EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY

EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY 

by Victor P. Gendrano

      Jasmine dances the waltz with such grace that it aches my heart to watch her in a stranger's arms, she who is my favorite, my first-born granddaughter, bubbly in her recent 18th birthday debut. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was cuddling her to sleep...Tempus fugit! 

growing pains

she dances with strangers

my daughter's daughter

And now, Jasmine is bound for college. She told her grandma that she will also be an elementary schoolteacher like her. Knowing her ability, I know she will turn out to be a good one and her students will have been lucky to have her. 

end of summer

the cocoon rides the wind

her empty room

Published in World Haiku Review

Vol. II, Issue 1, March 2002

POSTSCRIPT:

True to her promise to her grandma that she will be also a schoolteacher, Jasmine has been a successful one for sometime now teaching in a  public elementary school. To top her late grandma's achievements, she is currently finishing her Master's degree in Education. Grandma Lucy and I are indeed very proud of you Jas!

REMEMBERING 9/11

REMEMBERING 9/11

A haiku sequence

simple math

six hijackers

to six thousand dead

innocence crumbles

among New York rubble

September rain

patriotic fervor

the geraniums

remain in bloom

blood-stained sun

sinks in the rubble

twilight of hopes

the Vietnam vet buys

red, white and blue tulips

memorial garden

In my book, Rustle of bamboo leaves

but first published in

World Haiku Review

Vol. 1, Issue 3, November 2001

Moving Day

MOVING DAY, a haibun

by Victor P. Gendrano

World Haiku Review, August 2013

watching me watch

the remnants of my past life

my daughter whispers

it's alright Dad to be sad

on your moving out

On my daughter Juliet's insistent demand that it's time for me to enjoy my retirement, I moved to a senior community place euphemistically called Leisure World. On the early morning of that first day, I thought I smelt the aroma of a freshly brewed coffee, so half-awake, I hurriedly walked to the kitchen dreamingly half-expecting a homey breakfast with my late wife.

Unfortunately, I accidentally bumped my head on the bedroom's slightly open door and felt blood oozing from my forehead to my eyes. I sidestepped to the bathroom, snatched a bunch of toilet paper and pressed them tightly over the wound. With my right hand on my forehead, I used my left hand to dial for help.

A paramedic examined the wound and, obviously to lessen the gravity of the situation and put me at ease, he proclaimed with impish grin and studied flair that it was only a cut and no stitches are needed. He then cleaned, dressed and bandaged my head wound, while softly humming a tune.

Blurting repeated thanks while escorting him to the door, I glimpsed a shaft of early morning light gradually piercing and bathing my sleepy neighborhood.

no time nor place

could weaken the memory

of my first love

Runaway Son

a torn kite flails 

in the telephone line 

their runaway son 

Published in 

World Haiku Review, April 2014

Lotus Festival

Lotus Festival

  

Not many summers ago, the annual observance of the Lotus Festival in Echo Park, Los Angeles, California was a mild disappointment, to say the least. The reason? No lotus flowers in the lake for unknown reasons. 

Considering that the reliability of their profuse blooming every summer is as certain as the traffic gridlock in the vicinity, visitors from within and outside the area were vocally disgruntled. Locals were at a loss on how to explain to their out-of-town friends the absence of the floral attractions.

                no lotus flowers
                in the murky water
                global warming here?

Published in World Haiku Review, August 2014

Spring cleaning

spring cleaning

the first doll she gave

her newly-wed daughter

World Haiku Review
August 2012

Full moon

full moon
my empty arms yearn
for her return

Published in World Haiku Review, August 2013

MOVING OUT, revised

MOVING DAY, a haibun

Publsihed in World Haiku Review, August 2913

watching her watch

the remnants of my past life

my daughter whispers 

it's alright Dad to be sad

on your moving out

On my daughter's insistent demand that it's time for me to enjoy my retirement, I moved to a senior community place euphemistically called Leisure World. On the early morning of that first day, I thought I smelt the aroma of a freshly brewed coffee, so half-awake, I hurriedly walked to the kitchen dreamingly half-expecting a homey breakfast with my late wife.

Unfortunately, I accidentally bumped my head on the bedroom's slightly open door and felt blood oozing from my forehead to my eyes. I sidestepped to the bathroom, snatched a bunch of toilet paper and pressed them tightly over the wound. With my right hand on my forehead, I used my left hand to dial for help.

