Haiku Dialogue: What’s at Hand Week 11

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1. This is a great theme to ‘ku upon, thank you Craig for another week of creative challenges with your skillful pickings of poems. I sooooo much enjoy this group, reading all the poems and exciting comments that they bring forth. The ways in which apps enhance, distract, or disappoint our lives is evident in this wide arrangement of writings. Thank you to all the poets sharing in this platform, we are halfway through and i want this never to-stop….is there an app for that?

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3. Hi Everyone, A thoroughly enjoyable selection! I am one of the very few people in my group of friends and family who does not own a smartphone! If I ever get one, I’m sure I’d be in the position of the person in SRINIVASA’s poem – in need of my daughter’s assistance! KATH ABELA’s poem made me smile – every line is playful, much like the author!

   1. Pat,
      Neither my husband not I have a smartphone. We have, by choice, have flip phones. As I say, I don’t want a phone smarter than me.

      The haiku are thoughtful, funny, and all too true. I have to admit that my aha moment on Helen Buckingham’s monoku occurred( finally)this afternoon when I was writing another haiku. Duh…

   2. I don’t have a smartphone either 🙂

4. Many thanks to all who’ve commented on my ku – much appreciated!

   1. oh, you are very welcome, Helen. what apps are you using today?
      I am not talking to my Siri. He has absolutely no sense of whatever and humour …

5. hello good haijin,

   It is such a good prompt and I could not get to write a poem, so I am in awe of everyone who has written one,
   What is interesting is that no app can work without human invention and involvement.
   Which is why
   Barbara Tate’s
   work resonates with me

   C.R.Harper’s
   use of scientific terminology works here, and is fascinatingly original

   cezar-florin ciobîcă’s

   poem made me laugh, I start every day with the six pack abs app, so I gel with what you write cezar…

   Devin Harrison’s
   poem is fun, esp. so as headphones have been replaced by earphones or earbuds and it looks strange to see so many people rushing by laughing and talking rapidly …with no one
   in particular
   Edward Cody Huddleston’s
   poem cashes in on the current craze of candy crush and the irony of the situation in there

   Helen Buckingham’s
   one liner is playful and fascinating

   Kath Abela Wilson…
   lovely lovely write

   Lakshmi Iyer
   are you speaking about Kolkatta or Bangladesh, because cycle rickshaws are not usual in most cities…does Orissa still have them?
   But I do see the pathos in progress, and the pollution on the rise. Not everyone can afford Uber, and car pools are good, but yes it is sad indeed that cycle rickshaws of whichever place are not really popular anymore…

   Peggy Hale Bilbro,
   the ridiculousness that life throws at us, hahaa

   Serhiy Shpychenko,
   …………..yes, I cannot imagine life without smileys …

   Srinivasa Rao Sambangi
   hilarious, did she make you download it ?

   Robert Kingston
   aw, yes I know that feeling …

   1. Thank you, Pratima–this was a ‘fun’ subject!

   2. Thank you Pratima.
      So often we lose touch with all around when we allow ourselves to drift off.
      So much exists inside such an app, that it takes a fitness regime to keep up 🙂

   3. Thank you Pratima! If a photo is too good to be true…it is probably photoshopped!

6. morning rush
   commuters speed-talking
   on their iPhones

   Devin Harrison
   Vancouver Is, Canada

   Interesting haiku.
   Always communicate via mobile phone: morning, during the day, in the evening; for meals or holidays. Unfortunately, even while driving! So the question: Adjust yourself or go to the wilderness !?

   ZM

7. morning rush
   commuters speed-talking
   on their iPhones

   Devin Harrison
   Vancouver Is, Canada

   Interesting haiku.
   Always communicate via mobile phone: morning, during the day, in the evening; for meals or holidays. Unfortunately, even while driving! So the question: Adjust yourself or go to the wilderness !?

   ZM

   1. aaah, I would say, just observe, and take it all in, it is such fun

      1. Good life advice, pratima!

         1. Hey Craig, it was not me, it was SIri…

            1. Hilarious! 🙂

8. Thank you, Craig, for including my poem and for your comments.
   .
   Reading this week’s selection, I doubt I’ll be rushing out to exchange my basic mobile phone (used only in emergency) for anything that accepts apps.
   .
   I do, however, find it useful to clutch an imaginary phone to my ear, gesticulating wildly with the other arm if on a collision course with someone I don’t wish to talk to . . . like the homeless man who makes a bee line for me knowing I often empty my pockets of small change. It’s a variation of talking to oneself. 🙂

   1. I understand what you mean. I have a flip phone purposely so that I can’t have apps. Too many people are controlled by them it seems.
      Thanks for choosing mine, Craig.
      There are so many clever apps, and haiku here. Most make me smile or laugh at the ideas…Well done all.

