A Sense of Place: CITY SIDEWALK – taste

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1. Happy Holidays Everyone!
   & sincere thanks for your participation…

2. Thank you Kathy

   I particularly liked reading and going back again to read these verses-

   native street
   the taste of ice cream
   is the same as in childhood

   Serhiy Shpychenko

   street vendor
   the childhood delicacy
   I still savour

   Madhuri Pillai

   Both of them evoke a strong nostalgia for childhood joys,reposed by their unwavering tastes and timelessness of those little indulgences when revisited many years later.

   1. thanks so much for sharing these comments, Rashmi!

3. An amazing amount of tastes here. A great selection, Kathy. Well done to all poets. I enjoyed reading them all.
   .
   lamp-lit pools…
   the nooks and crannies
   of sequestered candy
   Alan Summers
   .
   When I first read this my initial thoughts were of the nice things, when children, the surprises put by for a special event. But with more thought, and I maybe going in the wrong direction here, ‘lamp-lit pools’ gives me a vision of distant memories of a childhood, and ‘sequestered candy’ a sweetness taken away. This is so deep, and for me needs a lot more thought.
   An intense read.
   .
   walking…
   the taste of solitude
   in just one word
   Anna Maria Domburg- Sancristoforo
   .
   There are times when being alone can be sweet, then there’s other times…
   .
   a lick for you
   and a lick for me
   ice cream with puppy
   Christina Sng
   .
   Love this, reminds me of a holiday I took on the Pembroke coast with my dogs. A chocolate ice cream treat while sitting above the harbour wall 🙂
   .
   I walk
   people smile
   chocolate on my face
   Davis gale
   .
   This made me smile. One of those embarrassing moments when we know nothing 🙂 so funny.
   A bit like when a lady has the back of her skirt, accidently, tucked into her underwear.
   .
   beneath food stall
   a stray cat chews
   the leftover bones
   Hifsa Ashraf
   .
   So many images of unwanted pets left to go feral. What I ask myself, here, is ‘stray cat’ the only living thing that chews on the left overs of the more affluent members of society.
   .
   back alley
   a stray dog
   feeds her litter
   Joanne van Helvoort
   .
   Again the same could be seen as the above.
   ‘a pet isn’t just a gift, it’s a commitment’
   .
   discarded kebab
   the homeless man splits it
   with his dog
   John Mc Manus
   .
   This verse brought back a memory I witnessed when waiting for the coach back to Wales from Victoria station, London. A very, vey thin man started to rummage through a bin near a food outlet. He found some discarded chips and a half eaten roll of some-sort, and unravelled the paper and started to eat it. I’ve seen people on the street in the local towns asking for a few shillings, and sharing food with their dogs, but rummaging through bins for food shocked me, its an image I will never forget.
   .
   chilli cheese dog
   I wear more
   than I eat
   Margaret Walker
   .
   Well, I can see this in two ways, either the sauce has dripped down the front of your clothes or a the saying goes ‘another mouthful, another pound’ (on the hips of course)
   A nice bit of humour 🙂
   .
   You’re doing a marvellous job, Kathy. Have a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year.
   The same to all you poets 🙂

   1. Carol said:
      .
      .

      lamp-lit pools…
      the nooks and crannies
      of sequestered candy
      .
      Alan Summers
      .
      When I first read this my initial thoughts were of the nice things, when children, the surprises put by for a special event. But with more thought, and I maybe going in the wrong direction here, ‘lamp-lit pools’ gives me a vision of distant memories of a childhood, and ‘sequestered candy’ a sweetness taken away. This is so deep, and for me needs a lot more thought.
      An intense read.
      .
      .
      Wow! 🙂
      .
      When I wrote this, I didn’t see what you saw, but I think you are right, I was subconsciously doing this.
      .
      I do worry sometimes that some of my haiku are ‘intense’ and not easy-reading. 🙂

      1. Thank you Alan 🙂

   2. thanks for this, Carol – so many great ideas here…

4. City Sidewalk

   I’ve noted that for me, the City Sidewalk series has often focused on the plight of the homeless. I’m not sure why that is such a strong association, but some of my own responses to these prompts have gone in that direction, and some of the ones I’ve found most impactful from others as well.

   John McManus – discarded kebab/ the homeless man splits it / with his dog

   is a perfect example.

