#I wrote a Haiku to praise a Haiku yes

[padneryeehaw]

The eloquence of

The great uncle Rick in the

Form of Haiku, Art!

[coco-goat-milk]

Hii! could i request Kazuha, Venti, Ganyu and Eula x Mitsuri Kanroji! Reader ??

(maybe childe too?)

Misuri! reader x Kazuha, Venti, Ganyu, Eula

Pronounce: she/him/they,, pronounce isn't mentioned! so I won't mention it either!

Warning: Maybe curse words? if there is more, let me know!

(a/n: Ooh! I love that idea! Hopefully this is okay!)

Kazuha

First time meeting:

Beidou introduced you both, he thought you were absolutely beautiful (which you are) and you were just complimenting him in your head.

You showed him around Liyue while knowing that he is a wanted ‘criminal’, you don't care that much because you think he is a great person.

When you two get together:

It will be kind of hard to have a relationship, since he is still a wanted ‘criminal’.

But you guys make it work!

You honestly are way more open with your compliments towards him now, and when he compliments you back you just get so flustered. He finds it endearing

He will become a bit suspicious when you two are going out for dinner and you look longingly at the food.

He will buy more food for you, and you just happily eat it as he just looks at you with a fond look.

He helps you with your insecurities as you compliment him and make him feel less lonely.

He probably wrote a few haikus about you.

If you have the same strength and power as Mitsuri and you forget about that when you hug him (a little too tight) he would be quite shocked.

He would have to reprimand you bc he doesnt want to die bc of a hug by his s/o

If you two get into battle and you use your powers, he is honestly so amazed (he would marry you on the spot)

I think this relationship is so cute and wholesome. You two would be such a sweet pair who complete each other.

Venti

First time meeting:

You would meet the bard when he was performing in Mondstadt, and you would be complimenting him till you had no compliments left /j you are to socialy awkward for that

He would secretly become very flustered, but ends up flirting with you, and so you get flustered.

People were standing there looking at the two of you being flustered like : 🧍‍♂️

Ofc he knew you complimented everyone but you meant it quite differently towards him.

When you two get together:

There is the issue of him being immortal and you being mortal but I guess the love between the two of you is too strong.

I headcanon him as quite the clingy partner, so each time he gives you affection you become extremely flustered.

The little shit will tease you

You reprimand him for drinking so much and he will drink a little bit less

You two would shower each other in praises each day, Diluc is secretly vomiting.

A lot of love songs about you.

As you beat hillichurls or other monsters up, he will be on the sidelines cheering you on.

“Yes! Go S/o! Beat them up!oh my...you are so strong, love ehe!

💕 💞 💓 💗 💖 💘 💝

Another sweet and cute couple, even though he is immortal and you aren't, but you two make it work!

Ganyu

First time meeting:

My wife ong

You two would probably meet on a grass hill, you thought she was injured or dead, and so she will wake up to a person desperately in tears trying to wake her up.

She had to assure you that she was okay.

As you studied each other, you both were basically simping. You were complimenting her in your head as she was turning red.

When you two get together:

You two will get very flustered with affection, but that’s okay!

Holding hands on little picnics, chaste forehead kisses.

She only lets you touch her horns, very gently ofc.

You often bring little gifts/souvenirs for her, and she in turn will treasure them alot.

Lots of cute dates, like picnics; having a big appetite like yours made you quite embarrassed but she encouraged you to eat as much as you wanted.

Naps! Cuddles? Cuddles!

In a battle she would be very amazed by your strength, and outside of battle ofc.

Because you are both busy people you don't have much time together, but every little minute she has free time she will spend it with you.

And again as she is immortal and you are not, you two cherish everything you do together.

Honestly this is such a cute relationship, two wholesome, strong and cute babies in a super sweet relationship, power couple!

Eula

First time meeting:

She was honestly so surprised that someone as beautiful and nice as you wanted to talk to her.

And she was even more surprised when you complimented her.