9. Craig… Thank you for publishing my poem and your precious work.

   I especially appreciate:

   meditation app —
   my cellphone charger
   left at home
   —-Eva Limbach

   I enjoy the gentle humour in this.

   morning rush
   commuters speed-talking
   on their iPhones
   —-Devin Harrison

   so realistic… an aspect of our society told in a few words

   missing you
   I ask Pandora to play
   …the sound of rain
   —- Susan Rogers

   …poignant

   1. Thank you Elisabetta for your kind comments
      Sometimes I turn to Pandora just to hear the sound of something comforting
      I imagined the longing of missing someone so much and the loneliness of noone being available but Pandora to play
      so Pandora is asked to play
      and does so by playing
      the sound of rain being the sound of longing and loneliness
      and perhaps the sound of tears falling

      1. Susan… I understand you very well…
         Your haiku came into my heart

10. Thank you Craig for including mine.
    A great diverse selection.

11. Reading this week’s selections I realized how vast this smartphone app topic is, both in the number of different apps and our experiences of them. Nadejda’s ku resonates with my experience of having being lured into trying apps…some useful and others useless.
    .
    .
    Installing new app
    so many hooks
    in the virtual ocean
    .
    Nadejda Kostadinova
    Bulgaria
    .
    .
    I found myself attracted to the image of ‘hooks in the virtual ocean’ maybe because I was recently looking over the shoulder of someone playing a fishing game (app) in which the screen showed hooks on lines hanging in an ocean.
    .

    Another ku that caught my attention was:
    .

    meditation app —
    my cellphone charger
    left at home
    .
    Eva Limbach
    .
    .
    Sometimes apps don’t offer a ‘better’ way of doing something, just an alternative, but when caught with a dead battery we may feel at a loss. I enjoy the gentle humour in this.

    This week’s haiku collection was an absorbing read. Thank you, Craig for including mine.

12. Hi Alan,
    Having lived without apps for much more than half of my life I often remember ‘before’ and compare it to now. I have slowly climbed aboard with some new ways and ignore others…for example, more and more of my contacts are on my phone but I still have a tattered address book and my appointments are in a book. You mentioned my haiku about a navigation app voicing the route while the once well-used map book languishes in the back of the car. Although one can get frustrated with a GPS or GPS app, I don’t miss being the navigator peering over a map, sometimes with a flashlight, with glasses off to read and then glasses on to see the road…I went through that ordeal about 10 years ago when we did a lot of backroading looking for a new place to live. It would have been so nice to have had a navigation app…though data charges can be an obstacle…

    1. Hi Janice,
       .
       I guess apps have always been there in some shape or form though? Music and games are the biggest things pre-App and now. But I don’t use my cell much (funny name for a telephone, “cell”) but will use it more when I’m doing more live events later this year. 🙂
       .
       I’ve been a navigator front or back seat and not my favourite duty so relieved when there’s anyone else in the vehicle. 🙂
       .
       .
       smartphone voice –
       a dog-eared mapbook
       in the back
       .
       Janice Munro
       Canada

       1. I like the thought of a “dog-eared mapbook in the back” since mine is probably in one of the cars I traded-in. Nice to have a resource that always “works.”

