HAIKU DIALOGUE – Opposites Attract – destroy/create

Opposites Attract

Hello – kj here – I will be taking the reins again for the next few weeks, with the theme ‘opposites attract’. The prompt each week will be a pair of opposites – feel free to be inspired by one or the other, or both! I hope this draws you towards excellent haiku – the way the compass, even in these uncertain times, will always settle on ‘North’…

                  quarantine
                  compass needle
                  spinning

                           kjmunro

next week’s theme:  OPPOSITES ATTRACT – right/left

The deadline is midnight Pacific Daylight Savings Time, Saturday October 24, 2020.

Please submit one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme by clicking here: Contact Form. Please put Haiku Dialogue in the Subject box, & include your name as you would like it to appear, & your place of residence, with your poem. I look forward to reading your submissions.

A few haiku will be selected for commentary each week.

Please note that by submitting, you agree that your work may appear in the column – neither acknowledgment nor acceptance emails will be sent. All communication about the poems that are posted in the column will be added as blog comments.

Below is the commentary for destroy/create:

I want to thank all those who comment for maintaining the respectful tone of this column, & suggest that rather than critiquing specific poems & poets here, we instead discuss more generally the aspects of a particular poem… we are all learning here, & it is important to me that everyone feels comfortable sharing their thoughts to that end…

sand castle –
the baby cries
with each wave

Dennys Cambarau
Italy

By providing three key elements in this poem – the castle, the crying baby & the waves – & without describing what the waves are doing, the poet trusts that the reader will figure it out… & we do!

mowing my lawn
worker ants are rebuilding
the queen’s chamber

Franjo Ordanić

Again in this poem a piece of information is missing – left for the reader to figure out – one interpretation would be that the lawn mower cut down something other than grass…

orphanage room
he makes an origami boat
with scrap paper

Keiko Izawa

In what might be an emotionally-charged location, someone creates something out of a castoff – something that has the potential to float away, at least in the imagination…

collapsing house
swallows build a nest
under the roof

Tsanka Shishkova
Bulgaria

In this poem the poet juxtaposes one house that is in the process of decay with another that is in the process of being built – it shows a completely believable outdoor scene that may allow the reader to contemplate much larger concepts, such as the power of the natural world, the circle of life, & how one thing leads to another…

& here are the rest of my selections:

autumn –
the nakedness of trees
in their leaves of gold

Adjei Agyei-Baah

 

creating ‘Ma’
in father’s poem…
Zen garden

Agus Maulana Sunjaya
Tangerang, Indonesia

 

dead sparrow
a poet
meditates on next verse

Alan Harvey
Tacoma, WA

 

years of leaves,
the smell of humus
walking

anni di foglie,
l’odore dell’humus
camminando

Angiola Inglese

 

from the debris
a peepal plant
surveys the remains

Anjali Warhadpande

 

autumn breeze –
the branch with blossoms
naked to the bones

ਪਤਝੜ ਦੀ ਹਵਾ –
ਫੁੱਲਾਂ ਲੱਦੀ ਟਾਹਣੀ
ਹੋਈ ਉੱਕਾ ਸੱਖਣੀ

(Punjabi translation)

arvinder kaur
Chandigarh, India

 

dry gray stalks
reach to the sun
shedding seeds for spring

B.A. France

 

reach of the rake
feeding autumn
into the burn pile

Barrie Levine
Wenham MA

 

deadheading roses
all that has happened
since they started blooming

Ben Oliver
Stroud, England

 

changing skyline
an old landmark leaves
its imprint

Bona M. Santos
Los Angeles, CA

 

in the cracks
of the old road
poppies in bloom

Brăilean Mirela
România

 

slow rain
workers hold umbrellas
over fresh concrete

Bryan Rickert

 

vote split
the antimatter
at hand

C.R. Harper

 

public benches
made from recycled plastic
sitting pretty

Carol Jones

 

keeping
just one hostage…
cuckoo chick

Carole Harrison
Jamberoo, Australia

 

The Destroyed City
two pigeons warming themselves
shaping a heart

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destroyed_City)

cezar-florin ciobîcă

 

Death Star recycled
into billions of new bikes
morning glory

Charles Harmon
Los Angeles, California

 

evening shoes
now open-toed –
new puppy

Charlotte Hrenchuk

 

old ruins –
after the cyclone
ocean waves

Cherry A
Assam, India

 

re-runs
of The French Chef
fallen soufflé

Claire Vogel Camargo
USA

 

redeeming my mistakes
empties taken back
for recycling

Cynthia Anderson

 

a sprout
from the coconut…
another life

un germoglio
dalla noce di cocco…
un’altra vita

Daniela Misso

 

stormy seas
where there were once shells
cup marks

David Gale
Gloucester, UK

 

the artist’s anguish
a new painting
covers the old

Debbie Scheving
Bremerton, WA

 

hair
plaited and loosen
same hands

Deborah Karl-Brandt

 

