The Best American Poetry

Haiku Exchange # 9 [Shapiro and Lehman]

An Old Dispute;  I agree (and disagree)
Date:    1/27/2003 8:25:35 PM Eastern Standard Time   
   
Well, David Lehman,
it's an old dispute between
Li Po -- Tu Fu--  Scene:

O Tu Fu says Li
you're suffering poetry--
My kind just flies high--

Ben Jonson wanted Bard
to blot more. Now you know I'm
not hair on his beard--

Dave, I'm just playing...
Some think it close to praying.
It's all just saying...

No one hates typos
More than I do, but we'll clean
Them later (and schmooze). --  [DS, 1 / 27 / 03]

Back from Detroit

Detroit's a riot --
or was in '67.
What were you doing?

I was waking at
six and carrying mail in
Harlem and the Heights.

Days of ‘67.
What changed was the rate of change.
You said: read Rimbaud.

I joined the Poem
Team. You were on it, as were
Mitch, Les, Chuck, Hilton.

We gave readings at
women's colleges such as
Sadie Lou and Vassar.

Mitch Sisskind read "A
Mean Teacher" and re-met his
wife of the future.

Enough of those days.
I wish not for the snows of
yesterday but now.

The snow is coming
fast and white, covering the
balsams and cedars.   [DL, 1 / 27 / 03]

I muse and ignore the news but can’t elude the weather

Maybe all teachers
are mean, I thought, but now you
know I snow so slow.

Just one thing is real.
Snow. The sooner you know this,
The easier life.

And by snow I mean
Snow. So much pain in your mind
or mine: we need snow.

Ah, my friend, may this
day bring you an hour of clear
vision and no thought.  [–- DL, 1 / 29 / 03]

    Each month a fatal new form? Thanks, etc. Thanks    
Date:    1/29/2003 5:20:44 PM Eastern Standard Time

My best lecture was
"Snow in Art and Litera-
ture" post real snow-storm!

Maybe we should write
each month in new forms: couplets
for Feb in droplets!

aphorisms: March
villanelle for long April'
May is all prose (lit)

June for happy songs;
letters during summer's wrongs;
and for spoon and tongs?

all Fall prose Rimbauds;
while some desire more "Sri Lankas"**          **new form where you ferment  
                                                                    nouns in  names from maps of In-
we'd return: tankas                                        dian sub-continent

Christmas ices streams –
(sweet permissive month of dreams--)
we'll do ANYTHING!     [DS, 1 / 29 / 03]

Haiku Exchange # 8 (Lehman and Shapiro)

NY Unstuck Exchange (Hi, koo!)

Three drops of blood on
a hill of snow: signal for
rebellion to start.

Two snakes intertwined
around a tree: signal for
couple to have sex.

One touch of Venus
and I will marry the world
with my stiff penis.

I know you knew that
was coming. Of planets I
can’t resist Venus.

How about a new
school of poetics? OK,
but what to call it?

Do you suppose these
haikus will be published and
read on a glad day? [DL, 1 / 20 / 03]

I have one reader
in mind, but probably she
will be glad elsewhere!

this is my haiku
to the addressee slipped way
beyond the world's wake!

Call Poetry Mind
Call all else stupidity
Call squirrel there squirrel!

To pronounce squirrel squirrel
In last stanza change accents
Squirrel is still same squirrel!

Oh nominalist
Oh Zeno halfway there, let
her read us one day!

Here I am at school
In front of blue computer
Fairly serene Fool—         [DS, 1 / 21 / 03]

Monocle, Mon Oncle

Good afternoon, my
friend. Um, how would you define
nominalism?

To define the word
in one haiku seems a task
worthy of your skill.

What did Stevens mean
by writing the “clashed edges
of two words that kill”?

This is my haiku
to the world that never sent
one to Emily:

In January
I always think of David
Shapiro’s first book.   [DL, 1 / 21 / 03]

Haiku no explanation but a vision of Wally and the Liberty Dime (coldsnap)

Only the word lives
for the nominalist -- words
clash: no cold ideas!

Just two words breaking
in Stevens' cave, no fire --
just words -– fireflies -–

Thanks for the memries --
the buried 15 yr old
now lost in old years —

Near Plato's highway
Wallace walks with his wife, but
only words they say!

They go opposite
each other and are happy
Pigeons stay indoors!