13. CRAIG, love the world-wideness of your selections. Is that deliberate?
    .
    On first reading, I especially APPreciate:
    .
    sleep app –
    the rhythm of gentle waves
    in our love making —arvinder kaur
    .
    ARVINDER, the romantic in me sighs.
    .
    melting icicles
    trying another
    lose weight app —cezar-florin ciobîcă
    .
    CEZAR-FLORIN, oh, if only pounds could melt away like that.
    .
    funeral among peach blossoms…
    from amazon your last gift —Elisabetta Castagnoli
    .
    ELISABETTA, rarely has a gift from amazon felt so poignant.
    .
    technoference
    the family disconnect
    at dinner —Ingrid Baluchi
    .
    INGRID, all too familiar, your family’s digitally induced dissociation
    .
    time to pray
    says my phone –
    what says my heart? —Jo El
    .
    Jo EL, have asked myself your question more than once; am glad not to be alone.
    .
    Rijksmuseum
    at home or on the go . . .
    maid forever pouring cream —joanb
    .
    JOAN, have a copy of Vermeer’s Milkmaid on my wall, so love your “at home or on the go” of her “forever pouring” presence.
    .
    smartphone apps
    I delete the icons
    of religion —John Hawkhead
    .
    JOHN, your ku has me wondering why they were there in the first place and why they’re being nixed now. Are they superfluous? Outgrown? Ineffective? Unused or unusable? Something else?
    .
    ringtone magic
    I turn you
    into a bird —Kath Abela Wilson
    .
    KATH, Love the ‘magic’ transformation of sound into a magician’s recognizable creature who can soar as sound can.
    .
    weather app
    she draws back
    the curtains Lucy Whitehead
    .
    LUCY, enjoy your juxtaposition of two methods of determining the weather. A drawn curtain often tells the truer tale — except for later in the day.
    .
    younger than me
    my older sister’s photoshopped
    selfie —Peggy Hale Bilbro
    .
    PEGGY, your ku makes me laugh; truth is, even without the wonders of photoshop my older sister (drats!) looks ‘younger than me.’
    .
    swiping left
    and right
    no love found — Rehn Kovacic
    .
    REHN, your ku’s one of my favorites. Apps uncover often instant marvels, but love’s discovery takes more than frantic or patient swiping, doesn’t it?
    .
    her name
    no longer on my speed dial
    spring rain — Stephen A. Peters
    .
    STEPHEN, am saddened by a relationship that seems to have turned out to be as temporary as ‘spring rain,’ though as essential for awhile.

     

    1. Christina, thank you for commenting on my milkmaid haiku. I, too, love that painting and was thrilled to see it in person. I also saw Girl with a Pearl Earring . . . I was awestruck.

    2. Hi Christina ! Thank you for your comment ! Its always very encouraging to know when poets/readers respond to your work. your comment made me smile. I hesitated for a moment while sending this one but then let it go 🙂

    3. Hi Christina ! Thank you for your comment ! I’m happy! You are very kind.

    4. Christina, thank you for commenting on my ‘technoference’ poem. I hasten to say that my family does not indulge in this unsociable behaviour, but that it was really an observation of the new norm happening around us. In cafés, restaurants, groups of youngsters together, even in board meetings, and probably in our UK Parliament, people often resort to their apps, for communication, entertainment, information, etc. Fine, so long as we don’t become too reliant on them, or become too introverted and forget to socialize face to face.

       1. Ingrid, I love your standing up for your actual family who do not, you ‘hasten to say’ ‘indulge in the unsociable behavior’ caught by that new-for-me-too word, ‘technoference.’ I ought to have said something like ‘your haiku family’ when referring to the one at dinner in your ku.
          Having said that, this gives me the chance to say how much I appreciate the twists and turns of the often provocative haiku you’ve submitted week after week. Have enjoyed your commentaries as well. — Christina

          1. Christina !
             I am delighted by your commentary, and honored, too. Thank you for your time and meaningful insight, not only into mine, but others’ work too.
             .
             Many of Craig’s subjects conjure up immediate visions and recollections from the past, but sometimes one has to rely on one’s imagination. (I’m sure there is a name in the ku world for this… Alan?)
             Not so with hand-me-down toys, though!
             Ingrid
             Macedonia

             1. technoference –
                the family disconnect
                at dinner
                .
                Ingrid Baluchi
                Ohrid, Macedonia
                .
                .
                It is a strange phenomenon, but I remember as an older child we eventually got a small TV for the kitchen/diner and was glued to it. 🙂
                .
                .
                You said:
                .
                “…visions and recollections from the past, but sometimes one has to rely on one’s imagination. (I’m sure there is a name in the ku world for this… Alan?)”
                .
                How about:
                .
                .
                過去の記憶
                .
                Kako no kioku
                .
                .
                or
                .
                思い出
                .
                .
                Omoide
                .
                🙂

    5. Thank you for your comment, Christina. I guess we can keep our virtual self forever young now! 😄

    6. Thank you Christina for admiring my poem! You cannot get everything you want from an App.

    7. Hi, Christina. The world-wideness is occurring naturally. It is a reflection of the strength of the global haiku community. Thanks for joining in!

       1. Thanks back for your response, Craig. That makes your choices — and the haiku community — all the more wonderful.

    8. Hi Christina. This haiku is a play on the word ‘icon’ which is often a representation of religious figures (have a look at Russian Orthodox Church icons). Smartphones are becoming so much a part of our lives it seems we cannot do without them. There’s an advertisement in the UK at present that plays with the words God and Good with the tagline “Phones are Good” where the second ‘o’ drops into the word ‘God’ so quickly you almost don’t see it happen. So for a moment the advert tagline says ‘Phones are God’. I can’t say all this went through my mind as I wrote the haiku, but I had pause for thought since! Cheers, John

       1. Thanks so much for your clear and charming explanation, John.
          The way you made it saves me from embarrassment.
          Far more importantly it makes your clever ku come alive.
          Love learning about the god – good phenomenon!
          You’d never know it, but when I lived in Rome, the Russian icon shop on Borgo Pio was a favorite haunt of mine.
          Among the many fine poets who contribute to THF, you’re a stand out for me.

