Princess Haiku

Princess Haiku has a very windy day...

2011-12-01T20:47:00.000-08:00

Wind, wind, wind strews the last of the flower petals into oblivion.

ten posts that I scheduled for 2011 have disappeared, said Princess Haiku

2011-08-06T18:42:00.000-07:00

Well, I will have to write some more.

a fragrant longing, said Princess Haiku

2011-06-01T00:12:00.000-07:00

Spring orchid too large-
shy, my heart hides under white clouds
a fragrant longing

white petals, said Princess Haiku

2011-05-17T15:15:00.000-07:00

a snow blossom tree-
was born to weep white petals
a lonely Spring path

rain, pitter pattering on my roof, said Princess Haiku

2011-05-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

I transferred my chrysanthemum seedlings into their large permanent pots. Rain is pattering away and hope they will be okay. -Didn't plan on a late May drenching, but after all they are flowers; drinking dream and the last stormy froth of a late Spring storm.

dreaming of Spring in the Rose Garden, said Princess Haiku

2011-05-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

a Perfect day knows no other.

Princess Haiku attempts to post new photos...

2011-05-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

I tried to post some new journal entries but the photo uploader on Blogger no longer works. If the glitch isn't fixed in a few days I will be moving somewhere new such as Word Press. Is anyone else having problems?

Conversations with Helene Grimaud or through the mystery flower Part Ten, said Princess Haiku

2010-12-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

Princess Haiku has been searching for an elegant holiday card collection...

2010-11-21T21:01:00.000-08:00

and found it at Shutterfly.

P.S. This golden spider was one of the last of the season.

the allure of a Moon Altar, said Princess Haiku

2010-11-01T00:12:00.000-07:00

I came upon this mesmerizing moon altar created by Ernesto Sanchez, on display at the Petaluma Art Museum as part of a "Day of the Dead Exhibition."

There is a harmony, a perfect simplicity in the altar that captures the power of the moon and takes the breath away.

I found other captivating installations and art work on Sanchez's website, including the Moon Spirit House below.

Sanchez is working on another fascinating project, "Journey of 1000 Moons."

"For me, the process of making one thousand moons is a working meditation. Each moon reminds me that, while each of our individual lives is a brief flash of illumination – only 1000 moons — the energetic dance between the moon and the earth has endured for millions of years"

Ernesto Sanchez in his own words explains,

"My work is both mixed media and multicultural, incorporating influences from my studies in Asia and Indonesia, my Mexican-American upbringing, my travels through Latin America and my Southern California childhood. My goal is to create art that resonates with the reverent presence of spirit and provides a vehicle for people’s spiritual expression and discovery."

His studio is having open house over the Thanksgiving Holiday and I hope to visit his studio at Pt. Reyes and see more of his fine art work.

Eye, Chrysanthemum said Princess Haiku

2010-10-30T23:31:00.000-07:00

The season's beauty has brought forth these divine creatures and harbingers of Autumn's Abyss.

moonlight splashes October flowers, said Princess Haiku

2010-10-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

Tell me the secret of your perfection, implored Princess Haiku,

but the flowers were silent as immortality.

Eventually the moon drifted into dense cloud and Princess Haiku fell asleep,

dreaming of petal skin and magenta solitude.

Conversations with Helene Grimaud or through the mystery flower Part Eight, said Princess Haiku

2010-10-01T12:12:00.000-07:00

under a Chrysanthemum Moon, said Princess Haiku

2010-09-29T22:10:00.000-07:00

The full moon of September arced high in the sky,

Before splashing down upon tall chrysanthemums growing in my midnight garden.

Ghostly and spectral dances entranced Princess Haiku,

As did memories of other flower creatures,

Other Autumns and nocturnal travel deep into,

A bright night of absolute beauty.

Discovering the poetics of Vera Pavlova, said Princess Haiku

2010-09-14T00:12:00.000-07:00

I discovered a new poet via a virtual friend;
a person who will never be flesh and blood to me,
yet sometimes she sings through my dreams.

The ghost friend gave me a new poet.
-Gave me Vera Pavlova and in the way that mortals
cling to poets even while their dreams carbonize,

I trace letters onto the white veins of an
African Violet petal and image that she speaks
in all of her impermanence to me.

photo credit

"Who will winter my immortality
with me? Who will thaw with me?
Come what may, I shall never trade
the earthly love for the subterranean.
I still have time to turn
into flowers, claw, white-eyed memory...
but while we are mortal, my love, to you
nothing will be denied.

Vera Pavlova
Translated from the Russian by Steven Seymour

"

Conversations with Helene Grimaud or through the mystery flower Part Seven, said Princess Haiku

2010-09-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

art in public places, said Princess Haiku

2010-08-27T00:12:00.000-07:00

I was visiting a friend in, Orinda last month and came upon this public art. Hope you like it too.

Hakone Gardens: cloud, fish, dream

2010-08-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

Dreaming fish splash away in primordial pond as, Princess Haiku awaits Autumn again.

Subtle intimations of copper and gold as Hakone Garden awaits Seasonal flames.

I hear ghostly footsteps in the Zen Garden; a crush of crystals in stone that evokes memory of those that once walked besides me.

The laughter of children in this moment for there is no other.

The Moon Viewing Pavilion sleeps at High Noon, preparing for the secrets of twilight when la Luna arcs into the sky.

Have you left the sounds of your footsteps on the Moon Bridge? I think you did and you and you...

For more information about the exquisite Hakone Gardens follow here and here.

I will be backed to visit Hakone in October when the heart of the garden burns. See you then and feel free to leave haiku to water the garden.

Conversations with Helene Grimaud or through the mystery flower Part Five, said Princess Haiku

2010-07-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

dressed in a ballerina tutu of poppy, said Princess Haiku, the dream

2010-06-23T00:12:00.000-07:00

I love the otherworldly beauty of poppies, said Princess Haiku and have ordered a few packets from the poppy shop. They require very little attention compared to other rare flowers and decided to give them a try.

I have tried to germinate blue poppies in the past unsuccessfully and found this helpful information which is encouraging me to try again.

Poppy Dreams are made of angel wings.

misadventures of 12 small chrysanthemums, said Princess Haiku

2010-06-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

There was a snafu with my shipping address and my small plants from King's Mums arrived where I wasn't.

Fortunately, these sturdy little plants were well packaged and survived nearly 30 hours in a post office box until I could pick them up.

At first they appeared to be very wilted and I was very concerned about their well being.

Their bright spirits rebounded as did mine and now a season of growing approaches spirit. Both the little plants and I are not sure where this chrysanthemum journey will take us. These plants along with the 15 from Marin will require a lot of care and thought. I will be planting them in a sunny spot tomorrow.

The Journal of a Chrysanthemum continues...
June 17, 2010

what Summer letters will you write, asked Princess Haiku

2010-06-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

I found this book in one of the vanishing small, used bookstores in my community today and it is a perfect summer read.

Edited by Yevgeny Pasternak, Yelena Pasternak, and Konstantin M. Azadovsky

The summer of 1926 was a time of trouble and uncertainty for each of the three poets whose correspondence is collected in this moving volume. Marina Tsvetayeva was living in exile in France and struggling to get by. Boris Pasternak was in Moscow, trying to come to terms with the new Bolshevik regime. Rainer Maria Rilke, in Switzerland, was dying. Though hardly known to each other, they began to correspond, exchanging a series of searching letters in which every aspect of life and work is discussed with extraordinary intensity and passion. Letters: Summer 1926 takes the reader into the hearts and minds of three of the twentieth century’s greatest poets at a moment of maximum emotional and creative pressure.

QUOTES
These letters are literature. All three poets are as eloquent here as they are in any of their other works…In the battle against repression, it is letters like these that show how the soul works its way out of the underground.
— Mark Rudman

An extraordinary correspondence…the high-minded cosmopolitanism of those days might make us weep for what seems a vanished golden age of European culture.
— John Bayley

Even more, this three-way correspondence sheds abundant light on the nature of inspiration, the creative process and how the poets influence each other….
— The New York Times Book Review

…Important as keys to the three poets’ literary attitudes, and to the intentions which lie behind some of the finest twentieth-century verse…
— Times Literary Supplement

Nothing can dim the incandescence of those exchanges over a few months in 1926 when they were hurling themselves at one another, making their impossible, glorious demands.
— Susan Sontag, Los Angeles Times

exalted creatures of the chrysanthemum Temple, said Princess Haiku

2010-06-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

I drove to Novato on Saturday morning through cool fog, laced with honey sun breaking through a revery, to bring home several spider chrysanthemum seedlings. The journal begins as I caretake what will be another bloom of perfection.

