hosts: Sanjuktaa Asopa & Vandana Parashar
blood moon calling pork pig beef cow
----P.H. Fischer
(Failed Haiku, Volume 7, Issue 78)
hosts: Sanjuktaa Asopa & Vandana Parashar
blood moon calling pork pig beef cow
----P.H. Fischer
(Failed Haiku, Volume 7, Issue 78)
We humans do have a tendency to use fanciful words to cover-up our crimes. It's a conscious denial of our guilt. Just another form of lying. If we don't want our hands dirty, we shouldn't play in the mud to begin with..
I am always surprised by the power that words can have, even though stirring words are no starnger to me.
Before I read Peter's comment on the meaning of this monoku, I had no idea of it's depth. But when I read it again with a new understanding, I could feel it's echo....
Amazing poem!
My heartfelt thanks to Vandana and Sanjuktaa for selecting my poem. Thanks also for the comments here.
I was asked to provide a bit of backstory on the inspiration for writing this poem.
This monoku is the concluding poem of a haibun that appears in the latest issue of Failed Haiku. It is probably the most "political" poem I've written (although as Thomas Mann once said, "everything is political"). I wrote it and the accompanying haibun, as I recall, after reflecting on society's silent agreements and how we tend to hide behind euphemistic language for our dirty deeds. During times of war, for example, we say "collateral damage" instead of "slain women and children innocently going about their day." We…
...an then we wrap it in plastic; grimly powerful monoku.
stunned into silence…
the deathly thud
of a cow
blood moon calling pork pig beef cow We have never told our children that we are serving 'pig' or 'cow' to them - they might feel it disgusting. Human beings, give fancy names to all animal products & this poem is all about that. I think 'blood moon' is just right. Am I anywhere close to your intent, Fischer?
Strong poem.