Underpayment – haiku

It’s less than one cent,
Doesn’t reflect in peoples’ slip.
Underpayment! R’pay!

Have we thought of what underpayment we have given to our own Life? Or to others’?
Promise, committment…
Ethical, fair…
Be true.
Life is the most accurate Calculator.

Singapore – August 18, 2019 / 10:50am
IMG_1692

I Miss My Home Now – haiku

Between breezes, she
Seeks the warmth of slowing time:
I miss my home now.

Soekarno Hatta Intl’ Airport Jakarta, waiting for the bird flying me over to a place called home.

August 17, 2019 / 13:15

Freedom to Express – haiku

Freedom to express:
Same as “whatever I like”?
My balcony cries.


I feel that this long weekend is really long and giving me great deal of space. My passport is retained for a visa vignette so I can’t fly out to give Singapore a break. Yet, I find that being at home for 4 days is amazingly beautiful experience. Cooking, reading, watching movies, listening to my oldies jazzzzzzzah and daydreaming…. But I missed one thing; I’ve left my plants with just watering without greeting. I’m looking out at all of my plants through the window, I hope they are still as happy as can be. If they want to express their protest, let them come to my dream and say “Dear, Human. Be wise and greet me.” 🥰

What’s In A Cask – haiku

What’s in the cask, Bruh?
Wine or tea? — I never know
Until the party starts.

Beware of a mind-twisting haiku!

This haiku contains a conversation between two fools who wanted to know what was inside a cask. Both were waiting for a party to start and hoped to enjoy the content of the cask. When would the party come? No idea, oye Fools…. 🙂

Life is like a party that never comes on time when a fool is only waiting for someone to open the cask. To enjoy the content of the cask, those fools should have openned it and spilled whatever inside it. Whether it is aged tea or old wine. A fool should be a fool, acting like a fool.

Don’t wait for the party to come. A real fool should get drunk just by an idea of what’s inside a cask….

Life is a comedy, where working is as addictive as drinking intoxicating substances.

Drink, Master! Drink!

Temasek – August 12, 2019 / 10:34am

 

Picture borrowed from: https://sobercollege.com/addiction-blog/workaholics/

Work-Addiction1

Tears

What is tear?

I can cry in agony,
I can cry in pain,
I can cry happy,
I can cry angry,

I can cry with all reasons.

But I cry the same tears.

Singapore – August 11, 2019 / 1:06pm

Useful links:
https://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-lacrimal-gland.htm#didyouknowout

https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/photos/12-facts-change-way-see-elephants/elephants-can-cry

Photo borrowed from: https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/photos/12-facts-change-way-see-elephants/elephants-can-cry elephant-tears.jpg.1000x0_q80_crop-smart

Angle of Angels – tanka

Looking through clear glass,
Sweeping fog away of eyes —
Angle of Angels.
Whether or not she’s sleeping
Or awake is Angels’ click.

Baloi – August 6, 2019 / 06:36 (Western Indonesia Time)

Below is a painting by Wilhem von Kaulbach, “The Guardian Angel”.

Weeping Ney – free verse

Ney….
Your song pulled me down in to the depth of abyss
Gliding with no weight,
Free falling –

Ney….
Your tone touched me on the hollow emptiness
Craving for sensations,
Crashing on nothingness.

Ney….
Your call dragged me along the path that I know well, yet
I am lonely and blind,
Waiting for a map.

Ney….
Do you know I’ve been here all my life,
My breath,
My step,
My tear,
My despair,
All of mine.

Ney….
You are the breeze that sweeps my draught
Then soars;
The dewdrop that breaks my morning
Then wakes up;
The spark that lights up my flame
Then burns.
The dirt that buries my hope
Then grows.

Ney….
It is you
That swirls like earth spiraled upwards by tornado,
And travels afar before it hits the door of heaven.

Ney….
I am taking your hands.
Your weeping cries will always accompany my journey
To you, Ney.

Phnom Pehn – August 2, 2019 – 22:45

Dear Water – haiku

If I can hold you,
In the dark – your clear, fresh flow…
May I? Dear, Water.

 

Temasek – April 13, 2019 – 11:15pm

green-canyon

Picture borrowed from https://phinemo.com/20-destinasi-wisata-di-indonesia-yang-sebaiknya-kamu-kunjungi-sebelum-menikah/green-canyon/

Tears – haiku

Water trickles down
The cheeks. Streams of melted snow flow,
Waking up the soul.

Temasek – March 30, 2019 – 6:45pm

 

image

Picture borrowed from https://www.businessinsider.com.au/vladimir-putin-great-year-2013-12

Tanka – link to read

I’ve been learning how to write haiku, and now tanka. The link below to learn in simple way.

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The Japanese tanka is a thirty-one-syllable poem, traditionally written in a single unbroken line. A form of waka, Japanese song or verse, tanka translates as “short song,” and is better known in its five-line, 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count form.

One of the oldest Japanese forms, tanka originated in the seventh century, and quickly became the preferred verse form not only in the Japanese Imperial Court, where nobles competed in tanka contests, but for women and men engaged in courtship. Tanka’s economy and suitability for emotional expression made it ideal for intimate communication; lovers would often, after an evening spent together (often clandestinely), dash off a tanka to give to the other the next morning as a gift of gratitude.

In many ways, the tanka resembles the sonnet, certainly in terms of treatment of subject. Like the sonnet, the tanka employs a turn, known as a pivotal image, which marks the transition from the examination of an image to the examination of the personal response. This turn is located within the third line, connecting the kami-no-ku, or upper poem, with the shimo-no-ku, or lower poem.