Irv Baker of the Marin Chrysanthemum Society invited me into his chrysanthemum garden where he nurtures plant cuttings for enthusiasts. Some of the plants are his very own hybrids.

Everywhere I looked I saw chrysanthemum plants. An emerald green ocean of plant possibility.

I drove home across the San Raphael Bridge of dreams...

Seedlings awakened to bright sunlight after sleeping in the truck of my Toyoto on the way home. Fortunately, I don't have one of those demon Toyotas that drive themselves.

I arranged the little plants on my table for a closer view and pulled out a few that will be gifts for a friend. It's hard to believe that these modest little seedlings will grow into exalted flower creatures. Tomorrow, I will plant four and in a week or so the others. I will do a first pruning so that the plant grows into three branches. I discovered that the 8 bags of planting soil I have are not enough and so another trip to the nursery is needed.

Special thanks to Irv Baker of the Marin Chrysanthemum Society for helping me select my plants. The beautiful chrysanthemum garden in these photos are the result of many years of his work.

Spent a few hours preparing pots and revisiting memories of other chrysanthemum journeys. Princess Haiku I asked myself, what compelling image are you searching for in this year's bloom? I could not answer and a full moon in October will reveal all. I am planning to have a chrysanthemum viewing then and will spend the evening writing haiku. -Such joy, such possibility to reveal itself..

PS King's Mums in Oregon will be shipping the two dozen plants that I ordered from them. More on that later and also will post any new flower haiku that I might write.

meditating on an empty Chrysanthemum pot

2010-06-05T19:36:00.001-07:00

The journey of a chrysanthemum begins with a thought.

Conversations with Helene Grimaud or through the mystery flower Part Four, said Princess Haiku

2010-06-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

Flouncy Roses

2010-05-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

Searching in the garden of paradise for roses that remember before time...

flowers recycled of metal, said Princess Haiku, the blue one!

2010-05-05T12:12:00.000-07:00

I was meandering at the annual antique show and found these amazing blue metal flowers, made of recycled scraps by artist, Fred Grandy. Wonderful, aren't they? You never know what you will find growing in the North Bay.

Conversations with Helene Grimaud or through the mystery flower Part Three, said Princess Haiku

2010-05-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

Face Transparent

2010-04-28T00:12:00.000-07:00

My eyes are wild roses underwater.
They disappear every morning and wake up at night tide.

Dangerous ghost love, friends warn me.
Princess Nukuda lays her cheek next to mine,

Curls with me into dawn, on an indigo tatami mat.
Dreams in-between morning and sorrow.

Ono No Komachi, my tears belong to
Poetry and not to love.

I am certain a small corner of paradise endures.

Kiss the water,
Kiss the silvery fish with moon,
Kiss the ghost.

Immortal seasons of love lead into the startling center,
Where Kasa No Iratsume, embraces me with scent of ink.

Cream skin, soft petal soft.

My hair pale, not as white as a rose in moonlight.
The immortals will comfort me.

All of us, beneath a raspberry tinted shawl laughing.
Abandoned, flower growing dream and ghost love.

There is no past, for love this moment awakens,
As the moon rides across the sky in a tantric dance.

The world is covered with plum blossoms,
white, purple fragrance, petals for all.

I offer them to every one as you will not have them.
My indifferent beauty, indifferent song.

A man possessed of Buddha is lost to love.
Why should his lips taste so sweet on mine?

Wild rose under moon, I drown myself,
And do not die because water gives forth life.

Poet of many graces save, love.
Lost perfume lingers through years.

Does this shade of fuchsia honor the immortal robe?

Diane Dehler

luminous ballerina poppies, said Princess Haiku and a poem

2010-04-26T20:25:00.000-07:00

The Poppy
Francis Thompson

'Who know not love from amity,
Nor my reported self from me;
A fair fit gift is this, meseems,
You give--this withering flower of dreams.

'O frankly fickle, and fickly true,
Do you know what the days will do to you?
To your Love and you what the days will do,
O frankly fickle, and fickly true?

'You have loved me, Fair, three lives--or days:
'Twill pass with the passing of my face.
But where I go, your face goes too,
To watch lest I play false to you.

'I am but, my sweet, your foster-lover,
Knowing well when certain years are over
You vanish from me to another;
Yet I know, and love, like the foster-mother.

'So frankly fickle, and fickly true!
For my brief life-while I take from you
This token, fair and fit, meseems,
For me--this withering flower of dreams.'
The sleep-flower sways in the wheat its head,
Heavy with dreams, as that with bread:
The goodly grain and the sun-flush'd sleeper
The reaper reaps, and Time the reaper.

I hang 'mid men my needless head,
And my fruit is dreams, as theirs is bread:
The goodly men and the sun-hazed sleeper
Time shall reap, but after the reaper
The world shall glean of me, me the sleeper!

Love! love! your flower of wither'd dream
In leaved rhyme lies safe, I deem,
Shelter'd and shut in a nook of rhyme,
From the reaper man, and his reaper Time.

Love! I fall into the claws of Time:
But lasts within a leaved rhyme
All that the world of me esteems--
My wither'd dreams, my wither'd dreams.

when the world is red, said Princess Haiku, Spring flashing

2010-04-24T10:22:00.000-07:00

the haunting of Alajandre Pizarnik, said Princess Haiku

2010-04-20T00:12:00.000-07:00

Alajandre Pizarnik
was born on April 29,1936 to Russian Jewish immigrant parents in Avellaneda, a suburb of Buenos Aires, Argentina. A year after entering the department of Philosophy and Letters at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Pizarnik published her first book of poetry, La tierra más ajena (1955). Soon after, she studied painting with Juan Batlle Planas. Pizarnik followed her debut work with two more volumes of poems, La última inocencia (1956) and Las aventuras perdidas (1958).

From 1960 to 1964 Pizarnik lived in Paris. There she worked for the journal Cuadernos, sat on the editorial board of the magazine Les Lettres Nouvelles, and participated in the Parisian literary world. Pizarnik also attended a variety of courses at the Sorbonne, including contemporary French Literature. She died in Buenos Aires of a self-induced overdose of the prescription drug; seconal.

more

Pizarnik is in many senses, the Argentine equivalent of the American poet, Sylvia Plath, who also tragically ended her life by suicide.

During her short life, Alejandra published eight small books that have earned her a fundamental place in poetry in Spanish. Her forerunners were the Arab-Andalusian poets of the Middle Ages, as well as Quevedo, San Juan de la Cruz and Sor Juana; to these she later added her readings of Rimbaud, Yves Bonnefoy and the French surrealists. Eventually, her poetic vocabulary became unique: echoes of the Spanish of the Golden Age and of the laborious games of twentieth-century French poetry can be heard in the background of her writing, but they are never allowed a full presence.

Alejandra’s style is too ascetic, too demanding for any such intrusions and the words she chooses to allow onto the page must undergo frightful ordeals of expurgation. As in fairy-tales, only a handful of those who survive the terrible tests are allowed in the end to live happily ever after. In her diary, on 30 October 1962, after quoting from Don Quixote,(“...but what pleased Don Quixote most was the marvellous silence that reigned in the whole house...”) she wrote: “Mustn’t forget to commit suicide.”

ASHES

The night splintered into stars
watching me dazzled
the air hurls hate
its face embellished with music.

We will go soon

Secret dream
ancestor of my smile
the world is emaciated
and there is a lock but no keys
and there is terror but not tears.

What will I do with myself?

Because to You I owe what I am

But I have no tomorrow

Because to You I...

The night suffers.

Here is an excerpt of her writings.

Alejandra Pizarnik's Poetics

"Ojalá pudiera vivir solamente en éxtasis, hacienda el cuerpo del poema con mi cuerpo, rescatando cada frase con mis días y con mis semanas, infundiéndole al poema mi soplo a medida que cada letra de cada palabra haya sido sacrificada en las ceremonias del vivir."

If only I were able to live solely in ecstasy, making the body of the poem with my body, redeeming each phrase with my days and weeks, infusing the poem with my breath for each word that has been sacrificed in the ceremonies of living.

