Haiku for National Haiku Writing Month – August 2025 First Half

 

National Haiku Writing Month has been founded by the well known haiku poet Michael Dylan Welch. The goal is to write at least one haiku a day. National Haiku Writing Month is in its 14th year. [1] I enjoy writing to the prompts on Facebook. Here are some interesting links: [2]. Our daily writing prompter for August 2025 is Gillena Cox [3], who has been doing so in July 2013, August 2016, December 2021, and August 2023. Thank you very much, Gillena! 

相見時難別亦難，
東風無力百花殘。
無題。
李商隱。
Hard to see each other and just as hard to part,
The east wind is too weak and the flowers wither.
For an unnamed Person / Untitled 
Li Shangyin [4]

bending leaves 
rain flooding the garden 
the chairs are still out 
~ Chair

the table cloth 
falling down table mountain 
romantic ... yes 
~ Table

a kitchen table 
a sink, a trash can 
just watching 
~ Kitchen [5]

lazy afternoon 
soft music and fragrances - 
and no one watching 
~ Music

calypso, steeldrums 
and “Bond, James Bond” 
still happy  
~ Steelpan

homo sapiens 
500.000 years 
not much to celebrate 
~ Celebration

thyme tea 
and cardamom coffee 
in the wadi rum 
~ Thyme

fronds bowing 
the smell of cloves 
don't sit under the coconut tree 
~ Cloves [6]

the vampires don't mind 
the garlic in my garden / 
but the moles do 
~ Garlic

still in the nose 
the scent of frangipani 
and the south seas 
~ Plumeria

don't get me wrong 
i talk about the flowing 
bougainvillea 
~ Bougainvillea 

still dreaming 
of red hibiscus blossoms 
and the surf 
~ Hibisbus

listening to 
taiko and wadaiko drummers 
the pulse of life 
~ Drums

beneath the men 
wearing a tenugui 
only for yourself 
~ Headties [7]

stringing together 
beads, words, kigo and a plum 
no haiku yet 
~ Beads 

Links and Annotations:
[1] National Haiku Writing Month https://www.facebook.com/NaHaiWriMo  
[2] „To help with haiku fundamentals, please have a look at "Becoming a Haiku Poet" at https://www.graceguts.com/essays/becoming-a-haiku-poet. Please review the "Haiku Checklist" at https://www.graceguts.com/essays/haiku-checklist. I also recommend to read: https://www.nahaiwrimo.com/why-no-5-7-5 
[3] https://www.nahaiwrimo.com/meet-the-prompters/gillena-cox  
[4] Li Shangyin (李商隱) lived from about 813 to 858 and has been the last great poet of the Tang Dynasty. 24 of his poems were included in the anthology 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty (唐詩三百首). About 550 of his poems are preserved in the collection Complete Poems of the Tang Dynasty (全唐詩) from 1705. Martin Gimm, my old professor at the East Asian Department of the University of Cologne, once published something about him: "Li Shangyin (812-858): Miscellaneous Epigrams. A Selection from the Zazuan." [In: Wolf Baus, Volker Klöpsch, Otto Putz, Peter Pörtner (eds.): Hefte für ostasiatische Literatur, No. 24/May 1998, pp. 13-21.] Interesting as Gimm had been doing most of his research on topics concerning the Qing Dynasty as he also had been professor for manchu, an endangered language. 
[5] A reference to Andy Wahol's underground film “Kitchen” from 1966. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_(1966_film) 
[6] ... also not "with anyone else but me".  
[7] In kendo (剣道) you wear a protective helmet/mask called men (面) and beneath a headtie or tenugui (手ぬぐい) to soak up the sweat. Often the tenugui has a printed character in Japanese. 

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