< atom bomb >

[rayheinrich]

atom bomb
sunflower
goes unseen


two summer kigo: sunflower, atom bomb (August in Hiroshima)

[cidermaid]

Hi ray,
Like the simplicity of this one and the hidden depths that i found. I think this format should make you pause and re-read or ponder. So job well done.

[rayheinrich]

Hi ray,
Like the simplicity of this one and the hidden depths that i found. I think this format should make you pause and re-read or ponder. So job well done.

Thanks... Weird things these poems. They're tiny arrows that point somewhere,
and it's up to the reader to go there (assuming they want dancing instructions).

To much information: I was looking on the web for a more complete
list of Japanese summer season words (for no particular reason at all)
when I ended up at a history site on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
The first page that came up had pictures and the date: August 6, 1945.
OH! The great god of the internet had found me my Japanese summer
season word.

The great god of the internet works quickly and ironically.

[ChristopherSea]

What a contrast of images!

[NobodyNothing]

Strange effect.

atom bomb (my eyes dilate)
sunflower (my eyes dilate)
goes unseen (but, but, but...)

I have to learn about this haiku. Google time.

Umm...thanks!

[rayheinrich]

Strange effect.

atom bomb (my eyes dilate)
sunflower (my eyes dilate)
goes unseen (but, but, but...)

I have to learn about this haiku. Google time.
Umm...thanks!

Disclaimer:
A poem doesn't mean what it's writer thinks it means;
it means what its readers think it means. I'm one of
those readers and I intended that my car would miss you.

So... on re-reading the damn thing:

1. Dead people can't see flowers.

2. Live people can't see vaporized flowers.

3. 'Sunflower' is metaphor for 'atom bomb'
(the intensity of the sun, flowering out over the earth).

4. 'Atom bomb' is a metaphor for sunflower.
(primal forces of nature, etc.)

5. 'Unseen' as 'eyes averted'
The magnitude of the suffering of those in
Hiroshima was unseen by those elsewhere,
especially those that dropped the atom bomb
(by governmental and personal rationalization
and denial).

6. The traumatic intensity of the atom bomb
blinds us (victim, victimizer, both) to
nature, to our part in nature, to our natures.

7. The heat radiation from an atom bomb moves at
close to the speed of light; much, much faster
than the speed of our retinas to form an image.
The people close enough (but not close enough to
be vaporized) and looking in the general direction
of the bomb burst were blinded so quickly (retinas
burned) that their last image was the sky of a
summer's morning.

[NobodyNothing]

Strange effect.

atom bomb (my eyes dilate)
sunflower (my eyes dilate)
goes unseen (but, but, but...)

I have to learn about this haiku. Google time.
Umm...thanks!

Disclaimer:
A poem doesn't mean what it's writer thinks it means;
it means what its readers think it means. I'm one of
those readers and I intended that my car would miss you.

So... on re-reading the damn thing:

1. Dead people can't see flowers.

2. Live people can't see vaporized flowers.

3. 'Sunflower' is metaphor for 'atom bomb'
(the intensity of the sun flowers on earth).

4. 'Atom bomb' is a metaphor for sunflower.
(primal forces of nature, etc.)

5. 'Unseen' as 'eyes averted'
The magnitude of the suffering of those in
Hiroshima was unseen by those elsewhere,
especially those that dropped the atom bomb
(by governmental and personal rationalization
and denial).

6. The traumatic intensity of the atom bomb
blinds us (victim, victimizer, both) to
nature, to our part in nature, to our natures.

7. The heat radiation from an atom bomb moves at
close to the speed of light; much, much faster
than the speed of our retinas to form an image.
The people close enough (but not close enough to
be vaporized) and looking in the general direction
of the bomb burst were blinded so quickly (retinas
burned) that their last image was the sky of a
summer's morning.

Got it. Totally get that. Great synop. Appreciate. Just my very first raw impression reading it (you can't help yourself that way)...then the but, but, but...back into it again (like all good shit).

Cool. Dig. Thanks.

[billy]

atom bomb
sunflower
goes unseen


two summer kigo: sunflower, atom bomb (August in Hiroshima)

i like it, for me sunflower has two meanings here. one of them isn't a metaphor.

[rayheinrich]

atom bomb
sunflower
goes unseen


two summer kigo: sunflower, atom bomb (August in Hiroshima)

i like it, for me sunflower has two meanings here. one of them isn't a metaphor.

Yep, me too.