"La poesía es el lugar donde todo sucede. A semejanza del amor, del humor, del suicidio y de todo acto profundamente subversivo, la poesía se desentiende de lo que no es su libertad o su verdad. Decir libertad o verdad y referir estas palabras al mundo en que vivimos o no vivimos es decir una mentira. No lo es cuando se las atribuye a la poesía: lugar donde todo es posible."

Poetry is the place where everything happens. Similar to love, humor, suicide and every profoundly subversive act, poetry is not interested in that which is not its freedom or truth. To say freedom or truth and refer these words to the world we live in or do not live in is to tell a lie. It isn't when they are attributed to poetry: the place where all is possible.

And this excerpt from my favorite poem of Pizarnik.

From Arbol de Diana
6
she undresses in the paradise
of her memory
she does not know the ferocious destiny
of her visions
she is scared of not knowing how to name
what does not exist.

36
in the cage of the time
the slept one watches with her single eyes
the wind brings her
the tenuous answer of the leaves

In conclusion it must be said that poetry is an often haunted and dangerous vocation. -One that strips self from self and may leave a vampire feasting upon its own marrow; a suicide in sunlight.

the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas said, Princess Haiku, beauty everywhere

2010-04-17T18:40:00.000-07:00

Today I made a Spring Sojourn to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, in Northern California and discovered beauty everywhere.

Tall peaks of manzanita and pine trees trailed clouds and fragrance of purple wisteria drifted through still mind.

Yesterday, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to visit this tranquil retreat, and for the first time in months the weather is warm and agreeable

Strolling about the grounds I see borrowed beauty from every perspective. Inner glimmers of self are mirrored in gorgeous pink blossoms and far memories are awakened
.

The ride up 101 North offers a view of rolling green hills this time of year.

The vista of green trees, hills expands until suddenly from afar, one sees the snowy white tips of Mount Shasta.

This is my third visit to the monastery and I always find unexpected delights.

The first stop for every visitor is the Administration building where you sign the guest registry and of course visit the gift shop.

The meditation hall is close by and a golden Buddha atop the roof waves one in. My inner voice whispers, "return to source," and of course I do.

One's spirit, a yellow butterfly is set free in this small world, free of turmoil and struggle.

The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas is a sanctuary, a retreat and a far dream...

As I was walking near the vegetarian restaurant a friendly young nun in robes, stopped to chat with me about the divine compassion of Kuan Yin.

Beautiful peacocks stroll about with their green and blue glowing feathers.

People come to visit from all over the world and perhaps you will too.

The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas has a wonderful website with photos, slideshows, audio recordings, visuals and information that you will need about visiting.

the apoetheois of Ginette Neveu, said Princess Haiku

2010-04-13T22:32:00.001-07:00

A new acquaintance of mine sent me a link to a youtube audio of a violin performance by Ginette Neveu. Her music has quite rightly been referred to as perfection; the very apotheosis of violin virtuosity.

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The intensity of Neveu's music is white hot and as she herself explained as a nine year old child, "I play it as I understand it."

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Ginette Neveu was, for 14 years, one of the most promising musicians of the twentieth century, a violin virtuoso who dazzled audiences in her native France with her performances, and listeners around the world with her recordings. She is remembered today for the promise of her few recordings, and the tragedy of her early death in an airplane crash.

Neveu's musical abilities manifested themselves very early in her life, and she achieved fame as an infant prodigy. Her formal debut took place at age seven and a half, with a performance of Bruch's G minor Violin Concerto in Paris. She quickly began winning prizes in competition, and took lessons from Georges Enescu, before entering the Paris Conservatory at age 11, where she earned the top student prize at the end of her first eight months there. It was her winning of the 1935 prize in the Wieniawski Competition at age 16, against a field of 180 competitors that included a 27-year-old David Oistrakh, that assured her international career more

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Neveu, Ginette, was a grandniece of Charles-Marie Widor. She studied with her mother, making her debut when she was seven as soloist with the Colonne Orchestra in Paris; after further studies at the Conservatory there, she won the premier prix at age 11; then completed her training with Enesco and Flesch. She won the Wieniawski Competition (1935), and then embarked on an acclaimed career as a virtuoso, touring Poland and Germany that same year, the Soviet Union (1936), and the U.S. and Canada (1937). After the close of World War II, she made her London debut (1945); then appeared in South America, Boston, and N.Y. (1947).

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Ginette Neveu gave her last concert on October 20, 1949. A week later, on October 27, she and her brother boarded an Air France flight en route to another series of concert engagements. All 48 passengers on board the flight, including the famous French boxing champion Marcel Cerdan, died when the plane flew into a mountain after two failed attempts to make a landing at the São Miguel Island airport in the Azores. It has been said that Ginette Neveu's body was found still clutching her Stradivarius in her arms.[1] more

Composer Henri Sauguet called Neveu’s death: a “divine abduction. After listening to some of the many audios of her playing on youtube I quite agree. I ordered a cd of her playing Brahms from Amazon today and look forward to hearing more of her music. Indeed, she appears on the video in this post as a burning angel; as a Jean D'Arc of the violin who leads her listeners on a spiritual odyssey and into auditory battle with the promise of victory.

tonight there will be Moonlight After Rain, said Princess Haiku

2010-04-12T17:19:00.000-07:00

photo

Pain is not pleasure
if we know
It heaps up treasure-
even so.
Turn, transfigured pain,
Sweetheart, turn again
For fair thou art as moonrise after rain

Christina Rossetti

Flute by Night

2010-04-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

Dark sounds in a minor key.

At night tide I hear the flute sing.

Leave your haunted world, poet.

Follow the leap,

shimmer of trills.

Waves rising and

swelling with the sea.

Sparkling black sand tosses

a shell ashore.

Luminous and void

the pearl within.

At the entrance lingers the flute’s voice.

Sorrow in the musician’s hand.

Diane Déhler

chasing rainbows on a rainy day, Said Princess Haiku

2010-04-11T19:51:00.001-07:00

Chased a rainbow today, arcing overhead a visitation of rain...
Spring, where are you hiding?

chrysanthemum shrine, said Princess Haiku

2010-04-11T16:52:00.001-07:00

chrysanthemum shrine
offerings- a poet’s gold
this flower a dream

Diane Dehler

Anchee Min reads at Copperfield's Bookstore, said Princess Haiku

2010-04-09T20:40:00.000-07:00

Author, Anchee Min appeared this evening at Copperfield's Bookstore in the San Francisco North Bay to discuss her newest novel, "Pearl of China." Pearl is a fictionalized account of the life of Pearl Buck, an author who spent 40 years in China and lived amongst peasants.

Although Pearl Buck is now greatly honored by China, when Min was a child she was forced to denounce Buck in writing for her novel, "The Good Earth." When Min asked if she could first read the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, before writing her condemnation she was told the book was too "toxic" for her to read.

Min's outstandingly courageous and emotionally honest discussion of how she came to condemn Pearl Buck, brought tears to my eyes. Min also revealed that as a young Maoist she was misled into denouncing her favorite teacher for reading the class, "the Little Mermaid."

Giving context to behavior that is difficult to understand out of Maoist China, Min explained how denouncement was an act of sacrifice. Thus, it was because she loved her teacher that she denounced her. When Min brought home a certificate of honor from school for having done this, her mother told her, "If you ever do that again I will disown you."

Min described herself in those difficult years as having become a "monster." Perhaps some day Anchee Mee will write about her remarkable transformation and her capability of self acceptance and honesty. It is easy in today's world of extreme political correctness to understand the temptation to quickly judge others and to lose perspective. People who easily and continuously denounce others in the name of politics would do well to remember History's lessons and learn from Min's experience.

The echoes of pain that I heard from the heart of author Min to her audience are visible in an earlier book that she wrote, "Wild Ginger." Wild Ginger explores the devastating terrain of the Cultural Revolution. "It brilliantly delineates the psychological and sexual perversion of those times." Anchee Min reflects the same startling, compelling beauty in her force of personality as well as in writing. I don't think that I will ever read one of her novels again without hearing the pain that forged the metal of these works.

a Spring Haiku, said Princess Haiku

2010-04-06T18:33:00.001-07:00

Spring orchid too large
shy, my heart hides under white clouds
a fragrant longing

impatiently awaiting Spring, said Princess Haiku

2010-04-05T09:34:00.001-07:00

It is still raining today. -Spring rain as ruthless as my ruminations on other years when white snowdrops buried their heads again and refused to come out of the ice. Spring, where are you hiding?

plum blossoms, said Princess Haiku

2010-04-04T22:39:00.001-07:00

Plum blossoms so beautiful they become my eyes.