A paramedic examined the wound and, obviously to lessen the gravity of the situation and put me at ease, he proclaimed with impish grin and studied flair that it was only a cut and no stitches are needed. He then cleaned, dressed and bandaged my head wound, while softly humming a tune.

Blurting repeated thanks while escorting him to the door, I glimpsed a shaft of early morning light gradually piercing and bathing my sleepy neighborhood.

no time nor place

could weaken the memory

of my first love

Haiku Introduction

HAIKU INTRODUCTION, an excerpt from my book, Haiku and Tanka Harvest, 

by Susumu Takiguchi, Chairman, World Haiku Club and Editor, World Haiku Review

https://www.createspace.com/3737478

In addition to social ills and human violence there is another theme which inspires Victor’s poetic sensibility – death. The most painful and saddest of all is the death of his own beloved wife which occurred in 2003. Sad as it is, Victor has been brave and strong enough to sublimate his sorrow and pain into creating deep and serious poems (haiku, tanka etc.) about death itself. They are far from being sentimental or morbid. Most others run away from this taboo of all taboos. 

                 widower's garden                

                 her roses bloom                

                 side by side with weeds      

                 I shadow

                 my shadow

                 to her grave

The life Victor has built in his adopted country for his family he raised with his late wife there and for himself is full, free and peaceful. Beyond his share of vicissitudes Victor seems to have earned tranquillity and serenity. It is a remarkable achievement...

              

                 unhurried walk

                 the smell of clean earth

                 after the rain

Victor is probably more of a settler than a traveller. His job as a librarian must have given him intellectual detachment and the power of keen observation. His humility and honesty have opened a shortest route to truths. They also seem to have made him able to accept “the unknowable” and “the undoable” calmly. All this, without being armed with Zen, Oriental mysticism, or cumbersome Western haiku theory and rules.

                 year end

                 thinking of what ifs

                 and what might have beens

Luckily for him, Victor is a natural for haiku. However, that is only half the story. The other half tells us that he makes tremendous efforts to be better, listens attentively, observes like a scientist and opens his heart to what is there for everybody to see. 

In answer to my question he says, “Haiku enable me to see the world as it is, warts and all, and embrace any and all happenings both in nature itself and human nature, with me remaining non-judgmental yet involved. It requires discipline yet makes me aware of macro and micro happenings around me.” And whatever happens around him, Victor’s heart remains with his late wife.

                 dining alone 

                 the piped-in music plays

                 our love song

My new work from the latest issue of 

World Haiku Review, March 2003

GUN VIOLENCE, a haiku sequence

seeming epidemic

random deadly shootings

in the land of the free

color them red

innocent victims

of gun violence

staring puzzled

at a deep black abyss

kins of murder victims

gun control debate

who's to blame: the gun

or the trigger man

new widower

a brisk wind blasts open

his empty mailbox

World Haiku Review

December 2012

winter chill

the expatriate yearns

for sunny home  

World Haiku Review

December 2012

autumn dusk

grandpa gazes at the bird

flying alone

In my book, 

Haiku and Tanka Harvest © 2012

but first published in

World Haiku Review

Vol. 5, Issue 2, January 2007

From the latest issue of World Haiku Review, August 2012, here's my Moving out haiku sequence.

MOVING OUT 
(A haiku sequence)

by Victor P. Gendrano, USA

                    twilight advent 
                eyeing the remnants
                of my past life

                my daughter says 
                it's alright to feel sad
                moving out

                moving in alone 
                in my new retirement house
                chilly Santa Ana wind

                half awake 
                I thought I smell
                her fresh brewed coffee

                unfamiliar room 
                I bumped my head
                on the bedroom's door

                only a cut 
                the paramedic says
                no stitches needed

                from the window 
                a distant shaft
                of the dawn's light 

widower's garden
her roses bloom
side by side with weeds

World Haiku Review, August 2011
Honorably Mention, Neo-Classical Haiku

sidewalk frenzy

the homeless boys fight

for a tossed quarter

World Haiku Review

 Vol. 8, Issue 1, Jan. 2010

rain forecast
even the crickets
refuse to sing

World Haiku Review,

 April 2012

widower"s garden
her roses bloom
side by side with weeds

In my 2nd book, Haiku and Tanka Harvest
but first published in World Haiku Review
August 2011

rain forecast
even the crickets
refuse to sing

World Haiku Review
April 2012

Three eleven

ghosts of three eleven 

beneath sakura blooms

flooded paper cranes

World Haiku Review
April 2012