HAIKU DIALOGUE – Opposites Attract – loud/quiet

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 – here/there

The deadline is midnight Pacific Daylight Savings Time, Saturday September 19, 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Please submit one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme by clicking here: Contact Form.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 loud/quiet:

This selection includes poems that illustrate exceptional word choice, wonderful topics for the prompt this week, & originality. All can be read a variety of ways, all leave something for the reader to figure out, & every word adds something to the poem – enjoy!

taking a shower
he sings
sound of silence

Deborah Karl-Brandt

This poem is a humorous take on both loud & quiet, & the reader may get the impression that the narrator might prefer actual silence…

no birdsong
the sky loud
with smoke

Deborah P Kolodji
Temple City, California

Here is an interesting word choice – the sky is described as being ‘loud’ with something that is not normally thought of as loud… for many the message may be not only loud but urgently clear – & our hearts go out to all those affected by wildfire…

mime artist…
a big round
of applause

Mohammad Azim Khan
Peshawar Pakistan

A poem that effortlessly encompasses both sound & the lack of it…

kids with hearing loss…
I teach them
the sign for noise

R.Suresh Babu
India

In this poem the poet writes on a more serious topic, but also effortlessly combines both sides of this pair of opposites in an original way…

full moon
the bartender pours one
for himself

Stephen A. Peters

The reader may wonder about the full moon influencing the bartender’s decision – there are reports of increased unusual behaviour at this time – or maybe this choice has more to do with the patrons’ behaviour…

& here are the rest of my selections:

promise –
a rainbow spans
the waterfall

Adrian Bouter

 

cacophony
at the bird feeder
summer sky

Agus Maulana Sunjaya
Tangerang, Indonesia

 

stillness of morning…
broken by cawing crow and
riotous blue bells

Alan Harvey
Tacoma, WA

 

old monk awaken
cricket song
fills your bowl

Albert Schepers
Canada

 

stillness
the cricket’s insistence to speak
on my behalf

Alegria Imperial

 

quiet evening –
deafening noise
of a scooter

sera di quiete –
rumore assordante
d’un motorino

Angiola Inglese

 

breathe in breathe out
the sound of a bee colliding
with the window pane

Anitha Varma

 

in the silence
crickets left
snow

Ann K. Schwader
Westminster, CO

 

night swim –
just the splash
of breast stroke

arvinder kaur
Chandigarh, India

 

briefest moment
after the neighbor’s lawn crew
quits…

B.A. France

 

quiet hour
the doctor on duty’s phone
keeps ringing

Bakhtiyar Amini

 

Amtrak quiet car
Tchaikovsky plays
on my headset

Bona M. Santos
Los Angeles, CA

 

the quiet
from priest’s voice
military burial

Brăilean Mirela

 

dusk
the owl’s silent
strike

Bryan Rickert

 

the silence that remains
when the majority
speak

Carlos Antonio Pittella
Mason, MI, USA

 

the hum of the fridge alone at last

Carol Jones

 

quiet wedding
the high-pitched love song
of a tree cricket

cezar-florin ciobica

 

ever so quietly
tippy toe
on the creaky floor

Charles Harmon
Los Angeles, California, USA

 

flickers raucous cries
silent
first frost

Charlotte Hrenchuk

 

morning quietness –
in the distance
call of a muzzein

Cherry A
Assam, India

 

sound of the sea…
an old man leans in
to hear his wife

Clifford Rames
Freehold, NJ

 

end of lockdown –
the sound of the first airplane
so loud, so loud

Corine Timmer

 

city concert –
jackhammer crescendo
at six a.m.

Dan Campbell

 

deep valley –
echoes of hunting shots
then silence

valle profonda –
echi di spari da caccia
poi il silenzio

Daniela Misso

 

sea cave
I want to shout out
to the boat

David Gale
Gloucester, UK

 

library reading room
the sounds of pages turning
and an el train

David Oates
Athens, Georgia

 

deafening –
his stony
silence

Edna Beers

 

summer dusk –
the din of silence
after the rain

Elisa Allo

 

autumn mist
even the crows
fall silent

Eva Limbach
Germany

 

change in the wind
I snap my yellow raincoat
shut

Greer Woodward
Waimea, HI

 

calm morning…
a bird’s twittering
sweetens my sleep

Hassane Zemmouri
Algeria

 

out with the old
in with the
earplugs

Helen Buckingham
Somerset, UK

 

refrigerator hum
unnoticed until
it stops

Helen Ogden
Pacific Grove CA

 

lull of the wind
from tree to tree
raven chatter

Helga Stania

 

icebreaker…
a crow cawing, outside
the polling station

Hifsa Ashraf
Pakistan

 

tomcats…
tail-twitching decibels
before the lunge

Ingrid Baluchi
Ohrid, Macedonia

 

gull’s cry
living without
your love mother

Isabella Kramer
Lower Saxony, Germany

 

tick-tock clock
the silence between us
amplified

Jackie Chou
Pico Rivera, CA USA

 

Mount Vesuvius
the quietness of
her anger

Janice Munro
Canada

 

the door slams shut
this room fills
with silence

John S Green

 

drive-in movie –
looking at the policeman
the child raises the glass

Jorge Alberto Giallorenzi

 

the quiet steps
of a red deer –
maple leaves falling

Julia Guzmán

 

meditation class
the constant
ticktock

Kanjini Devi

 

fire smoke
behind closed windows
wind chimes

Kath Abela Wilson
Pasadena, California

 

search helicopter
drowns
rescue tears

Kathleen Mazurowski
Chicago, IL

 

silent night…
the rumble of waves
inside her

Kavitha Sreeraj
Hyderabad, India

 

