This week: haiku and tanka. My own versions of the form. Remember, I just count syllables. Let the rest of it fall where it may. Here are a few from the quite a few I wrote this week.
Haiku 973.
one coconut cake
abandoned in its pink box
on the bus stop bench
2/18/22
Haiku 974.
re-enact the scene
for the doting family
minus the cursing
2/18/22
Tanka 292.
Look, here’s the daisies –
Here’s the damn cemetery-
Nothing’s gone wrong, see?
Like I told you: now he is
pushing up daisies
2/18/22
Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That? 
These are great. I like the middle poem and the way it captures that idea of the way in which we might choose to edit ourselves for the sake of some audiences. I always find that fascinating because it is something I am not very good at. The cake one also makes me smile. A friend who lived in an apartment block spent the first few months of the pandemic sharing photos of the food deliveries that she would find abandoned in the entrance lobby and document how long they would malinger there before someone would presumably toss them in the trash.
Thank you. I hate to think of abandoned or lost food. Not just because the waste, but also – somebody wanted that cake or whatever for a reason and now they don’t? Why? It can’t be good.
That first one is my favorite – there is a story there but we just don’t know the ending!
Yes. I was just idly thinking about things being lost or left behind and this idea came into my head. I do think there are lots of stories it could spark in the imagination, that is something I like about this little scene.