   Also, as someone who hasn’t lived much of life in the city, I feel the isolation inherent in those crowds, as Michael Henry Lee so well captures

   big city sidewalk / the taste of being alone / in the crowd

   And I love the glimpses others give me of different moments or perspectives, especially the humorous ones…

   Nancy Brady – red kettle donations… / sidewalk Santa sucks / on a candy cane

   1. Dear m. shane pruett,

      I feel that because homeless people are increasing in great numbers, and getting younger and younger, and our governments allow them to die, and crowd the streets, it’s the main feature of most shop lined streets alas.
      .
      John McManus’s haiku highlights the generosity of many homeless people. Some have helped me, or my wife (who had severe M.E. and couldn’t make it to a taxi one day).
      .
      For the second time this year shamefully British politicians stepped over a dying homeless person by one of the busiest doors at Parliament, in London.
      .
      I’ve lost many homeless friends to the cold, to sepsis (police dog bites or cuts) and some people are kicking, urinating, or cutting up the homeless.
      .
      It’s really all we can see, and our governments bicker over insignificant slights and points of view.
      .
      .
      curling up at dusk
      the park bench sleeper
      turns over a new page
      .
      Alan Summers
      1st Prize, Fellowship of Australian Writers, Queensland, International Haiku Contest (1996)
      .
      .
      sunlit sweat
      the young vagrant
      sucks a thumb
      .
      Alan Summers
      Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012)
      The Haiku Foundation’s Per Diem: Daily Haiku December 2012 (31 poems): Children
      .

      I feel the milk of human kindness is evaporating in some quarters. Karen and myself helped a young woman who escaped domestic abuse, and in shock, due to prescribed meds, she didn’t have the money for tampons. My wife went with her to a shop, and bought her various things, and money for food, and she went into shelter and is now rehoused. For that lady, thousands have society turn their back on them, and institutions are going back to Dickensian times. It doesn’t have to be that way.

      1. Your words, and the things we see on the TV make me wonder what is happening in our world. During an appeal advert, which there are so many these days not only for humans but animals, too. At the end of one there was a little child, no more than three years old, sitting hunched in a cardboard box in the middle of a busy street, and no one took any notice, not here in the UK, but non the less, what ever is happening to human compassion around the world.

         1. Thanks Carol.
            .
            At one time, in my youth, we mostly saw the occasional tramp, someone who was eccentric, sometimes an ex-professor even. We now have people born as citizens who are either economic or abused refugees in their own country: Causes created by successive venal politicians and super-businesses as well as violent spouses. From a rare appearance on the British street, we now have children and adults regularly homeless and the main visual image we register rather than shops and banter in those shops.
            .
            Decent manners, integrity, compassion are seen as weaknesses and wrong in general. Such a shame. I’ll personally continue to be weak, and forcefully remind myself to be someone with at least some empathy.

            1. A depressing read, but true. what a mess the world is in. If only a brake could be put on to allow everything and everyone to slow down and take a good look at the mess we humans have made…maybe one day women will be in the ‘power’ seats around the world, you never know there just could be a lot more compassion, who knows, such a massive issue.
               Thanks for that thought provoking reply.
               .
               Love that last paragraph.

   2. a wonderful exchange of ideas here – thanks to you all… haiku poets can address the things that are ‘under our noses’, naturally, & the discussion that can be evoked by this is significant…

5. a paw up then down
   another paw up then down
   below zero

   1. Jim – if this is a submission to be considered for the column, please re-submit using the Contact Form at the top of this page! thanks, kj

6. Stephen’s: city scape / past the sidewalk window / the taste of something more, intrigues me. I want to read it over and over. I imagine a low level employee of some kind, hurrying on an errand, catching a glimpse of some luxury displayed in a window, and dreaming. A well-crafted hint of meaning.

   1. wonderful – thanks for your comments, Craig!

7. Thank you Kathy for including one of my haiku this week. And for all you do each week putting this together. Very informative and enjoyable. It is refreshing to see all the different interpretations.

   1. thanks so much for this Sari – it is a pleasure!

8. Thank you for all your commendable work in putting together this very inspiring series every week, Kathy! For someone new to the genre, it has been a great learning experience for me. Thanks for including my poems and for the times you’ve chosen some of mine for commentary, as well.
   I particularly like Michael Henry Lee’s
   big city sidewalk
   the taste of being alone
   in the crowd
   Being alone in a city sidewalk crowd, I savor the taste of freedom, adventure and sometimes, the pleasure of my own company!
   My hats off to all poets in the series!

   1. thanks so much for sharing this Bona – I appreciate your kind words!

9. Thanks, Kathy and poets, for this week’s carefully crafted haiku. Ingrid Baluchi starts her perceptive commentary “Not everyone…concentrated on ‘taste’ as in how things are savoured on the tongue…” Among those, I particularly enjoyed
   .
   Marilyn Ashbaugh’s “a bitter childhood / sweetened…”
   .
   Roberta Beary’s “i nibble away / my aloneness”
   .
   Anna Maria Domburg-Sancristoforo’s “taste of solitude”
   .
   Charles Harmon’s “taste of mountain meadows”
   .
   Christine Eales’ “ the taste of Proust”
   .
   Isabel Caves’ “the taste of a busker’s/ desperation”
   .
   Laurie Greer’s “a taste of winter/ in the grains of rock salt”
   .
   Lucy Whitehead’s “tasting the sunlight / in a glass of wine”
   .
   Margo Williams’ “getting to taste/ a new haiku”
   .
   Marietta McGregor’s “espresso and bickering/equally bitter”
   .
   Magumi Shibuya’s “the half moon / a white fruit in the sky”
   .
   Michael Lee’s “the taste of being alone/ in the crowd”
   .
   Philip Whitley’s “hot tears a whole scoop pools on the pavement”
   .
   Rashmi Vesa’s “scavenging urchins –/ their eyes full of taste”
   .
   Stephen A. Peters’ “the taste of something more”

   1. thanks for sharing this Christina!