That's what the Times sez!
Pigeons indoors! Spouses! Crimes!
Criminals! Ideas!

Well, David, this is
not the complete Clash or edge
just nominal fee --- !

I know that words kill
Because blind History taught
blind Homer they will----

But haikus could be
little consoled birds inside
warm ferries flying--!      [DS, 1 / 22 / 03]

Time for one more haiku

In my sleep I wrote
haiku of wonder but then
the bird flew away.

Nor raven nor crow
yet that blackbird made circles
in the sky and snow.

No nominalist,
That bird was lordly, a sir,
Yes: Sir Realist.

Stevens and wife walked
to end of street and he turned
left and she turned right.

Two swords that kill do
so with greater skill than two
words that kill, n'est-ce pas?    [DL, 1 / 22 / 03]

Haiku Exchange # 7 (Shapiro and Lehman)

Links of Snow

Snow to me, I say,
Is what bananas are to
Gabriel Marquez!

I thought snow useless
Until I saw a book sez:
Economic Snow.

A physicist cried:
Wake up, David, you never
Thought snow was useful!?

No, no, no., never
Have I ever thought that snow
Was useful! To skis

trees, warming flowers,
giving symbolists white hours--
SNOW IS NOT MONEY!

A snowman blinks, War.
Time of the empire, fat whore!
On the lawn, new snow!

*****
As if pardoned from
death by the Czar of all Rus:
he received her note!

Swifter than haiku,
deeper than Prospero's book,
E-mail like snow...Look! [DS, 1 / 17 / 03]

Music of Poetry, and Ginsberg’s Box Remembered

Violin on floor --
Haven't practiced in months now--
Hear planes in the air!

Mute violin there--
No more sound than Al's squeeze-box--
Practice haiku more-! DS, 1 / 18 / 03

Greetings from my hut
in Manhattan where I slept
late this cold morning.

Breakfast at noon, no
strings but a piano plays
"Shall We Dance" (Rodgers).

Yes, I still live back
in the fifties in Brooklyn
cheering the Dodgers. (DL, 1/ 18 / 03]

Borges: Baseball is a metaphysical game because it need never conclude

And I in NJ
I make the snowy commute
Over the nude bridge!

How I've ended there!
Baseball metaphysical--
It may never end!

I walked Weequahic Park ("wekwak”)
Now my family is gone---
Let's take mental walk!  (DS, 1 / 19 / 03]

Haiku Exchange # 6 (Shapiro and Lehman)

Subj:    Re: A little group to compensate for senior miscounting; more on KK
Date:    1/13/03 9:42:35 AM Eastern Standard Time
From:    DaJoShap
To:    DCLEHMAN

Let the breeze of So What
Blow through you, said the masters:
Now it does: And so?

Kenneth liked the Rules:
But preferred smashing them Smash!
Why count? Huh? Go Fish!

If I could love all
The way I worshiped Her once
I'd be a Saint Paul!

If I loved each Thing
The way I adored that Girl:
Spinoza would sing!

That's my Father---there!
No, just a butterfly re-
turning to its branch!

Op illusions
Are not haiku? What say you?
Everything's haiku

Black holes, flat screens:
Is a new word poetry?
Old snow falls slowly--

Don't tease me, young Dave!
Let's plop like Ken into pond
Make happy sound wave!     [DS, 1 / 13 / 03]

Haiku Heaven

Date: 1/13/03 7:15:47 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: DCLEHMAN
To: DaJoShap
CC: DCLEHMAN

Even the master
of So What has off days, days
off, days of fire.

O for a muse of
fire on this green lake of
snow in the mountains.

We no can count but
why keep account of our
haiku transgressions?

A bird's eye disturbs
this winter landscape of hills
like white short stories.

On the other hand,
one thing's left to do, to say:
I've forgotten what. [DL, 1 / 13 / 03]

Haiku Exchange # 5 (Shapiro and Lehman)

<< Subj:    Re: A little cadenza ; and KK; and his strictures on Oulipo
 Date:    1/12/03 11:17:42 AM Eastern Standard Time

The oldest poet:
Kenneth jumped in with racquet:
Sound of new poems!

Kenneth in Cambridge:
"Even five minutes of sleep
Makes me happier!"

The old dead poet
Would come to me in my dreams
Vado retro, Ken!