Many of the great tanka poets were women, among them Lady Akazone Emon, Yosano Akiko, and Lady Murasaki Shikibu, who wrote The Tale of Genji, a foundational Japanese prose text that includes over 400 tanka. English-language writers have not taken to the tanka form in the same way they have the haiku, but there are several notable exceptions, including Amy Lowell, Kenneth Rexroth, Sam Hamill, Cid Corman, and Carolyn Kizer.

There are many excellent anthologies of Japanese verse, most of which feature lengthy selections of tanka. Rexroth’s translations, which include One Hundred Poems from the Japanese and One Hundred More Poems from the Japanese, are considered classics, and The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi & Izumi Shikibu, translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani, continues this tradition.

Link: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/tanka-poetic-form

Caged Bird – free verse

My father had a black starling.
It loved eating kepok* banana – no, had no choice.
It sang – no, cried
It danced – no, nervous
It entertained our guests – no, tried to escape
It slept peacefully – no, dreamed nightmares days and nights
It did happily – no, a prisoner.

The cage was wires and wood.
We hoped it could talk.

Our family moved
To a much smaller home.
Our starling got neglected
How much I can feel the guilty is like a teary moment to a bloody heart!

The black starling got a home
Bigger:
My mother’s relative.

It loved eating kepok* banana – no, had no choice.
It sang – no, cried
It danced – no, nervous
It entertained our guests – no, tried to escape
It slept peacefully – no, dreamed nightmares days and nights
It did happily – no, a prisoner.

The cage was wires and wood, half we gave to it.
We hoped it could talk.

If you are dead, dear Black Starling,
Be in a peaceful moment.
Fly with your beautiful wings, black and shiny!
Feed your life with all the fresh memories.
Forget all the cages and bars.
Be the air
Be the vapour
Be the atmosphere
Be our silent guidance to the freedom out of this cage.

Thank you for your will to be our prisoner
Thank you for your sincerity to be our exhibition
Thank you for your sacrifice to feed our ego
Thank you for your life to complete our purity.

See you across the bridge.
You’ve met him, right?
Tell him you forgive us.

Yours truly,

Me

Shanghai – Dec. 15, 2018 – 12:05 noon is here

img_1737

Drunken Master – free verse

A jug of water
Flows down in to many mugs.
Drink, Master. Drink!

MV5BNzdlOWRlZGUtOGViNS00ODVkLWFiNzEtN2JmZDViYzUxMDI1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_

Shanghai, Dec. 14, 2018 – 23:49

Picture borrowed from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080179/

The Theophany of Perfection – Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi

The Theophany of Perfection
Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi

Listen, O dearly beloved!
I am the reality of the world, the centre of the circumference,
I am the parts and the whole.
I am the will established between Heaven and Earth,
I have created perception in you only in order to be the object of My Perception.
If then you perceive Me, you perceive yourself.
But you cannot perceive Me through yourself.
It is through My Eyes that you see Me and see yourself,
Through your eyes you cannot see Me.

Dearly beloved!
I have called you so often and you have not heard Me.
I have shown Myself to you so often and you have not seen Me.
I have made Myself fragrance so often, and you have not smelled Me,
Savorous food, and you have not tasted Me.
Why can you not reach Me through the object you touch
Or breathe Me through sweet perfumes?
Why do you not see Me? Why do you not hear Me?
Why? Why? Why?

For you My delights surpass all other delights,
And the pleasure I procure you surpasses all other pleasures.
For you I am preferable to all other good things,
I am Beauty, I am Grace.
Love Me, love Me alone.
Love yourself in Me, in Me alone.
Attach yourself to Me,
No one is more inward than I.
Others love you for their own sakes,
I love you for yourself.
And you, you flee from Me.

Dearly beloved!
You cannot treat Me fairly,
For if you approach Me,
It is because I have approached you.
I am nearer to you than yourself,
Than your soul, than your breath.
Who among creatures
Would treat you as I do?
I am jealous of you, over you,
I want you to belong to no other,
Not even to yourself.
Be Mine, be for Me as you are in Me,
Though you are not even aware of it.

Dearly beloved!
Let us go toward Union.
And if we find the road
That leads to separation,
We will destroy separation.
Let us go hand in hand.
Let us enter the presence of Truth.
Let It be our judge
And imprint Its seal upon our union
For ever.

 

Temasek – December 5, 2018 – 20:53 (when I’m sick)

Picture is borrowed from mezquita.html

mezquita_interior_cabecera

Bold Petals – haiku

Bold petals of red
Roses among thorns dry out
By the Wind of North.

GH Jakarta — May 8, 2018

Dry red rose in autumn garden top view. Flower in fall season sad autumn mood. Wilted rose flower closeup above view shot with copyspace.

https://www.123rf.com/photo_64952693_beautiful-dark-red-rose-in-the-garden-selective-focus-vintage-color-dying-plant-in-autumn-sad-fall-m.html?fromid=b2FvVE5zTW5DRTJwRm93ZFJsV0FOZz09

Faces – haiku

Facets and faces
On diamonds and humans are
Overt covert beauty —

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Can you see the real things behind the things? You might be able or not but the thing is there you know it or not. Existence is not about the humans’ ability to see through, existence is about that it is there and that’s it. You’ve gotta to reach the fact that you believe what’s true is true, what exists exists without judging what’s true and what exists. My homework for myself.

Temasek – April 28, 2018 – 14:04

Train – haiku

Connected and long,
It moves on a rail towards
A destined station.

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Like a train, a training is an un-broken chain of programs a trainee should undergo. Trainee shall follow instructions in the assigned modules as guided by the trainer. Alas! Long. Connected. Tested. Goal.

Yet we shall get certified by a licensed party eh?

Singapore – April 27, 2018 – 18:31