Charley in Korea
my service over
casting my helmet aside
a cricket moves in
a cast-off helmet
long walk to civilian life
hear the cricket sing
Posted to Frank J. Tassone’s Haikai Challenge #7.
Haiku — A Veteran Walks Away
Life in Portofino
Great poets live on the edge of sanity; mediocre ones reside in the suburbs.
Ah! Basho, a fellow warrior, gets the nod, I see. Nicely done, Charley. Displays the transition quite well. Love the silence implied in the crickets and the rejoicing. Oh, and, thank you.
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Thank you! That haiku is one of my favorite of his. You are welcome.
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This is really nice, the action of walking away and the sound element makes it connect with this reader. I hadn’t read the one by Basho but yours reminded me of one by Nick Virgilio. He wrote a lot about his brother who died in Vietnam.:
deep in rank grass
through a bullet-riddled helmet
an unknown flower
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I really like that!
The thing about Basho’s haiku that’s unnerving is that — due to the vagaries inherent in the process of translation — there are literally a score of the same haiku floating in the muddy atmosphere. I cannot even find the translation I first read and fell in love with. A cricket, a grasshopper… singing, not singing… a helmet, a hat…. Someone needs to get their act together; there’s poetry to be written!!!
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Oh! True, that makes it less precise but then the idea takes precedence over the wording. I started really loving poetry by reading Li Bo. Nobody can even agree on how to spell his name (Li Po, Li Bai), let alone the exact words in his poems. But that sort of gives freedom too, to put your own spin on it as you did here.
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True enough!
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Really, really liked that. Captures a great deal in a few lines. So powerful to come from your own life.
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I don’t spend much time thinking about that time — not a nostalgic kind of guy. When I do have to think on it, I am astounded at how lightly I held onto the fact that I could face combat at any time. It simply was. What I mostly enjoy about these haiku is how effectively they mirror the one by Basho… and still reflect my reality.
Poetry — at times — holds universality in its hot, grubby mitts.
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I was going to point out the excellent echo of Basho in these!
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Thank you, sir! I find it hard to write haiku… even hip-hop-haiku… without discovering a tinge of Basho lurking in the shadows.
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OK, you and I need to do a proper Hip-hop Basho Renga.
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Working on it.
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Frogs and Ho’s!
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Reblogged this on Frank J. Tassone and commented:
#Haiku Happenings #7: Charley’s latest haiku for my current #haikai challenge!
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These are both beautiful Charley with your own voice joining Basho’s echoes
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Thank you! It just flowed… both of them. It helps if you live it.
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