Monday, July 17, 2017

Carpe Diem #1221 Cockroach (Gokiburi)


Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of Carpe Diem's Summertime month full of kigo (seasonword) for summer. The kigo I use this month are classical and non-classical and the non-classical are extracted from Jane Reichhold's "A Dictionary of Haiku". The classical ones are extracted from the Shiki Salon Saijiki.

Today's prompt is a little bit strange, but this insect belongs to summer ... today's classical summer kigo is Cockroach (Gokiburi). I remember a holiday my wife and I had several years ago on the Canary Islands ... cockroaches crawling through the cabin we had hired. Cockroaches ... are there haiku written about these creatures?

While searching for haiku about cockroaches I ran into a "cockroach-haiku" written by a girl of 5 years, she created it for a school project about haiku:

Cockroaches crawling,
Looking for pieces of food,
People screaming loud
.

© Viriginia P. (5 years old; Bucklands Beach Primary School)

Cockroach (Gokiburi)
Here is another haiku about cockroaches, this one is created by Dennis Siluk:

The night is so long and hot,
Here the cockroach rests
By my bedroom door!...


© Dennis Siluk

And here is one written by R.K.Singh:

Sipping coffee
at a wayside stall
cockroaches too

© R.K.Singh

I searched for other haiku, but the all the haiku about cockroaches I ran into were written by modern poets. I couldn't find any haiku about cockroaches, but ... maybe you can find some!

shadow on the wall
moves closer and closer

a cockroach

early morning
with bare feet crushing a cockroach
hot summer day


© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... this episode wasn't easy to create, not so much through lack of words, but mostly through the low examples for cockroach haiku.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until July 22nd at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, beach, later on. I hope to be on time, because I am on the nightshift.


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