Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #41 Soliloquy no Renga "ancient warriors ghosts"

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday July 15th at 7:00 PM (CEST) !!!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our special feature "Carpe Diem's Weekend Meditation", the feature that gives you (and me) time to meditate and contemplate before submission. This special feature gives me more time and some time off, because there is no need for me to publish every day. Of course that doesn't mean that I never will publish something in the weekend.

Recently I started with our new feature "Renga Challenge" in which I challenge you to create a renga together with Basho (or as planned later some other classical haiku poet). It looks like you all enjoy that feature a lot, so I have chosen to challenge you this weekend to create a so called "Soliloquy no Renga" (or solo-renga). Maybe you can remember that feature that I launched several years ago here at CDHK.

For this weekend "challenge" I will give you a hokku (or starting verse) to work with. The goal is to create a renga on your own and not as is common with another or more haiku poets. A renga is built from 3-lined and 2-lined stanza as you all will know. It makes a "chained verse" through association on the verses.

Today's hokku is the following, created by myself:

ancient warriors ghosts
mists over the foreign highlands -
waiting for the full moon

© Chèvrefeuille

The goal is to create a Soliloquy no Renga of a minimum of six (6) verses or a maximum of 24 verses. Try to create your solo-renga as if it was a book. That means try to bring a "preface", a "centerpiece" and an "afterword". In that way you create a renga like the classical haikupoets, because every renga had such a "grouping" (lay-out).

Ancient Warriors Ghosts (Japanese Woodblock) (image found on Pinterest)

This weekend-meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday July 15th at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until July 22nd at noon (CEST). Have a great weekend with a lot of inspiration.

Carpe Diem #1474 path into oblivion

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our beautiful inspiring Haiku Kai were we are having a great time with our July -theme "Imagination Without Limits" or in other words ... creating Japanese poetry inspired on a given image.

path into oblivion (photo (c) Chèvrefeuille)

Another nice scene from one of the many parks in my hometown. Look at that light play through the leaves, the fading colors of the pond and the disappearing of the blue sky into a kind of vague white. It's a crossroad ... which direction will I take? Were does that path lead me to? Does that path lead me into oblivion? It's up to you now ...

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until July 19th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode, a new weekend-meditation, later on. For now ... have fun, be inspired and share your Japanese poetry with us all.

Carpe Diem #1473 Fragile Beauty

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Haiku Kai. This month it's all about imagination and I think that's one of the pillars of haiku. Why? Because as a haiku poet you have to imagine the scene you try to catch in your haiku, but it also 'triggers' the imagination of the reader.

Again I have a lack of time, so again I have made it myself easy. I only will give you an image to inspire you.

Plum Blossom (photo © Chèvrefeuille)

scent of plum blossoms
mingles with the scent of the hearth
winter departure

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until July 18th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem Crossroads #13 chilly coolness

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our CDHK feature "Crossroads", the feature in which I challenge you to create a so called "fusion"-haiku from two haiku and to create a Troiku with your "fusion"-haiku. More on Troiku you can find above in the menu.

For this episode I have returned to the beautiful haiku by (my sensei) Matsuo Basho. I have chosen two nice haiku created by him to work with. I have taken these two haiku from Jane Reichhold's "Basho, the complete haiku".

feet on the wall (image found on Pinterest)

Here are your two haiku to work with:

chilly coolness
my feet on the wall
for a midday nap

the color of wind
planted artlessly
in a garden of reeds

© Matsuo Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

A nice challenge I think.

This "crossroads" episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until July 18th at noon (CEST). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Renga Challenge #3 Chrysanthemum Dew

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I am under the impression that you all love this Renga Challenge feature and I think it's awesome to write a renga together with one of the classic masters. For this third episode I have again six beauties written by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) in a translation by Jane Reichhold. I still miss her, but I know that her spirit is still dwelling here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. As I think of her I only can smile and be gratefull that I have known her and have worked with her.

The goal is to create a renga with a minimum of six stanza and a maximum of 12 stanza. You can use the haiku I give in any order, the only thing you have to do is create the two-lined stanza between the haiku through association on the images/scenes in the haiku.

A Girl Collecting Chrysanthemum Dew by the stream (woodblock print)

Here are the six haiku by Basho to work with:

the image shows
an old woman weeping alone
my friend the moon

passing through autumn
a butterfly seems to lick
chrysanthemum dew

five or six
sitting with tea and cakes
a fireplace

Skylark

a skylark sings
the pheasant's voice is
the instrumental music

how glorious
young green leaves
flash in the sun

early summer rains
falling so heavily they cover up
the waterfall

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold, taken from "Basho, The Complete Haiku")

 All great haiku ... enjoy your renga-party together with Basho.

This Renga Challenge is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until July 24th at noon (CEST). Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1472 emptiness

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

My apologies for being late. I had a very busy day on our chemo-therapy unit. So I hadn't time earlier to create this new episode of our Imagination Without Limits month, July 2018. So ... because of being late I will only give you the image for today to inspire you. I think it's another beautiful image and I hope it will inspire you to create your Japanese poetry.

Emptiness

what happened?
left coffee cup
her perfume

© Chèvrefeuille (experimental haiku)

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until July 17th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #1471 Summer Breakfast

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new challenge for you Imagination Without Limits ... all beautiful images with a hidden message maybe, but all beautiful. I am still busy with retrieving the ownership of several images I will use this month. That search is almost ready, but is now on hold, because I am very busy with other things and my work.

I have a nice image today to inspire you and awaken your muse.

Summer breakfast

Take your time to look at this image. Let it come alive in your mind and heart. I think that the most of you will have had a wonderful summer breakfast once in your lifetime, so let the image speak to you.

after a steamy night
my love and I enjoy breakfast
naked and aroused

© Chèvrefeuille (love-haiku)

Awesome what a beauty (how immodest), but it is true. I have really nice memories to a summer breakfast somewhere back in history. I still can feel the love, the heat, her body, her soul, her soft skin scented with the perfume of Honeysuckle. Yeah ... a sweet memory.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until July 16th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... enjoy!