People looked at you and her weirdly, you just ignored them.

You are probably the first person she didn't swear vengeance on.

When you two get together:

She would be very worried for your reputation, but you assured her that it is alright.

You would do anything to make her smile!

You compliment her alot and when she compliments you back you get very flustered.

When you two get time for yourselfs, you two usually dance together!

Swears to get revenge on anyone who treats you badly.

You usually bring Eula sakura mochi (selfmade)

Cue a flabbergasted and flustered Eula

She finds your strength very admirable, sometimes she asks you to spar!

I think you two would compliment each other very well in the relationship, you help each other grow a lot!

A very cute and wholesome relationship!

[afigurelikeadoll]

Musings

You can find the ao3 version of this fanfic here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33606406 

A/N: Hey guys! I know I don't have an excuse for being gone so long, but I hope you can understand. I'm working on the second chapter of the Champion Reading I, which should be coming out soon. But for now, here's this! Sorry if the writing is too formal for canon or if OOCness is happening, this was a creative writing assignment for ELA, but I (of course) turned it into a fanfic. The guy Harry talks about in this diary is supposed to be Ron, but if you want it to be someone else, it totally can be. Also, the poems in the middle are haikus that I also wrote for class. I hope you guys like them, because I worked really hard on them :)

Disclaimer: The poems are all originally created by me, and belong to me. Please don't take credit for them, or use them elsewhere. Or if you do, please at least credit me as the original author.

Trigger Warning: minor internalized homophobia at the end

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Journal of Harry J. Potter

Please return to owner if lost.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

September 3, 1993,

I admire many things very deeply, though it might not seem so at first glance. My love can be as deep as my hatred. I find joy in soft, sweet melodies, as long as the musician is competent, as it isn’t so in today’s day and age. Colourful, three-dimensional works with much depth and layer are most pleasing to my eye, and are what I prefer to draw myself.

When I endeavour myself to this craft, I leave my finished works to dry along my bedside nightstand, along with the rest of my treasured memorabilia. The rest of the boys in my dorm know not to disturb me during the time that I draw. I know almost nothing about astrology, I can admit, but the stars and the planets fascinate me. Especially their movements and almost otherworldly beauty. I very much like to draw and paint about this subject.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

November 3, 1994,

Anguish in your flight

Ink blotting stains your letters

At last, blissful peace

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

January 5, 1995

Yesterday has been too strange. I don’t find myself thinking often about him, but sometimes it seems as if he goes out of his way to distract me. I was standing near a window while the other boys at the gathering were laughing amongst themselves. I don’t have much of anything to say to people at social events, so I usually just remain silent.

My mind could only traverse back to our past conversations, to the sound of his laughter, and the almost odd sight of his pale complexion against my dark one. My heart flutters a bit, and I do not understand why. Once I get too deep in thought, he gently seizes my wrist and brings me into the circle with the others, and forces me to speak with them.

I cannot comprehend why he can’t just leave me be, but perhaps it has something to do with the strange feelings festering within the corners of our hearts, if he indeed does share them.

I suppose only time can tell with this one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

February 14, 1995,

Winter nights bring cold

Warmth deep in your mocha eyes

Deep cold melts away

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

July 6, 1995,

Some people say I am a bit too contemplative for their liking, and I suppose it is true. I find too many things saddening in this life. I cannot help it. One day I was taking a stroll along the park, when I found a child laughing with his mother. I felt sick with myself for doing so, but I felt a rage rise within me at the innocent sight.

What was it, that this child had done in his life, that did not grant me the same luxury? Fate, I suppose, chance. ‘Tis foolish. What is wrong with me, I ask, that makes me feel such a terrible emotion over something so bright and lovely in this world?