          1. Now you’ve made me blush Christina!

             Spring correspondence
             the sudden blush
             of sunrise

             1. Wasn’t going to respond, but since another Wednesday is upon us, wanted you to know I’ve read your ku-response John. And love it!

14. I enjoyed all of these but have only a moment today to comment on a few –

    I laughed at Helen Buckingham’s
    h.appless.cog.

    ………..

    I tried unsuccessfully to use “icons” with the same connotation that John Hawkhead did so very well!

    smartphone apps
    I delete the icons
    of religion

    …………

    Sandal Pliško’s poem first made me laugh – then on second reading I had a sense of sadness at the thought of “I love you’s” unanswered ” – “liquored up” or not.

    messenger outbox
    liquored up I love you
    ✓ seen two days ago

    1. Thank you for your review. I had in mind that at first glance it may have seemed funny but thinking twice it was actually sad. The liquored up part is due to the fact that the boost of confidence, in such situations, nowadays has no second chance, no rethinking, because the comunication with everybody is available 24/7 any time of day or night. And usually our outbox is filled with messages that we wouldn’t say easily.

15. Thank you, Craig, for including my app haiku and your kind comments. I got a kick out of this one:

    younger than me
    my older sister’s photoshopped
    selfie

    Peggy Hale Bilbro
    Alabama, USA

    My mom and I joke around that when you actually run into someone in person nowadays, they are going to wonder what the heck happened to you if all they have seen lately are the digitally retouched photos online. Lucky for me that my younger sister does not participate in any social media I guess.

    1. Thanks for your comment Sari. I’ve had the very same experience of not recognizing the physical apprearance of a virtual friend. I do selfies, but no photoshopping for me! As Popeye used to say, I yam what I yam! 😄

16. Dear Craig, thanks for lovely choices of apps reverberating . The one following here,by Arvind kaur has a magic touch.

    sleep app –
    the rhythm of gentle waves
    in our love making

    arvinder kaur
    Chandigarh,India

    1. Thank you Radhamani for your kind comments ! Am humbled !

17. Thanks Craig! A very entertaining set!

    👌🎉⭐😊
    🎈❗👍💥🗯️🙏🌞 —
    new emoji app

18. app.tit.ude
    eggs over easy
    tasting plastic
    .
    Alan Summers
    .
    .
    I admire all the entries here. I didn’t get around to submitting anything, but appreciating all the examples on this tight theme! 🙂

19. Many good haiku in this installment!
    .
    .
    I think the poem by ‘Michele L. Arvey’ was written by Michele L. Harvey 😉

    1. Good catch, Michael, thank you. My apologies to Michele for not catching that typo myself. Fixed now.

20. Thanks Craig ! When I first read the theme I was kind of disheartened but later was amazed at the possibilities it could open, Really enjoyed doing it and reading the responses ! All amazing !

21. all lovely haiku

    but mine was not the one listed..
    it was

    missing you
    I ask Pandora to play
    ….the sound of rain

    1. Sorry to hear that. There’s been a few glitches with messages being passed on etc…
       .
       .
       missing you
       I ask Pandora to play
       ….the sound of rain
       .
       Susan Rogers
       .
       .
       Pandora was the first human created, it appears, so great to have someone like that on speed dial! 🙂
       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora
       .
       I used to turn to my old cheap singles record player (little 45s, vinyl) for solace, then it was a Walkman, then a music centre by Sony, now my laptop iTunes samplers. I had an iTunes lapel device but never used it, but it could have replaced a rose or carnation.
       .
       Deeply poignant haiku!

       1. thank you so much Alan
          your response is deeply appreciated
          I hope whoever wrote the other haiku is credited
          sending you grateful smiles
          susan

          1. Thanks Susan! 🙂
             .
             You said:
             “I hope whoever wrote the other haiku is credited”
             .
             Do you mean Michelle’s? I had a couple of messages not acted on, to do with other THF issues, and one of which I think was a haiku of mine, but so long ago I can’t remember, so hopefully no one else has had that trouble other than us?
             .
             I’m still loving this feature, and glad I got to see your contribution, even indirectly. 🙂

             1. no
                I mean the haiku that is posted under my name

                smartphone app
                supposed to help-
                abandoned

                The unknown writer must also feel abandoned as their haiku has runaway under someone else’s name..my name.