Spring rain on plum blossom, said Princess Haiku

2010-04-04T22:06:00.000-07:00

behind a gate
this dazzle of plum blossoms
spring rain - my heart

in Spring urban flowers erupt from silver cans, said Princess Haiku

2010-04-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

Bright colors emerge.

Imprints painted by The Phoenix Theater cabal, flare brightly and disappear within hours. As soon as one painting is dried another painted over.

Paint flowers near garbage cans grow besides debris.

Climbing up walls, trees and saying beauty exists even...

It's destined for a short bloom and hidden.

Daring to live here where existence is panhandled...

Daring to be beautiful in full frontal view of a dumpster.

The young throw color balls into the eye of fate.

I'll meet you here Juliet by the grafitti tree where I left a message, left a message..

Where few are left.

Conversations with Helene Grimaud or through the mystery flower Part Two, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-30T00:12:00.000-07:00

photo credit

Every great artist inspires love, devotion and awakening of true self as does the pianist, Helene Grimaud. I visited her guest book on her web site at Deutschgrammophon and spent a long time perusing her messages.

These intimate conversations with Helene Grimaud, left anonymously by her fans touched my heart. They were a fascinating and poetic outpouring of love, spiritual confession, appreciation and devotion. You can read the original article here and below you will find more of the letters.

I hope that you enjoy them.
Princess Haiku

Conversations with Helene Grimaud:

etude
Atlanta
03-10-2006

My Dear Helene,

I have loved music since I was a young boy. I used to stand transfixed in the driveway next to my parent's house and listen to the pianist next door play Chopin, De Falla and Rachmaninoff. When she practiced I stood as still as a statue. The music wrapped me in enchantment. Since then music has been the most precious thing in my life.

I love all of the great composers but Sergei Rachmaninoff is my favorite. In 1959 I was fortunate enough to visit with one of the master's daughters, Tatiana at Villa Senar. that afternoon, August 16, 1959 will always live in my memory. the high point came when upon entering the music room where the Rhapsody, Corelli Variations and the Third Symphony were composed, Tatiana asked me to play his piano. I was stunned by the gesture but politely refused.

This is where you come in for were I you, I would have thanked her by playing her father's music, Chopin and perhaps some Bach or Beethoven. Only you among modern pianists could have done this precious moment complete justice!

I know that Michael Pletnev has recorded on this piano in his "Homage to Rachmaninoff" disc, but you would be my choice it it were possible to live that afternoon over. I would like you to know that Tatiana gave me a small branch of her father's favorite tree to take back to the United States with me. I went to Vahalla, New York and laid it on his his grave.

Helene, you are the most gifted pianist of our generation. I feel myself lucky to have heard you play the Rachmaninoff Second Concerto one year ago in Philadelphia, and I will be in Baltimore for your recital on November 5th. As I told you last year, your Chopin Second Sonata is the best interpretation since Rachmaninoff himself. May all the blessings of the universe be yours. Be well and continue your life in the service of music and our fellow creatures.

With highest regards and much love,
Professor Emeritus...

03-10-2006

Beau
Belgium
01-07-2006

Dear Helene,

I am not a pianist but a guitarist who is a fan of the Beatles and rock music. I recently heard one of your cds and it was a revelation; I even started crying. I asked if you were a human being or an angel? I fear the violence that we must all endure in this world. When I listen to your music, this fear turns into a sense of peace. Thank you for that amazing feeling. If you're a human being then it reassures me to know that there are people full of sensitivity and love. If you are an angel then thank you for coming to earth.

Jake
Amsterdam
03-23-2005

Dear Helene,

At the risk of being redundant I add myself to your thousands of fans that have no choice but to communicate with you in this one-way manner. I want to thank you for all of your wonderful music. I Iive in Amsterdam and am sorry to see that you don't play here so often. I saw you once in the summer of 2003 and then summer 0f 2004 you were unwell. It's a hard world for passionate beings!

Aller Beste Toegewenst

Marie
USA
03-23-2005

Hello Helene,

I bought your new CD today and it outstanding!

Is there a symbolic message in that there is a picture of you at a subway station and another picture of you next to an empty rail track?

Michel
France
02-05-2005

"Only silence remains"

PrincePeterofNewYork
USA
09-13-2008

Je t'ecoute de tout mon coeur,
At the last Night Prom at Royal Albert Hall,
You are a truly brilliantly shining star,
More beautiful than the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades.

in the garden of eternal Spring the little trees, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

my snow blossom tree
was born to weep white petals,
a lonely Spring path

Princess Haiku

Clouds of cherry blossoms!
Is that temple bell in Ueno
or Asakusa?

Basho

when cherry blossoms
scatter...
no regrets

Issa

onto the paper amulet
cherry blossoms
scatter

Issa

Haiku Stones

a Madhatter's Tea Pary, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-28T19:47:00.000-07:00

I was near the edge of a reflection today and came upon a Madhatter's Tea Party.

I was invited to join but couldn't as I had a prior appointment with a March Hare.

Such joy as this is rarely seen.

There was Alice and Alice and yet another Alice.

-Magic rabbits and half cups of tea.

Hats galore.

Magic decks of cards.

Nothing was as it seems.

The temptation to join was incredible.

I remembered an Alice from years before who had vanished.

-Splashes of color joined the wind in motion.

Mothers and daughters became a gentle memory.

A bright colored umbrella waved me good by and perhaps next year I will return for High Tea at Jacqueline's.

Musing abut dispossession, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-28T12:12:00.001-07:00

Musing this morning and coming to the decision that we each have the responsibility of being true to our artistic vision and voice; even in the face of cultural or social dispossession. Is it possible for any of us to find freedom outside of our own perspective and how do we get outside of that perspective. How do you?

History,
I have know you
inside and out.
Outside of this Spring
morning where flowers
ricochet with symbolic
meaning and the scent;
Oh yes, the scent of
warm oil and lemon
balm touch insist on
instinctual possession.
Again and again pollen
fertilizes imagination
and travels across
districts and borders
without destination.

I gave birth to a star, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-28T00:13:00.001-07:00

photo credit

I Gave Birth to a Star

I gave birth tonight to a star
alone unattended only me
on a dark wooded path.
A path that was lonely and no
other hands but mind to reach
between my legs and grasp my
newborn child a star that
flashed away into streaks of light.

I cried as all new mothers cry
and more because I scarcely
touched it never suckled it
never crooned to my star.
I thrust my hands angrily into
the face of the sky protesting.

What am I left for my pain
and my waiting my burden
of expectation weighing me down.
Expectation growing becoming
swollen as firm and hard as my
breasts promising I too would
be born in the season of birth.

I sat on the dark path raining
hard bitter tears on the
ground later the dim light
of my heart led me home.

I had a child once I would
later say my child was
a star that burst into light
and became a white image burning
across the face of the sky.
Oh yes women would answer
a star aren't they all.

You don't understand I implored
One long ago night I gave birth
to a star and no midwife to
comfort me cool my burning brow.
Only a dark path a cool moon
and my love to welcome my only
child a flash away star.

2010-03-24T21:17:00.001-07:00

Princess Haiku is noted on "Best Poetry Blogs" via....said Princess Haiku

2010-03-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

I was happy and appreciative to discover that Accredited Online Colleges voted Princess Haiku as one of the top poetry blogs on the web. Now, I have to go visit the others and you might want to also as they have made a great list of poetry blogs to visit.

This is the little letter that I sent to them:

Dear Emma,

Thanks for including me on a great poetry list.

I linked to your web page and will enjoy visiting some of the other blogs. When I started my simple blog of poetic musings I had no idea that so many other people would like to read it. Well, in the end it is the simple, natural and elegant things in life; like poetry and sea water pearls that bring so much joy...
Diane Dehler

3 Spring haiku, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-21T19:14:00.001-07:00

my snow blossom tree
was born to weep white petals,
a lonely Spring path

at moonrise knowing
you will never walk with me again,
spill of April light

fish ripple in Spring
a blue net poises overhead,
still cloud catching mind

Review of The Little Mermaid, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

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This morning I was looking for a review of The Little Mermaid ballet, that premiered last night at the San Francisco Ballet and found this older one.

