|
The phone goes "Ring!...Ring!..."
"Answer the phone!" someone yells.
"Ring! Ring!" I answer.
No one's home, but I
make the phone ring in your room.
Hello, things, listening.
Someone wants to say
so much, but can only go
"Ring! Ring!" on that phone.
Walking past a house, I pause...
telephone rings...rings...rings...rings...rings
and rings.
To understand the four haiku above, it helps if
you know that they were written before most people had
answering machines. These days one always gets to talk,
if only to a machine, and the phone rarely rings more
than a few times before being answered -- if only by
a machine.
After three days in the house,
waiting for a call...
what a big big sky!
As I pass
that driver's cellphone becomes...
half an apple!
Turning on the TV
to make something happen where
nothing is happening.
We'd look odd,
sitting here staring, if someone
removed the TV.
I switch it off,
we go to bed, missing
many good shows.
Preferring privacy,
we watch the show with only
3,000,000 viewers.
In my hand, a remote.
10 feet away, as remote
as my mind, a screen.
Waiting for the next
commercial to ask
what I missed.
Commercial break --
washing some dishes,
noticing them.
Full moon; the whole
family gathers to view
the TV screen.
This is senryu, really, referring to the Japanese
tradition of going out to view the full moon. Could
an American family be dragged from the TV for this?
|