Perhaps it is me that is wrong and twisted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

July 31, 1995,

Jerusalem bells

Praise be the divine angels

Please, save this tired soul

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

August 5, 1995,

The summer sun is much too hot for my tastes. It is quite bothersome. Especially when I am trying to go for my daily stroll. I don’t exercise much, but I try to go on walks every day, to keep up my good figure. The weather was terribly humid, and all throughout the journey, I could feel myself sweating. It was very distasteful, and a feeling that I entirely loathe. I took a thorough shower once I arrived home.

To make matters worse, Aunt Petunia scolded me for leaving my dirty clothes on the laundry floor. I wished, not for the first and certainly not the last time, that it was school once more, so I could at last be away from home.

Yes, I truly hate summertime, with every fibre of my being.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

August 13, 1995,

Dear old grandmama

Your limp, gray hair is too tired

This burden of life

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

August 30, 1995,

Today was surprisingly pleasant, especially for summertime. I had just finished freshening myself up for the day, when I noticed a lemon-scented note waiting for me on my dresser, with a single red rose on top of it. I was very pleased with my discovery. Roses are my favourite of all flowers, and the sweet smell was most welcome!

I opened the note, to find that it had been written by him. There was that strange fluttering in my heart again, that I didn’t like to ruminate on too deeply. After reading the beautiful note, in elegant print, I held it close to my heart and looked up at the ceiling in thought. I remained that way ‘till breakfast-time, as I pondered.

Perhaps summertime wasn’t all too horrid.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

December 31, 1995,

My dear love, my life!

Beautiful angel of mine

Must you hurt me so?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

October 7, 1996,

The boys at my school are so juvenile! You would think they were still toddlers, with their lack of maturity. All they do is speak of girls, crack stupid jokes, pull pranks, and offend others. I am especially grateful now that I am above such things. I think it would be most loathsome to be of such a temperament. I almost pity my cousin, but he is too much of a nuisance to fully gain my sympathy.

Then again, I suppose I can attribute my sensibility to my queer ways. Were I a normal man, I do not doubt that I would not be nearly self-aware enough to come to such logical conclusions. But I suppose they are not completely worthless.

The other day, a boy asked me to come with him to the Fairfield Festival. I thought of him, and declined. Accepting would seem like a betrayal to his affections, as complicated as they may be.

Hopefully one day, I find a woman good enough to rouse my spirits as he does.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

May 1, 1997,

Fiery are the flames

That douse the candle of life

O Lord, have mercy

[krahka]

The KleskizhAUs and their Poetic Styles

Under read more because lomg

SWTOR Kleskizhae

Ridiculous Sith Juggernaut. Excessively proud of his Sith ancestry but also ridiculously light side and somehow doesn’t see this as a problem. Loves lightsabers, loves the Empire but is a little less clear on whether he likes the Empire as an institution or the Empire as the people, and hint, it’s the people, he’ll pick the people if he had to.

Poetry: ALL CAPS HAIKUS FREE VERSE ASTRONOMY METAPHORS EXTREMELY VIOLENT REFERENCES TO ANCIENT SITH HISTORY BEAUTIFUL WORDS BEATEN STRAIGHT OUT OF HIS HEART OF DARK PASSION

DS!SWTOR Kleskizhae

Ridiculous and awful Sith Juggernaut. Believes himself morally and genetically superior to all others. Delights in toying with his inferiors, especially in breaking their hearts with his charm and facade of kindness. 

Poetry: Flowery and romantic and flattering. More or less copies of ancient Sith poems, but with the words changed a bit. They’re mostly for showing off how cultured he is and how much he loves you babe, so he doesn’t put in much effort. 

ESO Kleskizhae

Altmer Battlemage. A scion of the Direnni but not on great terms with his family due to his allegiance to the Aldmeri Dominion and his marrying a Bosmer because of Spinner shenanigans. Ambassador of the Queen and definitely not one of her Eyes nosir. Got pressganged into the Buoyant Armigers after impressing Vivec by exemplifying all of hir favorite virtues and vices just by accident.