Taking a Children’s Tale to Dark New Depths

By CHLOE VELTMAN
Published: March 19, 2010

"In John Neumeier’s ballet adaptation of “The Little Mermaid,” the title character undergoes an extreme physical ordeal so that she might live on land. As the orchestra plays a stomping series of cataclysmic chords, a malevolent sea witch wrenches off the mermaid’s fluid blue costume and leaves her almost naked and shivering onstage. With one of her newly acquired human limbs grotesquely contorted over her shoulder, the former mermaid looks like an insect that’s been flayed alive." more here

I must say this might appear to be a misogynistic interpretation of the original tale and look forward to reading other opinions.

Here is the original tale.

Here is an older review with John Neumeiere.

Could you tell us about the use of Japanese Noh and Kabuki techniques in the 'The Little Mermaid'?

The elements of Japanese theatre used in 'The Little Mermaid' are only part of the ballet; I would say it is part of my theatrical experience.

Since I was a student, I was very fascinated by Japanese culture. Particularly theatrical culture, Noh and Kabuki theatre, and also Japanese literary forms, such as poetry and Haiku.

If you are able to study many of my works I think you can see that techniques differ according to the 'essence' and nature of the ballet.

I think it is important, however, that in adapting a technique it must come from inside me, from inside my particular psyche, and not be used as a kind of decoration on top, just to make that work more interesting and exotic.

In the case of 'The Little Mermaid', it was the same situation: the idea of a ballet as an ìOdysseyî. These are works which have to do with fantastic, other-earthly worlds. This is always difficult in ballet, because we have the old, letís call it, slightly kitsch way of the 19 century, when we use theatrical illusions, to show this kind of world. I think that even elements of Noh or Kabuki theatre, which present these fantastic worlds in extremely clear and everyday lights, created a more intricate, much more modern interpretation...

If you have seen the performance let me know what you think.

Postscript: Here is an extract from an interesting review from the San Francisco Sentinel.

"Out of choreographer John Neumeier’s keen sense of style and timing comes a perfect union of panache and pathos. He has also designed the sets, costumes, and lighting. The vision is distinct and unforgettable. The score by Lera Auerbach is miraculous. Known for her stylistic freedom and use of sensual melodic lines that ebb and flow through riptides of atonality – Auerbach has provided the ideal soundscape for these dual realms of land and sea, and the conflicts of desire and unfulfilled love. The Little Mermaid echoes the romantic tragedy of Swan Lake, opening our hearts to the pangs of eternal longing. As with Tchaikovsky, Auerbach makes prolific use of a solo violin (Roy Malan) to color and punctuate the dramatic flow. The finale invites the imagination towards hope as it lifts its principal subjects – the mermaid and her creator/counterpart, “the Poet” – to an ambiguous starry wonderment."

Sylvie Guillem, Icarus and extreme beauty of dance, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-20T19:03:00.000-07:00

I am musing about the absolute beauty of dance and the sacrifice that it requires. In Sylvie Guillem's art we can imagine the dangerous flight of Icarus, beauty and the capability of the human spirit to soar.

Icarus
Son of Daedalus who dared to fly too near the sun on wings of feathers and wax. Daedalus had been imprisoned by King Minos of Crete within the walls of his own invention, the Labyrinth. But the great craftsman's genius would not suffer captivity. He made two pairs of wings by adhering feathers to a wooden frame with wax. Giving one pair to his son, he cautioned him that flying too near the sun would cause the wax to melt. But Icarus became ecstatic with the ability to fly and forgot his father's warning. The feathers came loose and Icarus plunged to his death in the sea.

How far to the edge of the human experience can artistic beauty go?

Sylvie Guillem
Diva. Rebel. Perfectionist. And the most dynamic dancer of her era. Tim Adams meets the radical ballerina.

secret, my brush, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-19T10:16:00.000-07:00

secret, my brush
dipping into pale gold ink
another dawn

Conversations with Helene Grimaud or through the mystery flower, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-19T00:12:00.000-07:00

Every great artist inspires love, devotion and awakening of true self as does the pianist, Helene Grimaud. I visited her guest book on her web site at Deutschgrammophon and spent a long time perusing her messages.

These intimate conversations with Helene Grimaud, left anonymously by her fans touched my heart. They were a fascinating and poetic outpouring of love, spiritual confession, appreciation and devotion.

It seemed wrong to me that these lyrical letters written in the tradition of courtly love would be left in a dark, virtual dead letter office to eventually disappear. Many of the letters are glimmers into intimate recesses of the human heart, for like an archetypal Moon Goddess, Helene's music rides across the night night sky and into the human spirit.

I felt that they deserved to see the light of day and be appreciated for their beauty, charm and authenticity. Whether one is reading the witty and erudite prose of PrincePeterofNew York or the dark despair of Brontian youth in search of their diva anima, or poets inspired by her such as A of Croatia, they deserve to be preserved for their artistic value.

Once a month I will be devoting a special post to these "conversations with Helene Grimaud." Perhaps it is a particular and luminous quality of otherness in la belle, Helene's music that makes it possible for her audience to connect with their deeper selves. I remember writing that Helene was a poet's musician and these letters prove this to be true. Threaded like silver through out them are the words of all who understand the universal language of music.

The postings presented are extracts in many cases of longer conversations. Dates, names and other details have been changed to further protect the anonymity of the original posters.

I hope that you enjoy them as I did.
Princess Haiku

Conversations with Helene:

PrincePeterofNewYork
United Sates
07-11-2008

Mon Cherie Helene,

Bonne Anniversaire!
Pour toi!
Aphrodite by Victor Daley

On a golden dawn in the dawn sublime
Of years ere the stars had ceased to sing,
Beautiful out of the sea-deeps cold,
Aphrodite arose- the flower of Time,
That dear to the day of her blossoming,
The old, old Sea had borne in his heart.
Around her worshipping waves did part
Tremulous-glowing in rose and gold.
And the birds broke forth into singing sweet,
And flowers born scentless breathed perfume:
Softly she smiled upon Man forlorn,
And the music of love in his wild heart beat,
And down to the pit went his gods of gloom,
And earth grew bright and fair as a bride,
And folk in the star- worlds wondering cried-
"Lo, n the skies a new star is born!"

O Beloved, thus on my small world you
Rose, flushing it all with rosy flame!
Changing sad thoughts to a singing throng,
And creating the earth and sky anew!
As Love you appeared- and, lo, you are Fame,
And, all my follies and sins despite,
You yet, Beloved, may see my light-Small, but a star- mid the stars of song.

Bonne Anniversaire!

Je t'aime et je t'adore,
Pierre

Song
Chicago
16-03-2009

The seats were filled with all kinds of people
Mine was filled with me... but a different me
I did not shed a tear... my eyes did not fill with tears
I missed your playing and your smiling face

The piano did not sound like a bell...
I love a Helen who dazzles me with creativity...
I love a Helen who dazzles me with hide and seek
I love a Helen for she hides in the dark ocean
I love Helen like I love Houdini!

Samurai
Japan
10-03-2009

The Samurai is like the water. His mind is in abysmal stillness. When she calls him he doesn't come... When she wants to give he doesn't accept because he's not a beggar... The Samurai understands the meaning of everything she says, even her silence.

Silver
Greece
05-12-2008

Megaron the palace of music in Athens, Greece
I used to go by this building almost daily
I did not known that one day in the future it would be a place to display your talents.

I did not know I would not be present in physical sense
I did not know I could be present in a mental sense wither
I loved your presence and talk before the concert started.
The walk below the Acropolis and the Plaka restaurant we had lunch
A climb to the Erotokritos site not far but only a heavy climb to the foothill.

Love,

Opus
Greece
11-22-2008

My dear Helene,

The theme is "safe and sound"
The frequency is 54.6
Colors are Violet

M twin sister and You
A huntress with bow and arrows
My sculpture on display in Louvre, Paris.

Perhaps you can honor me by playing something
Study my bow and ... play the "spacious dance" songs
I promise when you direct attention this way

Artemis, Kalliste you will discover
More melodic than the sweetest concerto you ever heard
Mnemosyne will help you remember it.

My arrow traveled along the shoreline by the calm blue sea
Missed my brother's Adam's Apple landed on the
white French door below the golden ornate handle.

Come when you can!

AR
Pakistan
10-29-2008

I love watching you in the Helene Grimaud Master Class
The sounds and your explanations have become my secret teacher
Showing me the beauty I can be in every step of my development.