Hello Kitty fireworks
a mute girl’s
talkative eyes

Keiko Izawa

 

two mice one roar

Kevin Henry

 

crisp fall breeze
his silent treatment
says it all

kimberly dawn
lakewood, ohio

 

a fox barks
somewhere in the dark
before dawn

Kristen Lindquist

 

the murmuring
of the baby in the cradle
amidst mother’s calls

Lakshmi Iyer

 

panic button
the sound of children
being too quiet

Laurie Greer
Washington DC

 

snoring
throughout the house
baby monitor

Lorraine A. Padden
San Diego, CA

 

playgrounds re-open
the excited chatter
of lorikeets

Louise Hopewell

 

into the city      pause     birdsong…

m shane pruett
Salem, OR, USA

 

leaving behind a peach streaked sky screeching cockatoos

Madhuri Pillai

 

my children laughing
in my dreams…
I wake to silence

Margaret Mahony

 

whispers
brushing
my hair

Margaret Walker

 

family quarrel –
snowflakes
fall silent

Maria Teresa Piras

 

deadbeat dad…
a daughter
with his djembe

Marilyn Ashbaugh

 

Hawaiian shirt
he cradles a corner
of the room

Mark Gilbert
UK

 

a sudden laugh
sensei shatters
the zazen silence

Mark Meyer

 

falling snow
muffles the fir trees
the loons answer

Maxianne Berger

 

a piano lesson
all those notes
my son skips

Maya Daneva
The Netherlands

 

my morning sneeze
even my dog is silent
for a minute

Melanie Vance

 

retired vintner picks
& tastes a plump arbour grape –
                                                                lucid singing moon

Michael Dudley

 

straining to hear
her whispered whinny…
screech owl call

Michele L. Harvey

 

isolated street…
alarm of a covid
ambulance

Milan Rajkumar
Imphal, India

 

hope…
my voice echoing
in an empty room

Minal Sarosh
Ahmedabad, India

 

the wind is blowing
under the porch of the house
the bird is silent

vjetar fijuče
ispod trijema kuće
ptičica šuti

Mira Jungić
Sisak, Republic of Croatia (Hrvatska)

 

17-year cicadas…
the buzzing
of tinnitus

Nancy Brady
Huron, Ohio

 

drunken old photo
breaks into
loud guffaws

nancy liddle
australia

 

summer night
in cadence with you
the dog snores

Neena Singh
Chandigarh, India

 

dripping rain –
a few tears wrinkle
the pond

Nicole Pottier
France

 

silence
just after the blackbird
whistling

(inspired by Wallace Stevens)

Olivier Schopfer
Switzerland

 

ICU
heart rate monitor
beating nonstop

Palle Krishna Rao

 

angelus
the bell-ringer signs
to his apprentice

Pat Davis
Pembroke, NH

 

roar of the surf
he shoots the curl
unheard

paul geiger

 

between cicada songs star whispers

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Huntsville, Alabama

 

Birdsong four gunshots silence birdsong

Pippa Phillips
St. Louis, United States

 

sea at last
the gentle river
learns to roar

Rajeshwari Srinivasan
India

 

cat
attempts a roar
only yawns

Rehn Kovacic

 

foofaraw
a bubble rambles
under ice

Richa Sharma

 

in between…
each drop
drumsticks

Robert Kingston
Chelmsford, UK

 

cussing up a storm
anger management
coach

Roberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, Iowa, USA

 

the crack of lightening
the moment after
we catch our breath

ron scully

 

accident victim
passes
Doppler effect

Ronald K. Craig
Batavia, OH USA

 

night in the country…
so loud the chorus
of the crickets

Rosa Maria Di Salvatore

 

a trapped cricket
echoing off the lockers
empty school hallways

Sari Grandstaff
Saugerties, New York

 

dampening
the squeaky pedal
pianoforte

simonj
UK

 

moonlight
on the surface of the calm sea
fish jump

Slobodan Pupovac
Zagreb, Croatia

 

fireworks
between bursts
the great horned owl

Stephen Kusch

 

evening forest
after my whistling –
song of a blackbird

Stoianka Boianova

 

howling winds –
all I hear
is your heartbeat

Surashree Joshi

 

after the wildfires
the lament
of songbirds

Susan Rogers
Los Angeles

 

a pause
before the downpour –
the fries sizzle

Sushama Kapur

 

in the still attic
forgotten old insect net –
cicada’s chorus

Teiichi Suzuki
Japan

 

crack of dawn
an echo of
a prayer conch

भोर की बेला
शंखनाद
की गूंज

(this ku has a Hindi translation below)

Teji Sethi
India

 

ancient temple
listening to its bell
not ringing

Tim Cremin
Andover, Massachusetts

 

a tin can
rolling on the asphalt –
songs of the Zephyr

Tomislav Maretić

 

thunderstorm
someone is singing a lullaby
in the beach hut

Tsanka Shishkova
Bulgaria

 

the ping-pinging
of Pachinko balls
hailstorm

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA

 

gunshot…
the silence swallows me

Vandana Parashar

 

torrential rain…
a mud doll silently returns
to mud

Vijay Prasad

 

winter thunder –
the sky
a broken mirror

vincenzo adamo

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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