Poetry: Sonnets. Ballads. Sexually explicit but it’s so purple that you can hardly tell just how sexually explicit it really is. Mostly about his own adventures and the people he knows. Melodramatic as fuck. The stuff he wrote when Vivec specifically was taking an interest in him is his best work, since he starts getting more experimental and tones down the silliness without losing that red hot emotional core that really elevates the verse to something that so many people try and fail to replicate in the future that it’s become its own genre. 

DS!ESO Kleskizhae

Altmer Battlemage what dabbles in necromancy. Believes himself the rightful king of all of High Rock with the Bretons as his rebellious subjects. Allied with Mannimarco because he promised him that when Planemeld happened, he could have his ancestral holdings all to himself, with all the people there living only to glorify him. The kinda guy you end up killing in the Daggerfall Covenant quests or in a Balfiera focused dungeon DLC. 

Poetry: Pretty similar to light side ESO!Kleskizhae, but if he thinks you didn’t appreciate his work he’ll torture you until you do. Try and critique it and he’ll just plain murder you and raise your corpse to grovel for his forgiveness and admit that you were wrong. Also his poetry is his annoying boss mechanic somehow. Didn’t read the books in his dungeon? Too bad because that’s how you defeat him. 

GW2 Klejskizae

Norn Herald. Skald, champion of Wolf, Lightbringer of the Order of Whispers. A Delight unto all people of Tyria! Your new best friend who is not using your friendship with him to learn your secrets! Come and listen to him channel the spirits and the Legends next Dragon Bash!

Poetry: Actually more into prose. Veddas. Stories about heroes, exaggerated for effect. Tales that he keeps in his mind that he tells differently each time he’s asked to tell it, depending on what he thinks his audience needs to hear. The poetry tends to be more personal, often taking the form of prayers to the Spirits that are between him and them. Also will write songs, also about heroes, with calls to action for the Pact. 

TES!Specifically Klejskizae

Nord Skaald. Traveling yeller. Delighter of audiences all throughout Tamriel. Follower of the Old Ways. Probably also in the Blades. 

Poetry: SCREAMING TAVERN SONGS. Great heroes, sometimes gets kicked out of taverns in Skyrim because he’s performing songs about non-Nord heroes but how can you not be excited by EVERYONE

SWTOR!Specifically Klejskizae

Mandalorian what will scream battle poems in your ear as he faces you in glorious hand to hand combat. Has some very weird ideas of what being Mandalorian is, but they’re closer to reality than his Sith version’s ideas of being Sith. 

Poetry: You thought Sith Kleskizhae’s poetry was gory and violent? You haven’t heard Mando Klejskizae. They are ridiculous. Everything ends with lovers embracing for the last time as they die in battle and their death is described in excruciating detail.

FFXIV Kleskizhae

Ishgardian adventurer. Dragoony Bard. Got kicked out for being way too scandalous for the theocracy and for talking too much about how he thought that maybe we should just smooch the Dragons? 

Poetry: The poetry isn’t why he’s not liked back in Ishgard, though that poetry was a means to transmit his unpopular and scandalous ideas and activities. The poetry specifically is why he’s distrusted in Gridania after he met an elemental and challenged it to a rap battle and it went very poorly. (Kleskizhae won and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise or that that’s not the point and there is no winning because he definitely won)

West Coast Fallout Klaus K. Zheng

Paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel. Sort of into the whole BoS thing of keeping dangerous tech out of people’s hands but also he’s into protecting people in any way he can, since they must protect those who will inherit the past, yes? That is what we’re doing, right? Right?

Poetry: He found a book of poems about Arthurian legends and they changed his life, as did Grognak the Barbarian which he’s sure is in the same canon. He’s also read a bunch of Shakespeare and only sort of understands it. So yeah, sonnets that are Shakespeare ripoffs. Casting modern topics into medieval terms. Sometimes it’ll get weird and his BoS worldview will come in and make them anachronistic but it’s unintentional because he just wants to write like the knights of yore. 