Mav
France
10-16-2008

I cannot tell you how much you touch me with your music... and your wolves.

Lostangel
San Diego
08-10-2008

The letter I received about postponement of your recital in La Jolla, sadly disappointed me. Three times has Southern California been forsaken of your talents. The last concert scheduled in Los Angeles you appeared only then to disappear. After effects of pneumonia. I understand. Not to sound unkind but it's been a series of bath luck. Best of luck to you in your travels.

Stairway
Greece
10-09-2008

Selene, brings the shadows and then the mind fills in the harmonies you think about but do not play.

Mystery
Malta
25-06-2008

You can continue loving her and not tell her. You can send her a love letter each day. You can train your anima to be just like her, and then you will not need her or burden her in any way. You can pray to the goddess of love. First, you must discover whom she likes and then you can bring her along. The archetypes can influence your intended lover. You can do Mantras each day. Stop being arrogant about what you love and ask her to tell you what she loves.

Noangel
Italy
06-06-2008

You can consider yourself free when you are what you've chosen to be.

Flav
Greece

I was very fortunate to get a word with you on a certain score that rings so clear in my mind. I felt like I was handling to you the beginnings of a new idea. I have been working on this score for months with passion and energy.

I read this poem by William Blake that I would like to share with you.

Unless the eye, ear, tongue, heart and mind catch fire
God will not be seen, heard, named, loved and not be known!

Cello
Czech Republic
09-25-2007

I think it should be hard to play in our country's concert halls, became many of the pianos are of a poor quality. The only Fazioli piano is situated at the Academy of Music in Prague and it is so broken and out of tune, that it rests in the corner of the concert hall abandoned.

I hope you'll not think all of the people in CZ are the same and we still want real pianists performing here. I hope that we can look forward to future performances you by in Prague!

Yours sincerely,
17 y.o.

Valentin
Amsterdam
08-09-2007

Musical Key

An explorer at heart is searching for some treasure
perhaps a lost archeological treasure
Or a desire hiding in the dark unconscious
But something right at the tips of her fingers

Eros
San Franciso
06-09-2007

Immortal Beloved
This is such a bold concept

Just like redo
She brings the aromatic breeze that cools the skin
Tantalized the mind and spirit

When the sun sets she arrives
And she is gone when the sun rises
She loves dark Eros the most

Mindful
Greece
05-24-2007

I went back to the book to discover a section where you may have hidden your secret. The secret is what the artist does with their mind. Thanks for the tour!

Imago
UK
10-12-2006

To Helen
Edgar Allan Poe

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The wary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
the agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah! Psyche, from the region which
Are Holy Land!

Introducing the debut CD of Vilde Frang, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

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Here is an excerpt from a wonderful new talent, Vildre Frang. Just when you think you have heard it all a fresh new voice appears.

"A fully fledged violinist with full control of technique, surplus and an incredible joy of interpretation"

"Ushering in the Sibelius with a sweetly tremulous whisper, Frang heralds one of the freshest and most vital accounts of this familiar and frequently recorded work in recent years ... The Prokofiev is no less vividly realised, Frang capturing its big-boned , muscular lyricism, animated whimsy and romantic abandon with deceptive ease and a maturity that makes one eager to hear more from this fine player"

Elegant and chic, Sarah Chang, said Princess Haiku playing the Brahms Violin Concerto.

2010-03-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

I haven't heard Sarah Chang live in concert for three or four years and was delighted to come across this youtube video of her playing Brahms Violin Concerto in D. This is one of my favorites and the delight of people across the globe. Sarah is so expressive when she plays it is almost as though she dances with her violin. The warmth and fire in her playing is a wonder.

I don't know about you but I can't envision a world without Brahms, Beethoven, Chopin and other great classical music.

Dame de Lotus, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-16T23:37:00.000-07:00

Japonisme discovers the lost Chrysanthemum Princess

2010-03-16T21:34:00.000-07:00

Thank you for finding this gorgeous image lotusgreen!

"Welcome to the world of f. schuyler mathews,
botanist, gardener and calendar maker.

today is just the introduction; next comes the calendar.
these images are from his book
the golden flower: chrysanthemum,
and the words from his
field book of american wildflowers."

The Little Mermaid, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-16T17:01:00.001-07:00

The San Francisco Ballet is premiering, The Little Mermaid, starring Yuan Yuan Tan and I must absolutely see it. You can see a short preview of the performance on the video below and of course more information is available via the ballet's website.

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“The Little Mermaid presents a variation on the theme of love, which is quite unique, said Neumeier. “Someone whose love is so strong that they will pass boundaries — a boundless love.”

San Francisco Ballet’s Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson, who describes The Little Mermaid as “a feast for the eye,” had the pleasure of seeing the ballet in Hamburg and “loved it.” He thought it would be a fantastic production to bring to San Francisco.

“It’s very, very different than anything we have done before,” said Tomasson.

The debuting ballet still encompasses the popular film’s major concept – a mermaid who falls in love with a prince and transcends through both worlds to be with him. However, this ballet reaches a whole new psychological and emotional level, as the mermaid’s two physical states represent a battle between lifestyles and state of being.

The Little Mermaid will also feature an original commissioned score by renowned composer Lera Auerbach.

I wonder what it would be like to be a mermaid and torn between sea and mortal world? Perhaps like the undertow, the pull of deep feelings of mystical consciousness and the need for practical daily interaction with humans would leave one haunted. The mythical and archetypal possibilities of this kind of musing are endless.

Such blue, such an eternal sea of doubt..

musing on chrysanthemums and possibility, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-15T20:14:00.000-07:00

I have been visiting some new blogs lately thanks to

Ascender Rises Above and

Haiku and Happiness

Yesterday, I discovered Creativity in Exile and found writing that lifted my spirit.

Here are a few words from the end of Laurie's post, "Blessings In..."

"My questions for you: What if all the inspiration, all the creativity, all the blessings you need are available to you in this very moment, if you would but open your hands to receive? What would you do differently today?"

My answer is that I would have played my flute more softly so that I could hear myself. I would have picked up my pen to finish rewrites on a short prose manuscript, and I would have more carefully observed the early spring flowers in my neighborhood. -Some of those blooms will be gone tomorrow...

What would you do differently?

a poet struggles
tangled in a spider's arms
gold chrysanthemum

Diane Dehler

BTW: three flowers up to Japonisme who was just named one of the 10 most beautiful art blogs by toptenlists.com.

in service of La Muse, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

photo credit

I would like to be Maria, but there is La Callas who demands that I carry myself with her dignity.

What have we done today for our Muse?

Iconoclasm in self expression, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-14T11:09:00.000-07:00

It's an early Spring morning in Northern California and I found myself preoccupied with the idea of iconoclasm and the role it plays in our lives as artists, poets, writers etc.

Nature is itself iconoclastic and continually breaking up all patterns and formal designs. A friend has been complaining about bamboo ruthlessly taking over her garden and there is no artistic force as great as a blackberry patch.

I can feel myself getting ready to break out of old patterns of thought and have no idea of the direction in which I am poised. Inside teutonic plates shift slightly and far away in my dreams last night I heard a faint cracking of an iceberg. The words, Flash, Ink! appeared and disappeared before I was fully awake.

A former poetry teacher, Myung Mi Kim once suggested to me that I was too reserved and not getting "to my real stuff." In her own words "To radicalize anything starts at a point of rupture; naturally, change can't just happen along a continuum that has already established itself ..."

I know this is true but exactly how does a person break away? I imagine it's a manner of putting oneself before the real judge; the self.

What force of change do you detect in your own work these days and how are you breaking out? If you are an artist I would be happy to link to a visual response.

musing about Yoko, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-13T12:11:00.001-08:00

photo credit

I remember thinking about Yoko long ago when I was young and not getting at all how iconoclastic she was. Yoko Ono was a preview of the coming world of feminism and it was an exciting and confusing time to be a young woman. Amidst all the rumbles about sex role and identity there was, Yoko and like many born under the sign of Aquarius she was ahead of her times.

Today, I do get Yoko and found her wonderful project Imagine Peace that was established as a memorial to John Lennon.

This is an excerpt from the Imagine Peace Manifesto:

"This is an age where one hero cannot conquer Evil. Evil is a dis-ease presented to us as our fate. Many times, it is presented to us as an illusion of goodness, so we get confused, don’t free ourselves from it and be destroyed by it. To conquer evil, each one of us must first clearly see what it is… that it is a curable dis-ease. Then work to release us from it’s power in a way we can."