When he played ping pong
The massive poet lunged so
I wanted to lose!

He said: No poem
Can use the word genitals
Three times! Genitals!

But he wrote himself
A poem with genitals
Three times! Genitals!

He and Frank O sang:
We kill a young poet each
Year -- Staying on Top!

When I bought flowers
For the old dead poet "they"
Said, We won't charge you!

That local florist
Loved the old poet so much
The flowers were free!

The old dead poet
 Loved the rules of haiku, but
 Loved making new rules!

 But he said don't be
 Like lovers who fix the bed
 And forget to fuck!    DS, 1 / 12 / 03
  >>

Silver Venus

When a new planet
swam into his ken, our Ken
made us look at it.

You called it the moon.
I saw silver Venus. We
bid adieu to Mars.

Now alone again,
fatherless as before, let's
honor him and mourn.

Old poets and young
go unprotected in sun
hatless in wind, and

the snow as before,
flakes of white, hair of yellow,
hers, in yellow light. [DL, 1 / 12 / 03]

Haiku Exchange # 4 (Lehman and Shapiro)

    your mystifying silence is the answer to all haikus
Date:    1/11/03 1:33:45 PM Eastern Standard Time

Let's face it: it has
always been snowing, it has
never stopped snowing.

Do you ski? No, I
snow. I don't know why but I
do. Do you know why?

Why have I not heard
from you I wonder. It's strange
for you to miss a turn.               [DL, 1 / 11 / 03]

Re:  silence due to lack of access; also an elegy for Rudy B.,etc.
Date:    1/11/03 7:41:34 PM Eastern Standard Time

My son controls screens:
The computer, memory,
And other green scenes.

That's why I missed turns:
The turning fire that burns:
Those that father bairns.

The boy has grown up:
Knows the secrets of poems:
Grown girls he'll phone up--

Everything speaks:
Your lost voice, found computer,
The space between words.

Dead photographer:
He saw it all, spoke to it:
The space between clouds.

My son said: Are there
Words for everything, Dad?
For sky between clouds?

Poetry's secrets:
I taught you on walks to school:
Now I am your Fool--

Because of him I lose
A turn in haiku---because
Of him I see saws--!        [ DS, 1 / 11 / 03]

  Quick rejoinder
Date:    1/11/03 11:43:45 PM Eastern Standard Time

Because of love too
you lost count of syllables
on yon abacus

which happens to me
frequently though less frequent
now than dark blue snow.

What Kenneth poem
will you read at the tribute
at Columbia?

I'd opt for "Proverb"
or maybe "At Extremes" from
"A Possible World."

Brueghel painted it:
my window: hunters in snow,
skaters on green ice.       [DL, 1 / 11 / 03]

Haiku Exchange #3 [by David Lehman and David Shapiro]

Re: haikus from Sinatra
Date:    1/9/03 9:52:43 AM Eastern Standard Time

It's quarter to ten:
There's no one in the room
but rules of haiku!

New Year's a season:
squirrels contradicting whom --
And whose love is who?     -- DS, 1 / 9 / 03

Whose woods, whose leaves, whose
icicles hanging from trees?
Who deserves credit?

The yew tree gave us
years of green and private shade.
The snow storm felled it.   -- DL, 1 / 9 / 03

Re: Sinatra's in Season: Haiku snow falls

No more rhymes, just fact:
Pigeons above basketball
court -- past -- present tense --

Is the future fact?
Sinatra in outer space --
Glenn Gould's Goldberg cracked --  DS 1/ 10 / 03

... and you can get it

Sinatra’s always
in season: nice work
if you can get it.

So I wrote a piece
on him for “American
Heritage,” R Snow,

editor. The snow
needs no editing,
none shall get from me.

No sun’s as bright as
on a January day
with snow on the ground.  -- DL, 1 / 10 / 03

Haiku Exchange #2 [by David Lehman and David Shapiro]

Re: Henry James's candidate for most beautiful phrase

You talk talk. I wink,
Sip Chivas, and watch the Jets
Sunday afternoon.

“Sunday afternoon,”
a phrase surpassed only by
“summer afternoon.“  -- DL, 1 / 8 / 03

My candidate
for most beautiful phrase was:
Friday night quartets.

Not so bad to buzz:
Music is conversation:
Crow communicates.  -- DS, 1 / 8 / 03

Who rhymes with me, you?