East Coast Fallout Klaus K. Zheng

Enclave soldier, later deserter once he sees that oh shit killing everyone wasn’t supposed to be what they were going to do! He wasn’t listening to the quiet part! Ends up aiding synths because it pisses off the BoS and also saves lives. Still believes in America but it’s one that maybe never existed. 

Poetry: The Enclave did preserve a lot of good American literature in their databanks, though they’re kinda sketchy about distributing it to their soldiers since even before 2077 they realized that a lot of the American canon contains like, anti-war, anti-corporate ideas and they couldn’t have that in their new society. He read Leaves of Grass once and it blew his mind. He might just surrender to the Brotherhood if they let him have access to their books, because he needs those. But also he might not because they would probably kill him and he’s also spending his post-Raven Rock time helping synths out of the Institute and that’s something they’d kill him for. And probably also kill a lot of other people if they realized that the Railroad had ex-Enclave in there. And the Institute doesn’t care for the humanities, which is why they had to create machines to teach them how to be human and then proceed to do such terrible things to the humans they’ve created; because they are less machine than they are and they resent them for it. 

Modern Vlogger Klaus K. Zheng

Relationship advice vlogger, specifically as a counter-voice to all those shitty misogynist PUAs that are targeting lonely straight men. Also here for the lonely women and the lonely queers since he’s a queer man himself. 

Poetry: He’s got a Master’s in Poetry and he feels it was time well spent, even if he didn’t care as much for academia as he did for the writing and the reading. One of the rewards for donating to his Patreon at a higher tier is a short poem written just for you about whatever subject you wish. (Assuming that it’s not extremely objectionable. He’ll gladly write poems about all sorts of sex acts, but he won’t write one about the virtues of white power.)

HZD Kleskizhae

Carja Warrior. Participated in the Red Raids because that was what the will of the Sun was but he couldn’t take the violence and the genocide and ended up joining with Sun-Prince Avad to overthrow the murderous king literally as soon as he could. Has been on a tour of goodwill ever since. 

Poetry: Overuses the words “glinting”, “scintillating”, “resplendent”, “radiant”, “brilliant” and other words that mean A LOT OF LIGHT because he’s really into writing ridiculous songs about the Sun. A lot more personal and emotional than a lot of Carja poetry, since it’s more about love than about praising the Sun or the King. It’s a new dawn, and what the world needs is love’s shining rays to heal her wounds. With the help of some Oseram who wanted to promote the newly invented phonograph, manages to become the first real pop star after the apocalypse.

DA Kleskizhae

Tevinter Battlemage. Was sent off to the front lines against the Qunari to keep from embarrassing his family and his master. Accidentally ended up embarrassing them anyway. 

Poetry: So he’s really into bringing up the Old Gods in his poems. He doesn’t worship them, he’s a good Andrastian, but you know how in the Renaissance everyone was a huge Greeceaboo? Yeah, it’s like that. 

WtA Klaus K. Zheng

Fianna Galliard. He’s a werewolf poet who sings ballads of his pack’s glorious battles and lifts their spirits in the name of Gaia and Stag!

Poetry: He’s got a soft spot for dirty limericks. All of the Kleskizhaes will make improv poems upon request when they’re drunk enough but Fianna!Klaus is the master of the drunken on-the-spot poem. Like they get way better when he’s drunk and they’re improvised, as opposed to the usual thing where they’re charmingly bad.

VtM Klaus K. Zheng

Toreador. Got the vampire bug some time in the Victorian era, I dunno if he was actually British or what.

Poetry: Lord Byron himself once called his poems “a bit maudlin.” His sire was certainly fond of his work, but if he had more time in his peak living creative years he would have probably been a better known figure in the Romantic movement. As it is he’s fairly irrelevant and forgotten by all but a few intense scholars of the period, and even they consider him a minor figure. 

Shadowrun Klaus K. Zheng

Elven Street Samurai. Just wants to make the world a better place through the power of love and also katanas. Probably unfortunately involved with Aztechnology which is gonna end badly for him probably. 

