Herb Engelhardt invents the haiku

Greasy Spoon

I watched the owner
pocket a two-dollar tip
left for a waitress.

And I felt sorry
for the guy, knew he would die
hated by his kids.

-- Herbert Engelhardt (1925-2021)

Herbert Engelhardt was born in New Jersey in 1925. He served in the Pacific Theater of World War II from 1943 to 1946 and was awarded the Purple Heart in the Battle of Okinawa in April 1945. He received his BA and MBA from Harvard in 1949 and 1951, respectively. In his late seventies, he began to write poems. He lived in New York City until his death in 2021.

Comments

[Terence Winch]

Perfect little poem.

[lally]

what terence said

[Glen Hartley]

I was there. The owner gave it to the waitress later. So much for this bad "poem."

[Ken Lauter]

David,

Thanks for a terrific haiku duo. Herbert uses the form to nice (Western)ends.

2 questions:

1)Was Herbert related to Tom Engelhardt (of TomDispatch fame)?

2)What's the meaning of the title in Herbert's poem "Flesh 78" in your previous post about him?

BTW,congrats on your new poetry collection. I'll get to it eventually, assuming I live reasonably far into my 80s, which start in a couple of weeks.

May 2023 bring us all a few blessings. (Trump in handcuffs would be a good start, no?)

Ken Lauter

[Glen Hartley]

In fact, what did I see? I saw the owner give the dollars to the waitress and saw his children run out and embrace his legs, whereupon he carried them around on his feet while they laughed with glee. He was a kind father, and his children loved him. I witnessed this at Tioga and Farm Street intersection in Ithaca, New York, at a restaurant whose name I no longer remember. But the diner made a great "BoBurger", which was a hamburger and egg sandwich.

[Glen Hartley]

His hate-filled class-condescending poem is bad. That sums it up, but one might add that such "poetry" reveals the badness of all contemporary poetry in general, where picayune observations lead to grave insults to humanity, which undermines all human sympathy.