10. Thanks for including mine, Kathy!
    Reading these, I just got an appetite for new perspectives.

    1. wonderful!

11. Ah… another Wednesday, which has become my favorite day of the week. Congratulations to all the poets selected. What a great learning experience this has become. Thank you, Kathy!

    1. thanks for this Gary!

12. Kathy, thank-you for including mine. Congrats to all !!

    1. thanks for submitting, Valentina!

13. Thanks, Kathy, for including my poem. Every one was fun to read, but I would like to highlight two that skillfully used the element of surprise in Line 3:
    sidewalk vendor
    the taste of figgy pudding
    in a plastic cup (Michael H. Lester)

    sidewalk food carts
    the taste
    of dogwood fluff (Jim Krotzman)

    Thanks to all the poets!

    1. thanks for sharing, Pat!

14. Not everyone this week concentrated on ‘taste’ as in how things are savoured on the tongue — the gustatory perception (ghastly-sounding phrase). I enjoyed especially those that took a different angle: taste as in one’s own judgement, a sort of philosophy of perception. I admire Roberta Beary’s ‘aloneless’ (rather than loneliness), even though it covers both senses of taste. Similarly, Michael Henry Lee’s ‘the taste of being alone in a crowd’. Then there’s Ruth’s ‘a little taste of freedom’ , which could speak volumes, and Michele’s fashion observation, ‘sleeker silhouette’. There were several others in this mix.
    .
    kj’s forum has taught me several things as a relative newcomer/late starter to the short poem genre, and one of them, through so many examples from all you experts, is how to look at subjects from a lateral point of view. Dig deep, find something new! The choice seems endless.
    .
    Thank you Kathy for including my contribution, even though when I re-read what I had submitted, it is grammatically incorrect …oops!
    .
    And so on to ‘feeling’! Sixth sense, maybe?!

    1. Ingrid–
       You’ve highlighted several things I also have found from all these sensory excursions. After thinking I’ve considered the topic from every way possible, I’m always surprised and amazed and delighted by all the angles that never occurred to me. A truly rich form–as is this forum.

       As for your fine haiku–
       sidewalk café
       rounds of raki
       warms the cockles of the heart

       No worries about the grammar–a stickler could take it as the raki talking, or the “warms” could refer not to the rounds but to the whole experience itself.
       best,
       Laurie Greer

       1. Thank you, Laurie, for your kind comments, and Christina too.

    2. thanks for sharing this, Ingrid, & for your kind words!

15. Dear Kathy,
    The essence of all mix – put in the jar of this blog, we all taste and drink. Thanks to your meticulous efforts, dear Kathy. Happy to see mine .After all said and done, ” being alone in the crowd” is something with a different relish. I agree with Michael Henry Lee.

    big city sidewalk
    the taste of being alone
    in the crowd

    Michael Henry Lee

    1. thanks for this!

16. I’m so glad to see Pris Campbell’s
    .
    last bus
    grilled pretzels with mustard
    and I forget
    .
    I love this! To me this is a rare example of a postmodern haiku which tests some boundaries but also works excellently as a haiku. Perhaps Radostina Dragostinova’s
    .
    the streets of Istanbul
    I hunt in the dictionary
    for a synonym of cliché
    .
    is also a postmodern haiku.

    1. wonderful!

17. Thanks for including mine in this excellent selection.

    1. thanks, as always, for submitting Mark!

18. What a tasty collection this week, from the sweet to the salty to the bitter, and everything in between, KJ. Great job. Thanks for including one of mine, too. Now to taste a few more haiku.

    1. thanks Nancy!

19. I very much enjoy this Weekly Wednesday Haiku Smorgasbord. I find it interesting to read the selected haiku which focus on one specific image and setting as well as those whose images are more abstract. For me, the former is a borrowed painting I can view again and again, as in Carmen Sterba’s:

    slippery sidewalks –
    warming myself
    with starbucks tea

    while the latter is a page torn from a novel, one that is subject to myriad interpretations with each reading, as in Ruth Powell’s:

    city sidewalk
    a little taste
    of freedom

    1. What insightful ways to relish haiku: as “a borrowed painting” to be returned to or “a page torn from a novel,” with multiple interpretations. For me, giving words to experience like that, widens and deepens it. Thanks, Roberta.

       1. thanks for this, Roberta, & Christina – I too am amazed by the variety & quality of responses to these themes over the weeks…

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