Sunday, June 13, 2021

Long hot summer headline haiku . . .

 


Dear you,

I asked my friend Eric for an assignment yesterday, something schoolish and diverting.  He said do a crossword puzzle and pick three words from it for a haiku.  This would satisfy one of my basic needs to create order out of chaos, shape something into a disciplined form.  I know I am not alone, feeling rattled by the cacophony of current events. Like Yeats said, “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”.  With that in mind, I adjusted the assignment a bit; instead of a crossword, I would use the news as a base.  Headlines read like poetry sometimes, dry facts delivered with cold concision, like Morissettte’s jagged little pills. 

So, here are my adapted headline haikus, honoring the 5-7-5 syllable form (minus referencing nature):

From The New York Post:

Last night mass shootings

Stoke fears in three shaken states

A bloody summer

From The Hill:

                China takes a stand

                “Days of small groups ruling world

                Are very over”

From CNN.com:

                Trump’s tariffs haunting

                Kentucky’s whiskey makers

                Red state self-destruct

From ABC News:

                McDonald’s patron

                Spits at one poor worker bee

                Then shoots another

From NBC News:

                She is like my Mom

                Says Biden post tea party

                With iconic Queen

From Joyce News Wire (a.k.a, the voices in my head):

                In Floribama

                Sunburnt anxious souls acting

                As if pain is fun

Another from Joyce News Wire:

                In spite of all this

                Earth on fire and dissonance

                My cat naps smiling

And to close, I mimic the famous words of newsman Walter Kronkite as he signed off every night:

                That’s the way it is

                This good Sunday June Thirteen

                Twenty Twenty One

Haiku, over and out.

I may not be able to adjust the reality of current events, but at least I can mush them into a 5-7-5 pattern.

We do what we can.

Thanks, Eric!

Joyce

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