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INTRODUCTION:
60 YEARS ON
The following
works have been selected from postings to five different
fora of the World Haiku Club separately: WHCworkshop,
WHChaikuneoclassical, WHCshintaihaiku, WHCvanguard and
WHCsenryu. Chosen as good examples of 'hard haiku', it is
also instructive to see how these different fora deal with
the same subject. Predictably, there have been a lot of
postings to WHCworkshop. A very pleasant surprise is that
there have been enormous amount and active contributions in
WHCvanguard forum.
There have not
been a great deal of posting to WHChaikuneoclassical.
Presumably, this is because these hard subjects involved in
the project, '60 Years On', are too harsh to be suitable.
However, in Japanese saijiki there are such kigo as the
Atomic Day (Hiroshima and Nagasaki Days, the End-of-the-War
Day.
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Neither
have there been many entries in WHCsenryu forum. The reason may be that
there is a kind of taboo not to treat hard topics like wars, deaths and
mass-murder as something to laugh about. There are ways to write senryu
on such subjects but, psychologically, there may be an insurmountable
block. Still less contributions were made to WHCshintaihaiku, but this is
most probably because the aims of this forum are slightly hard to grasp
(simply put, the forum is for anything which does not belong either to
WHChaikuneoclassical or WHCvanguard, and such poems are probably 80% or
so of the haiku written). These
poems are for the purposes of studying haiku.
giant cloudburst
family burnt to black ashes
dances in the wind.
Emily Brink, US
*
fukanoh to omowareshi wakai narite
kyu-teki to tomo ni aruku ya shi no senro
Reconciliation once thought to be
impossible
two enemy veterans...
walking along the death railway,
shepherd's-purse
Susumu Takiguchi
Oxford, England
Many POWs
perished in the forced labour to build the Burmese railway
*
subway bomb—
Japanese and British
bodies intertwined
Dave Bacharach, US
*
black rain
the first stains
on the flag
Serge Tomé, BE
*
giorno d'agosto
salgono dalla città
ombre sul sole
day of August
shadows rise from the city
towards the sun
nel fiume Ota
il sudore del sole
accende l'acqua
Ota river
sun sweat
inflames the water
Moussia Fantoli, IT
*
survivor—
crazy uncle
never invited back
Sally Evans, UK
*
sixty years on—
a paint colour named
mushroom cloud
Lorin Ford, AU
*
60 years on ...
an old man restocks
his bomb shelter
Carole MacRury, US
*
sixty years—a lifetime
of love and dismay
the new millennium—
we totter in
silver-haired
caveman painting—
a hurled spear
survivor—
crazy uncle
never invited back
figures shadowed—
broken walls
fifties teenagers
eighties parents -
no age for us now
Sally Evans, UK
*
the buoyancy
of a thousand paper cranes—
a child's folded hands
In honor of Sadako Sasaki...
this peace effort continues around the world,
including my province of BC:
Laryalee
Frasier, US
*
paper cranes...
a child's prayers to undo
a Little Boy's curse
Kamesh
Rao,
IN
*
60 years on
Before I was born
30 Hiroshima days
Hiroshima Day
These 17 syllables
into the silence
Israel López Balan, MX
*
burnt rice
on tables made
of skin
Robert Wilson, US
*
da sessant'anni
seduta a quella mensa
ancora piange
for sixty years
sitting at that table
she still weeps
Moussia Fantoli, IT
*
Los Alamos
museum photos
empty shadows
Ann K. Schwader, US
*
peoples skin burnt
in patterns
a flowered blouse
Shanna
Baldwin Moore,
US
*
white sun
last summer dew
on the grass
Serge Tomé, BE
*
once again
the atomic bomb anniversary...
in the old enemy country
Susumu Takiguchi, UK
*
boundless grief—
a naked girl's scream
echoes for 60 years
Carol Raisfeld, US
*
Bataan to camp go—ten thousand men
head to toe*
* The infamous death march (April 10th
to 15th -1942)from Bataan to O'Donnel Prison Camp of some 75,000
POWs for a distance of some 140-150 miles resulted in the death
of approx 10,000 prisoners. It was war then, its war now—man's
inhumanity to man should never touch such depths again. But...
nothing wrong with 'showa
nor with 'hakko ichiu'
only with us
'showa' means "Enlightened Peace"
'Hakko Ichiu' means "the eight corners of the world under one
roof"
Ironically, fanatics have long term
lofty goals while our leaders have short term political goals.
If only our leaders have long-term, lofty goals and are fanatic
about them. But...
yajushi (Ramvinodh
Marella) IN
*
On
Atomic Bomb Day:
reports from Hiroshima—
the first thing to be heard;
cicadas' chorus!
Susumu Takiguchi, UK
*
longing to play
chopin with both hands—
hiroshima!
Robert Wilson, US
*
red poppies bloom,
thousand paper cranes fly...
and yet more wars!
Susumu Takiguchi, UK
*
On Hiroshima
Day
summer grass
and cicadas: both outliving
the Atomic Bomb
Susumu Takiguchi, UK
*
Hiroshima rain
the A-bomb Dome stands
beside the river
Israel López Balan, MX
*
no natural clouds
so hideous and heinous as
the mushroom cloud
Susumu Takiguchi, UK
*
black rain
from the mushroom cloud...
the horror!
'the horror!' is quoted from Joseph
Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'.
Lorin Ford, AU
*
Hiroshima Day
a 13 kiloton
sunset
Linda Papanicolaou, US
*
understanding
godzilla—
hiroshima!
Robert Wilson, US
*
floating chrysanthemums—
cherry blossoms
in divine wind
'kiksui' (floating chrysanthemums) was
the name of Japan's Imperial Navy plan of mass 'kamikaze'
(divine wind) attacks, using a new special attack corps of
suicide volunteers. Often dressed in ceremonial hara-kiri
(ritual suicide) robes, these volunteer pilots steered the one
way jet propelled flying bomb rockets called 'okas' (cherry blossoms);
the same rockets were called 'bakas' (idiots) by the Americans.*
in the big belly—
fat boy ready
for delivery
We all know how the the deadly A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima was
innocuously named 'fat boy' and the other bomb 'slim boy' or
'thin boy'. There is something to be said about these deadly/
ultra secret
projects being given very unnaturally innocuous names. This
trend continues till to-day in Govt, Intelligence and Army
circles. (sourced from "Reader's Digest" Illustrated Story of
World War II)
yajushi (Ramvinodh
Marella) IN
*
chapel bells
the distant echo
of more bombs
sixty years
Nagasaki remembers
and prays for peace
why are we proud?
tears and ashes mixed
radioactive memories
Brenda Roberts, US
*
atomic burden—
carrying little sister
until his collapse
Life photographer's
indelible image
mild August breeze—
a single leaf spirals down
to the epicenter
Joachim Seckel, US
*
Mt Rushmore figures
in operation 'clean-up'
Germans land sixty years on
mopping-up operations—
Germans land on
Mt Rushmore!*
Germans pour water
on an American President's face
sixty years on—
German workers are helping in the first
ever clean up operations being undertaken at Mt Rushmore. The
famous four figures are being cleaned for the first time since
1940!
yajushi (Ramvinodh
Marella) IN
*
old enough—
a father tells his son
about the holocaust
nazi nightmare—
not even born then, yet
I dream I'm hunted
Dave Bacharach, US
*