Each to his fate. Jazz
is mine as jasmine is hers
when winter sets.

You may wonder who.
I do. The universal
hue of snow is blue.  -- DL, 1 / 8/ 03

Haiku Exchange # 1 [David Lehman and David Shapiro, 2003]

An exchange of e-mails on January 2, 2003, prompted David Shapiro to suggest to David Lehman that the two Davids "link haiku" for a year. They more modestly sustained their haiku exchange through the month of January 2003. In February of that year they traded couplets, and in March aphorisms. Here are the first several haiku exchanges:

Back at you
Date: 1/2/03 9:15:03 PM Eastern Standard Time

No one spoke, David
Lehman, David Shapiro,
Last year's (Dan's) tin snow.

– David Shapiro (1 / 2 / 03)

All said grace, and we
(Stacey, Lindsay, and the two
Davids) sipped our tea.

– David Lehman (1 /3 /03)

Re: Back at you : let's link haiku for a year
Date: 1/4/03 12:59:42 PM Eastern Standard Time

Then suddenly spoke:
Friends, flowers, poems
Written all day long!

– DS (1 / 4 / 03)

Let's link haiku for a year : OK I'm game

An exchange of gifts
Can also be a challenge
To match wits at song.

--DL (1 / 5 / 03)

Only one haiku
a day seems economic
More if inspired --

Season words were rules
But we might prefer ice-cream --
Pillow words are tools --

Oh and ah... OK!
like haikus in the grass oh
let the pigeons pass

Most important say
the great haiku thinkers are
zee contradictions!

As in: just the facts
then the ideas sail black snow
white cars: computers --

insight too: the light
seventeen syllables yet
the whole world on screen

– DS [1/ 6 / 03]

I prefer to write
just one a day though there are
days when two feel right.

In January
the snow is succinct and white
on pines of night.

– DL [1 / 6 / 03]

Re: PPS: Agreed: one two two a day at most (tankas permitted?)
Date: 1/6/03 3:06:37 PM Eastern Standard Time

I agree: some days
are more inspiring: snow
city sparrows, friends.

But mostly, compact
as cell phones, haikus need
a whole day to grow --

– DS [1 / 6 / 03]

Summer Afternoon For DCLehman [by David Shapiro]

Summer Afternoon
For DCLehman just feeling happy James’s words you love

Today was unbear-
ably beautiful like a
bear walking thru school!

Today was amaz-
ingly cool and calm like fish
rushing to the knife!

today the sun hit
the bricks as if a painter
added more yellow!

today supremely
lucid and blue like bluejays
imitating sky!

today was better
than many days but don't say
that just love today!

today today like
a kitsch garden on TV
or sudden color

at five forty in
the afternoon no one
was dead bullfighting

Today exactly
at 5:42 the myth
I live by shattered!

today close to 5
43 the pop of depth
and Rabbi Nachman

I heard the grass sing
Walt was not disappointing
the bear ate the kid

the palm leaf had moved
what is more a monument
smiled like pigeons

Scholem said Whitman
was his religion--did that
disappoint you now?

the rose in Scholem's
yard we plucked it was so big
it wagged its stem soul

I can't use that word
beautiful and not normal
making green ones red

Throw a diamond
on the rusty steel table
just three randomly

That was my today
yell yellow yellow yellow
stain of a blue day!

sing yellow yellow
yellow shall be my garden
Desdemona day

Kawabata saw
the beautiful in glasses
on Hawaiian glass

He loved the repeats
Oh dim moon oh dim dim dim
no he said Bright Moon!

Beautiful poem
As ugly as beautiful
as pornography

All is horrible
said my friend all wonderful
circumcized cirque size

Like an artifice
like an artificial lake
oh bright bright bright day!

seeing through difference
he called it but I might say
loving difference!

oh penumbra oh
and Van Gogh thinking he had
painted stars too large!

well maybe he had
when I take my glasses off
tear-shaped breasts appear

Futurists, beware
my eyes are stained with stars you
might find archaic!

as a sculptor said
nice to practice archaic
crafts! not that he did!

beautiful spacious
the end of sullen empire(s)
one day beats them all!

beautiful summer
on a bed all afternoon
don’t say beautiful

summer in autumn
beautiful as bugs to friends
sunlight on your hands 

-- David Shapiro