Poetry: Machines and corporations have not yet conquered the metahuman soul, and that is why he writes. Has been banned from a couple of Runner BBSs for constantly posting about his latest runs in the form of epic poem, and that’s not what these boards are for, @GLORIOUSSAMURAI, please turn off your caps lock

Star Trek Kleskizhae

Romulan Tactical Officer. Fought in the Dominion War, joined the Romulan Republic after Romulus asplode, because they wouldn’t let him quietly desert and because he believes in the true Romulan spirit that can never be repressed!

Poetry: He’s trying to revive ancient pre-Awakening Vulcan poetic traditions whilst failing to recognize that lots of it doesn’t work in the modern Romulan language. He’s always been super into poetry but after the destruction of Romulus, he becomes obsessed with writing the perfect series of poems to describe it for the future, so that people will remember what it’s like long after everyone who remembers it is dead. He hasn’t been successful yet and it’s upsetting him but he can’t just not do it. He owes it to the dead. 

Bionicle Kleskizhae

He's a proud Skakdi warlord of Fire who is trying his best to unite his proud and noble people against the wicked deprivations of the Makuta and might also be in the Order of Mata Nui because sometimes Kleskizhae is a spy? But always he is very loud. 

Poetry: Extremely long and elaborate war chants with 40 verses that he’s trying to get his guys to chant into battle but no one else but him can remember it all and he keeps adding more verses. But also he’s written love poetry that’s gone all the way around Greg and made romance canon again! He’s done it! With the chiseling of the tablets he’s made love real!

[mybukz]

Poetry Review: May All Beings Rock by Lawrence Pettener

Title: May All Beings Rock Author : Lawrence Pettener Publisher : Lulu Genre: Poetry Format: Paperback, 76 pages Price: USD 9.19 Released:November 2017 Reviewer: Leon Wing

“Poetry never has reason to rhyme though not many things are true all the time.”

The poet of this resounding collection of poems is such a tease, with those first lines of “A Couplet or Two on Duality”. As a reader who has grown past reading rhyming poems, I find poetry only has reason to rhyme when it wants to make connections. Which is what that second line is all about.

Yet another tease comes in the way of the poetic lamentation to Ted Hughes, “The Suppression of Poetry”, in which Lawrence howls his sorrow over the death of the man who IS poetry personified.

The despair is such that he writes:

“Poetry is dead – long live poetry! As drama and fiction move in on its territory, poets lay down pens and start barking —far too few poets to pacify me. Poetry is dead – long live poetry!”

But fear not, reader of this review, as far as this reviewer is concerned, poetry is alive and kicking in the form of this exceptional collection of poems.

In “The Heart of Sadness and the Start of Hardness”, even though “we tear up and trample the invitation”, don’t trample Lawrence’s invitation to read this rollicking verse, which repeats lines to create parallelisms of sounds and rhythms, because in each stanza, “each moment a tremendous celebration”.

You might have heard or read about out of body experiences. Lawrence’s take on this is so visually, rhythmically and graphically accessible in “Losing a body”.

“Once, in Katmandu, your mouth flew open and a spirit entered. You woke with a gash above your eye, recalling nothing.”

The narrator only got back into corporeality, when “.. he flattened you with one good punch to give you back your body, and that kind cut.”

Lawrence has not only this knack of placing lines into formations of sounds, he sometimes manipulates the grammar of a line, by eliding an anticipated word, as in “Brightloaded”:

“You walk out alone, listening the park; lines of trees run right through you.”

The omission of the expected preposition after ‘listening’ is justified when you read the next stanza and experience the sensation of trees rushing right at you with the ‘r’ alliteration in three words, and into you, with the near rhymes of the ending two words.

In another instance of skewed grammar, he is not forging a deliberate error. In “So Much for Common Sense”, he overhears a young man on a phone say “There’s so much people.” But he is aware that “that young man on his mobile/had been completely correct”.

