Tag: poem

The tulip garden (haibun)

(c) SeasonalCelebrations at Pinterest
(c) SeasonalCelebrations at Pinterest

When I was a young child we lived in a flat next door to the Franks family. Mr. and Mrs. Franks would work from May to October tirelessly in their garden. I had never seen such a garden that took their entire backyard. There was a small patio and the rest was all flowers. But not just any kind of flowers…tulips of so many colours. Mr. Franks would smile at me when I would dawdle by the fence. Well, hello, Mr. Franks, I would think to myself, I sure would love to have one of those yellow, white  or red soft as silk tulips there. But he never seemed to read my mind and it was rude to ask, so I would walk up and down the dirt driveway very very slowly pretending I was searching for pebbles. The siren would blare at noon and still I would wait. Of course my mother would have to come out to call me in for lunch by now and she would see me by the fence; and as soon as my beautiful mother walked down the steps, Mr. Franks would lift his head and have the nicest smile. Actually I think his face lit up when he saw my mother. She would smile back and do what she did so often with her eyelashes (I tried for years to bat my lashes as quickly as she did but never succeeded!) Mr. Franks would prepare a bunch of tulips and hand them over the fence to my mother. Now it wasn’t Mr. Franks beaming but yours truly with a huge smile on my chubby face.

CLR 2014
CLR 2014

long slender stems,
chubby face peeks in wonder
red and white tulips

red and white tulips
plead to be shown
in a crystal vase

(c) Tournesol ’15

Carpe Diem Tulips

echoes of her son (troiku)

Carpe Diem Haiku Kai – Poppies

pins a poppy
looking in the mirror
echo of her son

pins a poppy
children dancing in the street
wonder why the tears

looking in the mirror
ghosts from battlefields
tears on her cheeks

echo of her son
whispering soothingly
I’m okay.

or

echo of her son
tear not for me
I’m okay

© Tournesol ’15

Carpe Diem Haiku Kai “Poppies”

Our host shows us how to write a Troiku (a new form of Haiku)  here

pleasure tokens (haibun)

“But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, it’s bloom is shed; Or, like the snow-fall in the river, A moment white, then melts forever.” Robert Burns …………Photo credits: Chris at The Muscleheaded Blog

I read this quote at The Muscleheaded Blog.  A lovely quote by none other than Robert Burns. What a nice segeway into Valentine’s Day, non?  Must one be in love or in a relationship at this time to be reminded of past loves, paramours and blissful pleasures of the past?  I don’t think so. And so I decided to write a Troiku  about those pleasure moments that are sometimes short-lived.  Now look deeply into that photo as you read into his thoughts:

adream
© Chris at Muscleheaded Blog – Letters and Dreams

 

poppies spread
pleasure tokens prised
I shan’t forget

poppies spread
imprints a mark of love
and then it scars

pleasure tokens prised
precious moments revisits
blushing every time

I shan’t forget
tomorrows shall be laced,
those yesterdays

© Tournesol ’15

Quote & Photo credits: Chris at The Muscleheaded Blog

Troiku a Haiku form created by Chévrefeuille at Carpe Diem

Carpe Diem Haiku Kai – Poppies

When Georgia mentioned this was the theme at CP yesterday, I read the prompt, thought about writing another haiku (which I still may) but liked the theme of forgotten love rather than war in this troiku as well.

searching for clarity (haibun)

https://penntonic.wordpress.com/2015/02/10/creative-expressions-9-black-and-white/#comment-1974
© Pen ‘n Tonice Creative Expressions – School Chums

Géraldine rocked in her oak chair looking at the window. Clouds were hiding mountain peaks of Mont Tremblant.  She sighed glancing at the photograph on her lap. Papa was in the other room snoring loudly.  She found comfort in this sound. It meant she had peace and quiet for a few hours before he would awaken in his unpredictable rages. It spiralled if he’d taken a few swigs of his homemade Caribou.  He seemed to take to it more and more these days. He’d heat it over the woodstove.

La maudite poele à bois!  He still had not purchased an electric stove.  What fool still cooks on such appliances? Bien moi, c’est qui!  Her sisters ran off as soon as they could to la grande ville de St-Jérome for Estelle and Marie-Claude met a ski instructor and moved to Montréal.  They left her alone to care for Papa. They’d each promised on Maman’s deathbed to take care Papa but only Géraldine kept her promise.  “C’est ben trop tard pour moi, à c’heure.” She gave up hoping or caring.  She volunteered at Auberge Alys Robi, an old folk’s home and knew that was probably her calling.  The staff  invited her often to come work for them.

She sighed heavily, at least she had a place to go when Papa was no longer here.

Her rocking chair creaked as she searched for those mountain peaks still hidden in their fog.

Who am I?
looking at this image,
I get lost.

© Tournesol ’15

248 words

Written for Pen ‘n tonic Creative Expressions 

palette of colours (haibun)

Sunset over the Harbour Copyright : Boyan Dimitrov

Carpe Diem Haiku Kai – Sunsest over the Habour

I spend a lot of time in the spring and summer sitting on a rock or leaning on a tree in a small park by the St Lawrence River across from Montreal.  I can see glimpses of the Old Port of Montreal; I usually sit near a few fishermen…it is always more peaceful there.

© Clr May 14

I see the Champlain Bridge to my left (west side) and the Jacques Cartier Bridge to my right (east).  Ducks following the current.    And then you see it; the sun starts its magnificent performance like an artist with his paint brush. One huge canvas and the artist takes out his palette of colour,  dipping in mauves, then pink and gradually the blues share space with the orange and yellows blending in their special shades of ochre.

