Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Life's Challenges

                                                                                     Attribution: Michael Kooiman
Image: Royalty Check from a Music Publisher
Source: Wikimedia Commons (here)

On the white sand
Of the beach of a small isle
In the Eastern Sea
I, my face streaked with tears,
Am playing with a crab             -   Ishikawa

Lost in thoughts I see
ships full of hope and goodness
there for my picking
Sadly the waters beyond
made it just impossible

Reflecting sadly
Of fortunes that wriggled  through
my hands all these years
What have I done wrong to be
deserving of miseries

Chev at CARPE DIEM's Tanka Shrine#2 provides a sad tanka of
Ishikawa to be matched with an equally sad response of our own
To be shared with d'Verse's OpenLinkNight week#123

22 comments:

  1. I particularly love the second one. Can't do any better than that to capture the tone and sentiment of the example.

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  2. ah bad things happen to good people you know...i dont know that they deserve it any more than the other...its how they deal with it often...

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  3. I don't think anyone deserves misery it just happens sometimes..the important thing is to still look for those ships full of hope

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  4. The crap keeps piling up, know that all too well

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  5. Seems trouble comes in waves but then it passes and the good times flood in...

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  6. I like the stillness and simultaneous unsettledness of these last two. Moving.

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  7. Awesome set of tanka Hank ... I sense the same strong emotion as in the tanka by Takuboku.

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  8. Aw. Yours is very sad. The picture sets the tone. Well done Hank.

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  9. Hank the tide rolls in on the sorrow
    well done

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  10. Both are good but the second one resonated with me more-lovely!

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  11. Nothing wrong. Life is a lottery. Very few tickets win a prize.

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  12. Just remember, in your heart of hearts, After every rain, the sun comes out to play!

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  13. such sorrow… beautifully crafted.

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  14. Sadness finely crafted. Well done.

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  15. Sometimes life doesn't seem fair when one thinks about all the opportunities one had and lost....thought provoking fare, Hank.

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  16. The second one struck me more but I like the concept of just out of reach in the first

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  17. oh the sadness is palpable in this... life is often not very fair it seems..

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  18. Your tanka captured the spirit of the inspiration. :-)

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  19. So sad Hank.. money lost through fingers like sand.

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  20. i think you captured the poem's essence well, Hank. it starts out as hopeful but you take us on the sad twist and emotional upheaval. that is how i read the poem - very nice, Tanka.

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