In “This Tap Behaviour”, even though the ‘psychotic neighbour’ is always banging at his taps, when that one time he isn’t, it is practically music to Lawrence’s poetic ear:

“…there was no noise coming through, just this plangent song of water, a plumbed release of pressure. A long, pining whine keened high through our shared pipes like sacred music.”

From his travels around the world, Lawrence writes not only about 'pipe’ music, but also exotic Mongolian punk bands, like “Yat Kha”, who covers rock classics using goat-hair violins. And, he hobnobs with some of the best poets, like John Burnside, in “Drinking John Burnside’s Beer”. And, he praises the ubiquitous British fast food, the chips, in “In Praise of Chips”.

I love the joke in “Subterfuge”, where dinner guests thought they’d witnessed evidence of a murder when a knuckle pokes out from a dish Lawrence copied from a TV chef. He writes again about food, in “News from Europe”, about untypical and unusual concoctions of European chocolates. Still more on chocolates in “Seventy Percent”, about “chocolate anthology” from a supermarket that are “bittersweet as good poetry. The taste/for bitterness comes later on in life.”

There are a couple of poems about music. His take on it can be irreverent but funny. In “We All Need Support”, Lawrence sort of pokes fun at the 'gravel drawl’ of a famous singer 'Bob’. Years later after coming out from his concert, he and his friends “.. found a busker sitting on the ground as in a festival field, playing clear, authentic versions of Bob’s songs. Not only that, he knew how to talk. We adored him. He spoiled it for one of my friends though, a lifelong Dylan fan, by looking up and smiling.”

The last lines make me laugh out loud.

In “Classic in Three Movements”, the poem is not so much about the music but about the movements, but not as what a musician would assume. The movements are physical ones seen or spied upon, not heard, at windows. In another piece, he writes about Deep Purple, but not as how a fan would have liked. He also writes about Bjork, in “Bjorkquake”, imagining how the Icelandic musician would have reacted if she “…had found the perfect bass-note, the earth-deep sound that Odin wrote”

Other subjects Lawrence touches on include crafty magpies with their eyes on his bike, meditation and cats, more poems about cats, their squealing love-making, cat flaps, a few poems about cycling, about locking heads with a driver, gate crashing wedding parties, about first love and the first kiss, about a specific part of a woman’s body, sensitive noses, about past loves, and about working in a mental ward,

In poems about his travels he shows us the vista of the world from his poetic point of view: a funny poem about wandering into a club thinking it was a cafe, an interaction in a launderette with a cleaner from Sarajevo; observing the Basilica of St Maria ad Martyres; eating in Rome, where an Italian word he overheard makes him think of Freud; about flamenco; tasting yoghurt at the Damascus Gate; and stomach pains while traveling in India.

His foray into haiku elicits some astounding revelations about how we communicate today, and about reincarnation.

In his pieces about meditation and other related matters, he ponders about “who you weren’t in all your past lives”. In one amusing piece, thieves broke into a Zen centre and got away with nothing. In “Sutra Neti”, he shows us a sort of yoga one would not imagine could be done: “through the closed left nostril,/pushing softly to penetrate/the swollen lip at the nasal root”.

He has a wry sense of humour. In “Wild Life, April, England” he tells a beggar, “Change? Yes please, love,/I’ll change into a butterfly.” Meeting friends in “Hope & Anchor”, he says, “I hate endings,/putting off the moment when one will kill/the others off with glib goodbyes”.

When he gets serious, he writes with a poignancy which makes you gulp at the sensitivity of the lines. Like in “Doing Tai Chi with My Father”: “My father is horizontal, his cheeks/massive and sagging. The coffin lid stands up/against the wall. It is a small jolt/to see my own name, something we shared”. Especially when that first stanza runs on down to the the next, with its line, “on the coffin lid..” In “Kreuzberger”, we see Lawrence and his brother Ged outside a fast food place, looking at a drunken old man. You’d think the pathos is all about people like the drunk. No, it is not; not until you read up to the very last two lines in the poem. The last line has only two words, but the pathos hits you full on as the wide-sounding vowels in the first syllables of the two words thin to shorter 'e’ sounds, and the “f” sound thickens with the 'v’.