© Clr August 14

Art in the sky

multicolours coalesce

ducks paddle downstream

© Tournesol ’15

© Clr August 14

Tranquil moments (haibun)

Sometimes I find myself pensive and somber in thought. It is often after I wake up and have had several mysterious dreams that stir my psyche.  I come to the kitchen and start running water to clean my counter and then fill the tub with sudsy hot water.   I often take a few dirty items from my dishwasher and wash them by hand. My mind is still churning as I continue to process a thing or two that requires something soothing like the repetitive motions of washing dishes.

washing dishes

clears cobwebs in my mind

tranquility

© Clr ’15

We often equate tranquil moments with nature. Living across the street from a shopping mall with a huge parking lot, I find solace in hearing the concert of three to four snow plows at night. The roaring actually lulls me to sleep. Who would have thought that gigantic machinery such as these mega snow plows could be my winter lullaby?

twilight rumbles

bulldozing through huge snow drifts

lull me to sleep

© Tournesol’15

CP Tranquility

Stanley Park chase (Tan Renga)

cherry blossom rain
young girls with pink umbrellas
watched by eager boys (JazzBumpa)

pacific gust lifts his cap
they smile as he runs by

girls giggling
amused with this new chase
shamed boy drops his head

© Tournesol ’15

le blues m’enveloppent (haibun)

Bistro à JoJo - Montréal
Bistro à JoJo – Montréal

The first time I heard the honey toned voices singing along with an acoustic guitar, I was a block away sitting in a small Jazz lounge called Le Jazzons.  Very low key place it was where I sat next to Victor Vogel as he jammed with other musicians after hours during the Montreal Jazz Festival.  As I walked out the bar I heard the music coming from rue St Denis and saw a crowd at the front of a bar I was about to soon visit and fall prey to its charm.

The closer I got, I could hear why there was a crowd where they were singing along, most swaying and moving their hips to the music inside.

Blues is the type of music that I personally feel has no discrimination.   I suppose Jazz is the same but in Montreal, I noticed more people of all walks of life packing into this small Bistro à JoJo on rue St Denis every night of the week. Oh, you can sit in afternoons too to listen to open jamming but after ten in the evening the place is hopping.  It holds less than 100 patrons, so it is not rare to see people on the sidewalk listening to the music.   This was a place I heard so many French and English people singing and talking together savouring the blues here.

posée au comptoir
sirotant une Maudite
le Blues m’apaisent

https://i0.wp.com/www.fine-digital-art.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/City-Landscape-Impressionism.jpg
Digital Art – Landscape Impressionism

Manhattan reminds me a bit of Montreal (on a much smaller scale) in that it is an island, drivers are aggressive and honk their horns a lot and it is a city of music and food. Well to me anyway. Driving off the island to get on any bridge is similar to Montreal when there are twelve lanes that merge onto three lanes and they do it day in, day out as we do here too.  So on a much smaller scale I do see similarities…I think NY has a better nightlife in all areas and that is where we differ here. We have a slower pace lifestyle and unlike our Canadian  mega city, Toronto who follows more NY style rush rush rush…we have kept a bit of our ancestor’s mode de vie, vivre et laisser vivre.

weekend gig
island of many lights
stringing the blues
serenade on the Hudson
under midnight blue skies

© Tournesol ’15

CP Time Machine

* La Maudite is one of many beers brewed in Chambly, Québec by UniBroue. Chambly is the town where my children were raised. La Maudite is a stronger beer at 8% alcohol and Unibroue has other beers up to 10% however my favourite is La Blanche de Chambly at 5%; it is a wheaty beer tasting more like a Belgian beer.

heaven’s communiqué (haibun)

At Carpe Diem the month of February is month of impressions and today, the  Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh who is another impressionist.

© Wikipedia – Sttary Night

Our host presents Starry Night over the Rhone (another painting by Van Gogh) with a lovely story:

Starry Night Over the Rhone – Van Gogh (Wikipedia)
“One of the first paintings of the view was Mountainous Landscape Behind Saint-Rémy, now in Copenhagen, which Van Gogh identified in a letter to his sister Wil from 16 June 1889 as hanging in his studio to dry. Two days later, he wrote to his brother that he had painted “a starry sky.” The Starry Night is the only nocturne painting in the series of views from his bedroom window. In early June Vincent wrote to Theo, “This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big.” Two scholars working independently of each other have determined that Venus was indeed visible in Provence in the spring of 1889. So the brightest “star” in the painting, just to the viewer’s right of the cypress tree, is actually Venus. 
The moon is stylized, as astronomical records indicate that the moon was waning gibbous at the time Van Gogh painted the picture. Even if the phase of the moon had been a waning crescent at the time, Van Gogh’s moon is not astronomically correct. The one pictorial element that was definitely not visible from Van Gogh’s cell is the village, which is based on a sketch made from a hillside above the village of Saint-Rémy.”
Our host has written this haiku with this image and story in mind:

from the asylum
he observed the starry night –
seeking for the light
(c) Chèvrefeuille

**********************************************

I love visiting my friends in the country. Their home faces five mountains and one is very close, Mont Bromont.  They live dans un rang (a dirt road) lined with farms and vast meadows.  Any season has its charm but in winter the only light we see at night are on the mountain where skiers ski at night. Streams of lights squirming in shapes and curves.  I like to walk near the barn facing the cornfield now covered in white, looking up I try to locate the Big Dipper.  It isn`t long before I am off in my starry world of fantasy and wonder.

© GrandQuébec – Bromont

twilight stroll
translating heaven’s memo,
iridescent sky

© Tournesol ’15

Étude de lys (haiga)

Water lilies by Claude Monet
Water lilies by Claude Monet

mise en scène
lys sur l’étang
cigale gazouille

***

staging
lilies on the pond
cicada chirps

(c) Tournesol ’15

CPHK