would do better to use the first line to give some inkling of the vast grandeur of the prairie, perhaps with the darkness or thunderheads of a summer storm?

satellite dish
a single raven is perched
foil in its beak

This haiku brings to mind one of the important tools japanese poets use to expand the scope of their poems: allude to other poems. We do this all the time in our other poetry, but poets here don't think of this so much in writing haiku. For me, this haiku brings to mind one of Basho's most famous haiku, in translation:

On a withered branch
a crow is perched--
autumn evening

If you know Basho's poem, it greatly addes to the interest of your poem and, by a reversal of moods, adds greatly to its interest. Here are a couple of other haiku that point to Basho's haiku. The first by Jeanne Emrich:

autumn evening--
the crow begins its caw
with a deep bow

and by New Zealander Ernest J. Berry,

second half
another crow settles
on our crossbar

Lee

Robert, i have signed on for a week, so i expect to be around till tuesday. Flight precluded http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif, I will go on to your haiku:

first light
on the cabin porch
mayflies

OK, but not a lot here

late night—
spring’s first fly
bounces off the wall

"late night" seems a bit like a toss off. perhaps you might consider something less general that will put us there?

summer evening
another quick chirp
from the microwave

nicely done! (though once again, you might consider something more concrete than the general "summer evening".)

yellow moon
along the icy prairie…
coming home

i think this one has great potential, though i don't think you are quite there yet. Not sure, for example, why you have "along". and the "coming home" makes me long, once again, for something more specific. you might want to play with this one and see how different ways of expressing this feel to you. in the end, you might find you like this version best, but i think it is worth the effort and don't think you will find it to be time wasted.

frost covers
an untilled field…
for sale

i can see corn from my window here and have to say that this is not what i would expect to see. at least in my part of the world at least, nothing is left untidy, especially something for sale.

evening fades—
a rusty tractor
covered by weeds

OK, but maybe the two images might be too close?

blustery day—
an eagle crouches
on the white boulder

And?

Orion rising
the sound of snow
beneath my feet

Why not give us the sound? And are you barefoot? http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

a few flowers
among the weeds
a rusted trowel

like this one and the microwave ones best!

Hope this helps--and hope my comments don't sound too harsh!

Lee

Like your "willy willy" though you have to watch for words with multiple meanings! (e.g., I like my willy, too!)

Caps: well, the same here as anywhere else--whatever you do, do it intentionally and be sure you are able to answer, at least to yourself, why you did it!

Lee

Thanks Steve, you are a fabulous host! No Wheaties, but had some homemade bread with homemade jam! Yum, yum! And ready to go. (Well, actually, i have been going at it for two hours already. Maybe i will need the Wheaties before long!)

Lee

I will be glad to take a look--and you decide whether the comments are worthwhile.

Firefish
on firewood.

not sure i get this one. are the 'firefish' flames in the shape of fish or are they something else i am not familiar with?

sun
trade yellow silk
for moon and dark batwing nights.

interesting.

hawkweed seed in wind
moon in birdbaths
floating

a trifle awkward without an article in the first line.

bring a raincoat
clouds bring the weight
of sky in their bellies

seems just a bit pondeous, don't you think?

seventeen fireflies
make a puddle two toes
in front of my shoes.

not sure i can put this all together

waxwings scallop
a part of Innisfree
with wingtips and will

i think this is the most successful so far. a am assuming you are referring to the garden. my only question here is why "a part"?

unfolding white chadors
on green roofs
mountain and treetops

has a certain spaciousness that is appealing.

clouds play crocket
cuba women
scuttling for cover.

not sure whay "crocket" is here. The only definition i can find is an architectural ornament, and that doesn't seem to fit.

seven cows
death's gretters
searching for an exit in the sky

can' figure out what a "gretter" is. Can you help?

sahara desert
shapes stretchïng over sand
shadows walking

just seems to be a picture

bats
and dreams
gone at suntime.

i think this brings us back to the first one, which i think is more ineresting. this one just seems to be a statement of fact.

I am afraid i haven't been of much help here. There is a certain dreaminess to your poems which i find appealing and a certain ambiguity. Both of these can be interesting in haiku, but please be careful not to leave the reader benind! Sorry not to have been of more help!

Lee