">

Yoko is now understood as an influential artist who pushes the boundaries of art in its myriad forms; film, music, theatre, media and there is a resurgence of interest and celebration of her work.

libraries on the edge, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-12T15:28:00.001-08:00

Many books in our library in ruins.
Where can this lead?
Small American cities poised on the edge...

on poets and musicians

2010-03-10T09:02:00.000-08:00

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Poets and musicians are natural inhabitants of the rivers and the winds for their spirit is free..

A Thing of Beauty (Endymion)
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

John Keats

Songs, by Antonio Machado, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-09T21:27:00.000-08:00

Wandering in a moonlight made of many Springs and white bees carrying nectar from lost memories, I came across this poem by Antonio Machado..

Songs

I

Against the flowering mountain
The full seas dash.
The wax of my bees
Holds little grains of salt.

II

Spring has come.
Nobody knows how it did it.

III

Full moon, full moon,
So full, so round,

On this serene night
Of March; wax of light
Made by white bees.

Antonio Machado

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Another Spring weaves us, said Princess Haiku, into a muse

2010-03-09T09:16:00.000-08:00

Miz Katie

This is my garden of bright colored new flowers, said Princess Haiku and everyone is welcome.

Carmen Torbus

Little Hokum Rag

What continues to amaze me in blogdom is the synchronicity of how people find each other and the manifold tapestries they weave together.

Jacob Russell

Kelly Rae Roberts

If you are happy in your usual blog sphere reach out and encompass someone new or something different.

Hiroko Sakai

Cheru Jackson

Visit a new person, a new country, a different value system and a context.

Princess Merlin

Paris Parfait

Floating Along

Or introduce someone new.

Carol Peters

Carla Curt

Anart Island

What we are doing online is creating a new kind of world.

Flying Colors

One person to another.

La Belle Helene playing through a long evening, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-08T18:47:00.000-08:00

You can listen but can you hear?

Sacred Circle Mandalas and others said Princess Haiku

2010-03-08T13:05:00.000-08:00

After a long sleeping winter, Princess Haiku is active again and will be introducing new spring flowers; talented, vibrant and creative bloggers that you absolutely have to visit.

The first Spring Flower in my series of new bloggers, is talented artist, Sue O'Kieffe who creates the most beautiful mandalas I have ever seen.

"I had to abandon the idea of the superordinate position of the ego. ... I saw that everything, all paths I had been following, all steps I had taken, were leading back to a single point -- namely, to the mid-point. It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the centre. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the centre, to individuation.
... I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had attained what was for me the ultimate. - C. G. Jung. Memories, Dreams, Reflections."

My name is Sue O'Kieffe. I create original digital mandala art prints inspired by nature that are meant to bring healing and inspiration to the viewer's spirit. Mandala is a Sanskrit word that means "containing essence." Often referred to as the Circle of Life, mandalas are used in many forms and in many cultural and spiritual traditions as symbols for healing, prayer and meditation.

The mandalas you see in my Etsy shop are a blending of the natural and technological worlds. Photographs I take of the everyday beauty I see on the North Coast of California are digitally transformed into magical new patterns to bring healing and inspiration to the viewer's spirit.

Brightest blessings to you on your path. ~ Sue O'Kieffe

BLOG: http://sacred-circle-mandalas.blogspot.com
FACEBOOK FAN PAGE: http://www.facebook.com/SacredCircleMandalas

Many thanks also to the Queen of the Flowers, Jacquelyn Berl, for introducing me to many of the new bloggers I will be posting about in the next several days.

And to Sybil Archibald with her uplifting message:

"The source of creativity is the source of everything. Through sculpture, etching & painting, I seek a pathway deep into that sacred well. I keep kinship with ancient mystics. While they sought God in visions, I seek the Divine in the creative process..."

Riverfront Art gallery Dreaming, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-07T21:49:00.000-08:00

I was strolling in the shaded sunlight of early spring, said Princes Haiku and wandered into the Riverfront Art Gallery. There my inner dreams collided with the rapsodic color of Jerrie Jerne's new paintings.

I have been to have "a see" other times and the people are always so welcoming in this art gallery you would think they were friendly acquaintances. This is North Bay Art at it's finest.

Do stop in...

Return to the Volcanic Witch Project in Sibley Park, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-06T18:56:00.001-08:00

One of my very favorite mystical places is the Sibley Labyrinth. The last time I was there I walked the Heart Labyrinth with my two sisters. This is one of the four labyrinths that we saw in the park that day. Afterwards, as we were walking up the hillside together to leave, clouds fell across the path and a bank of fog engulfed us. Overhead we could make out the shadowy form of a hawk with outstretched wings. It's difficult to find a place with more atmosphere and maze energy.

In a few months when the sky grows clear and sunny, and the paths dry up I will gather up some friends and make my annual pilgrimage to the heart labyrinth. As time passes the older stories of Sibley Park are disappearing and I am going to repost my original "tales of the labyrinth" along with older and newer links to some other great stories about the place. As Spring draws near it is wonderful to mediate on the power and beauty of mother nature.

2006:
Sibley Park is located high in the San Francisco East Bay Hills and offers a spectacular wilderness view. Hillsides and cliffs are wrapped in mysterious gray fog. Glimmering blue clouds touch the tips of black pines and flaming banks of poison oak ignite quarries of volcanic rock. Winds blow up suddenly catching both humans and birds by surprise. Mysterious walking paths conceal the hidden labyrinths of the Volcanic Witch Project and the pagans that design them. It takes a sharp eye and intuition to find these modern yet ancient retreats from the everyday world.

I first discovered the heart shaped "Mother Labyrinth" as it was called by locals in the 1980's and had no idea who had created it or why. I later discovered that the original maze was created by the labyrinth master; Alex Champion in the 1970's. In the 1980's, I also had the pleasure of discovering remnants of a far older Sibley Labyrinth created perhaps in the 1940's. Its history remains hidden and now lost forever. This summer the park service did fire prevention work in the area as it is chaparral (burn zone) and I fear the last of the original stones have been displaced.

Who are the caretakers of the mysterious labyrinths? No one knows for sure but it is suspected they are projects of local covens. The rocks have to be carried miles and refurbished each spring as rain washes them away in the winter.
People of many faiths practice this ancient tradition of meditative walking. The Sibley Labyrinths offer a unique spiritual opportunity to convene with higher powers in a radiant, natural wilderness environment.

The sun was warm and the air crisp as I began my annual pilgrimage to the Mother Labyrinth. The scent of bay laurel, eucalyptus and dried underbrush permeated the air with the particular fragrance known by the Oracle of Delphi. My deepest appreciation and thanks to the souls who protect and care take the labyrinths.

Alex Champion was the original designer of the Heart Labyrinth. & here.

Hiroko Sakai; ethereal fire, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-01T23:12:00.000-08:00

I was visiting a friend on facebook and found a link to a wonderful artist, Hiroko Sakai. I find myself delighted and sympatico with her esthetic. Perhaps you will also and do visit..

here

Hiroko Sakai

Hi, Thank you for visiting my page.
I am an Artist, originally from Japan and have been working on my Art in San Francisco.

Main website : www.HirokoSakaiFineArt.com
Official online gallery shop : www.HirokoSakai.com

*Artist Statement*

I was born in a small town of northern Kyushu Island of Japan in early Spring. I was a shy child and liked looking for fairies in grass and reading adventure stories from my gigantic book case. My parents were great patrons of cultures and art and made sure I had many opportunities to grow artistically. It seemed like I have been painting and drawing from my first breath. My school note books are filled with drawings.

My professional art career started in the graphic arts field in Fukuoka, Japan in the early 1990s. After graduating from Seinan Gakuin University with a BA degree in French and Nihon interior design school with a BA degree in design and rendering, I founded Atelier Yume-Tsumugi Ltd. I operated that studio successfully for 5 years and emphasized working on a variety of projects with varying requirements rather than a distinct style.

In 1998, I broadened the scope of my endeavors to include projects in the United States. In the US, I decided to start concentrate on oil painting ... When we tap into our powers of imagination, we are blooms of possibilities.