His departing poem is the longest piece. In “Nine Cemetery Contemplations”, he mulls over the death of a kitten, the death of birds in the hands, or rather, paws, of a cat, teenage fascination with a French teacher, having an accident, someone dying in the tsunami, more reflections about his brother’s passing, visiting his father for the last time, buying a Buddhist book for his dying father, and finally the last and the ninth piece, which is so worth quoting in full, here:

“When you were birthed you cried, and your whole world was overjoyed. When you die, we mourn while you may find the great liberation – or just be glad to be reborn.”

*

Lawrence Pettener works full-time as copy-editor, proofreader and writer, with recent and forthcoming book reviews and artist interviews in The Star (Malaysia) and Juliet.com. As Kwailo Lumpur, he writes comic material about Malaysian life, food especially. Three original poetry books are due out in 2019.

Link to the book’s website: www.lawrencepettener.com/mayallbeingsrock Link to stores: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/lawrencepettener https://www.booktopia.com.au/search.ep?keywords=may+all+beings+rock&productType=917504

[finishinglinepress]

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: Only This Step by Philip Kenney

PREORDER NOW: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/only-this-step-by-philip-kenney/

With subtlety and directness these haiku illuminate again and again the astonishing realities of the world and consciousness itself. Whether in the yearning of a windchime, or the hunger to realize the patience of a tree readers of Only This Step will find that these poems open the mind to new ways of seeing and experiencing. In an introductory essay to haiku, former United States Poet Laureate, Billy Collins wrote this about the nature of this form: “. . . flat definitions fall well short of accounting for haiku’s mysterious power to cause in the reader’s consciousness a sudden shift, literally a new way of seeing.” Philip Kenney’s haiku in Only This Step fulfill the nature of that promise.

Philip Kenney writes and practices psychotherapy in Portland, Oregon. His most recent book, The Writer’s Crucible: Meditations on Emotion, Being and Creativity, was a finalist for The Red City Review 2018 Non-Fiction Book of the Year. This work is intended to support writers with the emotional vulnerabilities they face living a creative life. In 2018, his essay, The Rebirth of Masculinity: What We Can Learn from Harvey Weinstein and Co. was published in issue #7 of The Timberline Review. He is also the author of the novel, Radiance, and a collection of poetry, Where Roses Grow. In the Spring of 2019, Mr. Kenney began writing haiku to help lubricate his mind from the stress of the Pandemic. By June he had written over a hundred and fifty and began putting together this chapbook.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR Only This Step by Philip Kenney

In these delightful poems, Philip Kenney pays homage to the great haiku masters and brings a fresh energy and perspective to the form. Again and again, Kenney shows us that when we look closely, mindfully, at the world, we are both liberated from the constrictions of ego (“Look there– / and watch yourself / disappear!”) and treated to unexpected delights (“The splendid crow, / proud in his black satin suit– / speaks as he walks”). Only This Step invites readers onto a path of attention whose rewards are inexhaustible.

–John Brehm, author of No Day at the Beach and The Dharma of Poetry

The best poetry helps us get close to something fundamental, something true, something that we feel in our bones, but can’t quite formulate into words. Then you read the poem and say “Yes! That’s it. That’s how I feel!” The haiku in Phil Kenney’s Only This Step do just that. “Such a fine day/to forget about,/mortality,” he writes, and “I am trying to grasp,/to find in myself,/the patience of trees.” Written around subjects such as the solace and lessons of nature, the inner life, and the miracle of the everyday, these haiku are sometimes playful, often poignant, and always wise. “My hand is empty-/no cup, no victory,/only this step, and this one.” Ah, yes. This is a book to sit with, and to find comfort and delight.

–Lucy Adkins, author of Two-Toned Dress, co-author of Writing in Communityand The Fire Inside

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