Issa Haiku - just right for today!

rainstorm--
on this lawn, that lawn
just a cup's worth

Issa

1821

 

.夕立や芝から芝へ小盃
yûdachi ya shiba kara shiba e ko sakazuki

 

Shinji Ogawa translates the phrase, shiba kara shiba e, "from the lawn here to the lawn there." The word, ko sakazuki literally means "small sake cup," but here, Shinji believes, it is more likely being used metaphorically to denote "a small amount of rain."

http://haikuguy.com/issa/

TOM WAITS: Q: What’s wrong with the world?

 A: We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. Leona Helmsley’s dog made 12 million last year… and Dean McLaine, a farmer in Ohio made $30,000. It’s just a gigantic version of the madness that grows in every one of our brains. We are monkeys with money and guns.

 -May 20, 2008 (Glitter and Doom promo, Tom Waits interviews himself)

Giacometti Exhibition

Seeing Beyond Alberto Giacometti’s Bronzes

Tate Modern’s retrospective of the Swiss sculptor, which gathers some 250 pieces, highlights his multi-pronged process and sustained work in plaster, wood, terracotta, oil paint, and more.

 

 

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Poetry on a Plate

FAY'S FUNERAL poem

for Fay Zwicky 1933-2017

At your funeral today, the poets
and family congregate - dressed
formally, heads bowed. We hear
you play with the Melbourne Symphony
in 1954; we hear you read 'Picnic'
in 2010 - we are all ears until
a light-winged bird flies into
a grevillia out the window
and tweets. I lift my head
and smile.

- Andrew Burke

CLIMATE REVOLUTIONARIES OF EAST AFRICA

 

The world's poor are bearing the brunt of global warming yet they have done the least to cause it. African countries have some of the lowest carbon emissions rates in the world. As examples, South Sudan and Somalia have relatively few vehicles and limited industry. But their fields are drying up and their pastureland is vanishing. This issue, little understood, is one of the great injustices of our time.

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Walt Whitman's great poem

I Hear America Singing

 

Walt Whitman

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and              strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand            singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he      stands, The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or        at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of        the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows,          robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.