An elderly mason
his house is falling apart
brick by brick

Dejan Ivanovic
Serbia

 

slicing and dicing
aroma wafting
from the kitchen

Didimay D. Dimacali
Norwalk, California

 

in cathedral ruins
old warriors swap
phone numbers

Dorothy Burrows
UK

 

divorzio –
una rosa rossa
sul comodino

divorce –
a red rose
on the nightstand

Giuliana Ravaglia

 

a fallen tree –
I count the bumps
on the kitchen table

Gordana Vlašić
Croatia

 

castle
after castle after castle
that one spot on the beach

Greer Woodward
Waimea, HI

 

shattered wide open a whole new life ahead

Helen Buckingham
Somerset, UK

 

erosion
moon tide
devouring castles

Ingrid Baluchi
North Macedonia

 

redemption
of my shattered life
wall mosaic

Jackie Chou
Pico Rivera, CA USA

 

lakeview homes
a razed expanse
waits for sod

Janice Munro
Canada

 

Roe v. Wade
the pro-life father
spanks his daughter

John S Green
Bellingham, WA

 

jumping into
the splash
four again

john hawkhead

 

candy paper –
with the tea aroma
a new crane

Jorge Alberto Giallorenzi

 

finger prints
on the clay vase –
waning moon

Julia Guzmán

 

hours of work
his mischievous swat
and lego laughter

Kath Abela Wilson
Pasadena California

 

overnight rain –
an indoor fern catches
two leaks

Lamart Cooper

 

rainbow flags
from a flood of protests
a new covenant

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

holes
rainbow threads
pull together

Lemuel Waite
Georgetown, Kentucky

 

post-conflict
resettlement
his kintsugi bowl

Lorraine A. Padden
San Diego, CA

 

another child’s sandcastle
washes away
Tuvalu

Louise Hopewell

 

grandma’s portrait
the removalist leaves
his signature

Madhuri Pillai

 

the family
dividing
a holiday meal

Margaret Walker

 

hailstorm –
the swallows on the roof
without a roof

grandinata –
le rondini sul tetto
senza un tetto

Maria Teresa Piras

 

Halloween mask
the pandemic
creeps along

Marilyn Ashbaugh
USA

 

left on the table
in a large gift-wrapped box
all my burned bridges

Mark Meyer

 

an anthropocene
once flourished here –
fields of wildflowers

Maxianne Berger

 

flying flakes
a block of stone
becomes a statue

Michele L. Harvey

 

after painting
leaves of four seasons…
crumpled rice papers

Milan Rajkumar
Imphal, India

 

breeze from Colchis
the coastline
recreates heroes

Minko Tanev

 

cosmic love…
the dance
of Shiva

Mohammad Azim Khan
Peshawar Pakistan

 

stardust…
astronomer discovers
the new galaxy

Nancy Brady
Huron, Ohio

 

the crumpled letter
glued as background
in a scrapbook

nancy liddle
australia

 

seaside
build sand castles
waves crashing

Nani Mariani
Melbourne

 

half-awakened dream in and out of sandcastles

Neena Singh
Chandigarh, India

 

castle ruins –
so many blades of grass
crushed by tourists

Nicole Pottier
France

 

windy night
I restore a deleted file
from the recycle bin

Olivier Schopfer
Switzerland

 

an empty conch
echos of the life
at sea

Paul Geiger

 

new mother
dreams of fame
abandoned

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama, USA

 

Poppies –
feeding on the dreams
of soldiers.

(I feel the need to note this is an obvious allusion to the Basho poem.)

Pippa Phillips

 

delete and write
same key board – her haiku
faces challenge

Radhamani sarma

 

refugee camp
the kids enact
a family play

Rajeshwari Srinivasan
India

 

cat walks away
floor strewn
with fake mouse parts

Rehn Kovacic

 

eyes dimly lit
dreams manifest
dawn bright

Rekha Mathews

 

calling his name
again and again
a dream broken

Richa Sharma

 

all the women run –
dog catches and eats
the bouquet

Roberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, IA, USA

 

first jack-o-lantern
carving out a new life
in the old neighborhood

Sari Grandstaff
Saugerties, NY

 

a driftwood pallisade
left by the ebb
autumn equinox

simonj
UK

 

plum tree
the nestling pierces the shell
of its egg

Slobodan Pupovac
Zagreb, Croatia

 

planting a seed
in the magic show
tragedy comedy

Stephen A. Peters

 

house in ruins
in the abandoned yard
roses are blooming

Stoianka Boianova

 

what feels the potter –
when he breaks
his unshapely pots

Subir Ningthouja
Imphal, Manipur, India

 

in the ash
of the wildfire
seeds of the poppy

Susan Rogers

 

cutting loose
she relocates…
new moon

Sushama Kapur

 

castle ruin –
hunter’s moon resting
on the moat

Teiichi Suzuki
Japan

 

drought
even the corners
of a farmer’s eye
                           dry

सूखा
आँसू भी भाप बन उड़ गया
किसान का

Teji Sethi
India

 

day four
detecting a possible heartbeat
under the rubble

Tim Cremin
Andover, Massachusetts

 

blowing out the candle
on the villa’s terrace –
starry sky

Tomislav Maretić

 

my rescue pup
creates new havoc…
ruined manuscript

Tracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK

 

sandcastles
so many dreams at the mercy
of waves

Vandana Parashar

 

sail in the pond
pages of school note books
paper boats

Vishnu Kapoor

 

angels
in dresses made from
a lace tablecloth

anđeli
u haljinama od
čipkanog stolnjaka

Zdenka Mlinar
Zagreb, Croatia

 

on the declaration
on product freshness
date of slaughter

na deklaraciji
o svježini proizvoda
datum klanja

Zrinko Šimunić

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. A novice haiku poet, she lives in New York City.

Managing Editor Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She is Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019). Find her at: kjmunro1560.wordpress.com.

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