On Facebook

Interview with Hiroko Sakai

here

a poem by Rafael Alberti, said Princess Haiku

2010-03-01T12:12:00.000-08:00

HOMECOMING OF LOVE ON THE SANDS

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This morning, my love, we are twenty years old.
Let us go, very slowly, braiding together
Our barefoot shadows, on paths through orchards
That face the blue of the sea with all their greenness.
You ar almost an apparition,
The same one which came once in the lightless evening
Between two lights,
When the young citizen, pensive and idle,
Loitered along his homeward road.
You are still the one seeking, beside me,
The steep secret of the dunes,
The hidden slope of sand, the occult
Reeds which hold
Their curtains before the sea eyes of the wind.
You are there. I am there beside you. I control
The vast temperature of the happy waves,
The heart of the sea, blindly rising,
And dying in tatters of foam and sweet salt.
The collapsing castles rear their battelments,
The seaweeds offer us their crowns, the sails
Tense in flight, sing over the towers.

This morning, my love, we are twenty years old.
Rafael Alberti

I found this pocket book with Spanish poems in it that took my breath away. I cannot imagine a world without love poetry or poets.

From "Thirty Spanish Poems of Love and Exile, edited by Kenneth Rexroth

QUICKSANDS by Jacques Prevert, said Princess Haiku

2010-02-28T19:03:00.000-08:00

QUICKSANDS

I found this poem by Jaques Prevert who is perhaps better known for his screenplay the Children of Paris and like its dreamy quality.

Demons and wonders
Winds and tides
The sea has gone far away
And you
Like seaweed softly stroked by the wind
Stir dreaming in the sands of our bed —
Demons and wonders
Winds and tides
The sea has gone far away
But in your half open eyes
Two small waves wait
Demons and wonders
Winds and tides
Two small waves to drown me

JACQUES PREVERT (1900-1977)

I had no idea that he was a poet although, Children of Paris is amazingly poetic. the surrealists in general seemed much more caustic than this gentle soul.

i really like the artwork of Mike Worall and you might want to visit his space.

art credit to Mike Worall

dreaming of pale ghost mums on a dark, winter's night, said Princess Haiku

2010-02-23T19:14:00.000-08:00

Princess Haiku slipped in and out of rain puddles all evening and fortunately arrived at the Haiku ball dressed in chrysanthemum dreams. There is no other way...

dance, the flowering trees, said Princess Haiku

2010-02-21T22:42:00.000-08:00

Today I saw trees dancing in cherry blossom tutus.

the little poet; Sabine Sicaud, said Princess Haiku

2010-02-12T21:36:00.000-08:00

photo credit

I was browsing in Copperfields last week and came across a collection of poetry by the late Sabine Sicaud. I should have snapped up the book then and there and was disappointed to see it was gone, when I returned to purchase it yesterday. Her poignant and tragic story has quite captivated me and set me to thinking about the poetry that I wrote when I was fourteen. Very often the truest glances of whom we are can be found in our early and unaffected discourse.

I found this translation of one of Sicaud's poems on Sedulia Translations.

Speak to you? No. I cannot.
I prefer to suffer like a plant,
like the bird that says nothing on the linden tree.
They wait. That's fine. Since they aren't tired
of waiting, I'll wait, with the same waiting.

They suffer alone. One should learn how to suffer alone.
I don't want indifferent people ready to smile
nor friends groaning. No one should come.

The plant says nothing. The bird is silent. What would they say?
This pain is alone in the world, whatever one wants.
It is not the pain of others, it is mine.

A leaf has its ache that the other leaf ignores.
And the bird's ache-- the other bird knows nothing about it.

One doesn't know. One doesn't know. Who is like another?
And if they were, what matter. This evening
I don't want to hear a single vain word.

I wait-- like the old motionless tree
and the mute finch behind the window...
A drop of pure water, a little wind, who knows?
What are they waiting for? We will wait for it together.
The sun has told them it will come back, perhaps....

--Sabine Sicaud (1913-1928) died at age 15

What affects me the most in this poem is her old soul for this is a portrait of a tragic heroine age 15. Were she to live to an older age would she have moved more into her soul's vortex or away? We cannot say and will never know, but it is often that people move away from their authentic self.

I have been having dreams of the past and a long ago sadness draws me deeply into a dark undercurrent of tribulation and pathos. The closest person in the world to me was a sister, almost a twin who became a missing person when she was barely twenty. Years later, the truth of her disappearance was finally made known to me. -However it was knowledge received too late as the kernal of sorrow embedded in my early experience grew to become a black pearl; the wisdom of sorrow. It is no wonder that Princess Haiku evolved from a haunted spirit.

I feel that I understand the poetry of Sabine Sicaud in an intimate way.

"Mot vert. Silence vert. Mains vertes / De grands arbres penchés, d'arbustes fous" - "Parola verde. Silenzio verde. Mani verdi / Di grandi alberi incurvati, di folli arbusti" (Sabine Sicaud)

Here is a little from Wiki.

Sabine Sicaud (23 February 1913 - 12 July 1928) was a French poet.
Sabine was born in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, a city in southwestern France. When she was eleven, she won her first poetry prize at the Jasmin d'argent, an annual literary contest held in Agen. At thirteen, she published her Poèmes d'enfant (Childhood Poems), prefaced by the celebrated poet Anna de Noailles. These poems express a child's awakening to the wonders of nature, and display a fervent compassion for all that is vulnerable.[1]
Stricken with what was then a mysterious disease, Sabine died of osteomyelitis at fifteen. During the last year of her life, she expressed her suffering in poems unforgettable in their poignancy and depth of vision. These poems were published for the first time thirty years after her death, under the title Les Poèmes de Sabine Sicaud.

I am going to look for a poem that I wrote when I was fourteen years old. Now it is off to DMV.

4:55 PM

After rummaging through some old boxes I found my 14 year old poem or self.

Water Fountain

Alas, what is happening
is what is happening
there is no pretending
for the liberators
have separated you
from false dreams.

White, white is Spring dust
-smoke files through the
visions of my hope.

Let me play in the
park with the children
and run in water water
playing in water spraying.

Let the sound of our
laughter surround the
world, the time is up
it has been up forever.

Walking again ever
in never stopping
dream images I see
myself, the vision of
a perceptive girl,

She walks upon marble steps
angel vision in Rodin stone,
this stone smooth upon my hand
and firm withing the conception
of human human love.

Water darkness wandering through
a never ending beginning
life fills me with sundry longing.

Poet's note (Years later I visited the Rodin Museum in Paris and touched one of his angel's but had quite forgotten this little
poem; one of my first efforts.)

Odile Ayral-Clause interviewed the last persons to have known the Sicaud family, and wrote the extensive introduction to this bilingual volume that presents the majority of Sicaud’s œuvre, masterfully translated by Norman R. Shapiro.

If any of my readers has a childhood poem they would like to include in this post, send it to me and I'll add it.

Princess Haiku finished making her last Valentine at midnight

2010-02-10T00:12:00.000-08:00

The store that I usually purchase fine cards from has vanished as have several others, and I therefore turned to my own resources.

And with a jar of glue, a valentine edition of a local newspaper, an old French magazine and a pair of scissors these Valentines appeared.

Each one made intentionally for a dearly beloved.

This is the true spirit of love: action and thoughtfulness.

I had more fun than I anticipated as I haven't ever done this before. -Or since I was a child and would cut lace trim and draw red hearts.

This post is in loving memory of baby C who passed to the other world, so long ago and his tiny feet never touched the earth for he was an angel.

RIP darling one

fog drifting through Sonoma hills, the morning awakens said Princess Haiku

2010-02-08T11:32:00.000-08:00

I couldn't shake the fog out of my ghostly pale hair and this morning
I am clouds floating through grey sky.

This being a ghost is uncertain at time, mused Princess Haiku.
Perhaps I should apply for reincarnation but that is tres risky.

What if I would return as a mermaid with sea green eyes,
and talk about chilly. In that instant startling sun appeared
and Princess Haiku disappeared into vapor.

Today is the perfect day to do invisible things, she murmured.

photo credit

Winter Dreaming, said Princess Haiku

2010-01-31T20:33:00.000-08:00

January is emerging into a rainy February, said Princess Haiku.
I was out walking today and saw a pansy deep in Winter thought
and a dragon room with a ceiling of tree.

I must be dreaming she thought or perhaps I am caught in the reflection of a little winter puddle.

The name pansy is derived from the French word pensée meaning "thought", and was so named because the flower resembles a human face; in August it nods forward as if deep in thought. Because of this the pansy has long been a symbol of Free thought.