             2. Oh gosh, Susan, that’s weird. There’s an awful and deep poignancy, especially when you say they must feel abandoned.

             3. Human error, I’m afraid, Alan. I wasn’t minding my Ps and Qs closely enough. Susan Roberts from Sacramento, California was the poet in question. I have added her name and restored Susan Rogers’s haiku to the blog.

          2. Susan Roberts’s name and your haiku have been restored to the blog, Susan.

             1. My gratitude for the fix Craig
                and for all the wonderful haiku inspired by your prompt!

    2. Sorry, Susan. This is my week for typos.
       To clarify: Susan Roberts wrote “smartphone app” and Susan Rogers wrote “missing you” and I somehow combined the two in setting up the blog.
       (So, I guess I should say “sorry, Susans”).
       I have made corrections.

       1. So interesting
          as both haiku engage the idea of something missing or a presence not there anymore.
          Thank you again for clearing up the confusion.

22. ***Dry as Tinder***
    .
    .
    At first the term Tinder made me think of HC Andersen…
    and then about learning a few fieldcraft skills, keeping wood n’stuff dry.
    .
    Now it’s a radar like mobile phone device for hook ups that can end tragically. Ah, progress.
    .
    I rarely use my cellphone ever since I filled in a survey organised by reputable nationally famous retail outlets and now get sinister cold calls.
    .
    Having a discussion about when and how I died in a car accident recently, and how I can achieve litigation against the other parties was one of the more normal ones.
    .
    But apps?
    .
    .

    smartphone voice –
    a dog-eared mapbook
    in the back
    .
    Janice Munro
    Canada
    .
    .
    I remember having an argument with Siri as the AI started getting stroppy. Sometimes an old school paper map is best. Interesting that it is in the ‘back’ . 😉
    .
    .
     
     
    Rijksmuseum
    at home or on the go . . .
    maid forever pouring cream
    .
    joanb
    NY
    .
    .
    My wife booked us into the Museum Quarter of Amsterdam (The Netherlands, Europe) and we visited the Rijksmuseum just a few minutes away. Wonderful time, and I guess they have an app for that. 🙂
    .
    .
     
    Uber travel
    cycle rickshaws
    dusting their seats
    .
    Lakshmi Iyer
    .
    .
    As Helen Buckingham mentioned Lakshmi’s poem I had to check it out, and it’s a very subtle but brilliant haiku. Yes, Uber revolutionised taxi travel by knowing youngsters would rather touch an app then talk to an operator. I do prefer the banter of the cabbies, but there might be an interesting amateur cabbie doing Uber duty now and then that has a tale or two to tell. I guess it could also be Russian Roulette Taxi?
    .
    .

     
    “Reminders”
    two years
    of “to-do todays”
    .
    Margaret Walker
    .
    .
    Well observed senryu, but gosh, that is scary. I used to buy 18 month planner books, but an endless neverending scroll of things to do before I reach Nirvana, no thanks, but brilliant senryu! 🙂
    .
    .

     I’m sure Apps are incredibly useful, and perhaps I’ll use more. There is a haiku one that I was excited to get once I had a modern enough iPhone, and we all know the THFhaiku app, don’t we! 🙂

    1. Thank you Alan! I think it is time for me to delete the “To-Do Today’s” that are over a over a year old. 😀. Things like writing this and assignments from your course took precedence- and were much more fun!

    2. Hi Alan,
       Somehow my reply to you ended up as a new comment. Oops 🙂
       Janice

23. Wonderful selections, once more!
    Especially struck by:

    dropped call
    the apoptosis
    of our cells

    C.R. Harper
    thought provoking and true–and I love learning new words
    *
    h.appless.cog

    Helen Buckingham
    succinct, clever–apt
    *
    smartphone apps
    I delete the icons
    of religion

    John Hawkhead

    love the subtlety
    *
    ringtone magic
    I turn you
    into a bird

    Kath Abela Wilson
    Pasadena, California

    just lovely
    *
    Frogger jumps
    into the smartphone river
    ringtone!

    Sari Grandstaff
    Saugerties, NY

    Ha! terrific
    *
    so many nice lines drawn between the virtual and real worlds!

    1. Thank you, Laurie!

24. Thanks Craig, and congratulations everyone – I found Lakshmi’s ku particularly poignant.

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