But NO, that last haiku was not the 'haiku of the week'.
No, this Saturday marks the eve of the New Year in the Asian lunar calendar - a huge festival in most places east of India. For a couple of weeks at least, during the main phase of the celebrations, there will be almost continuous explosions of firecrackers - gunpowder smoke shrouds the towns and cities, as on a Napoleonic battlefield. I am not particularly sorry to be missing all that this year.
In the last year or two, a number of other types of firework have been making an appearance too. I have a perverse fondness for the "bunker-buster" - which is no more than a bucket of gunpowder designed to create an enormous percussion wave: it offers no visual pyrotechnics at all, only a dull whuuummp (felt in the pit of the stomach rather than heard) that will set off car alarms for a couple of hundred yards in all directions.
Also, there are rockets. Not terribly good rockets, for the most part. Alarmingly inconsistent. Even the best of them don't get much higher than 100ft off the ground. Some of them limp only a few yards into the sky, before bursting just over your head. On the Lunar New Year's Eve last year, shortly before midnight (as I was on my way to my favourite neighbourhood watering-hole, the 'Haiku Bar') one of these rogue rockets fizzed out of a doorway in an alley to my right and exploded only a yard or two away, directly in front of me, at head height. I was momentarily blinded by the flash, and could have sworn that I smelt my eyebrows singeing....
I commemorated this brush-with-maiming with the following haiku:
Starburst in my face:
Percussive celebration,
Etching braindazzle.
2 comments:
aye, ye speak the truth. they are blasting away as I type.
You'd think I lived in a war zone or something.
I like fireworks. In fact, I have a strong attachment to July 4th, the independence day bbq, and the nighttime fireworks show, with the anthem in the background. I insist on arriving in time to grab a great picnic spot with the perfect view (good spots and good views won't do). And I've been known to be in a very bad mood when I have to miss it.
But, this last year, I was a bit stressed around July 4th weekend (another story for another day) and wanted nothing more than a quiet getaway. the Parents would be traveling, so their ranch home was empty for the weekend and I decided to drive up to enjoy some quality quiet time - sourrounded by trees, fields, chirping bird and the occasional Church. I imagined spending my days on the deck overlooking the pond, good book in hand.
Little did I know that the Church across the street had started putting on a fireworks show and festival! As had the one East of us! Between the two festivals, I spent my four days with pillows to my ears, trying to block out the blasts - the house shook! And this is no lean-to building - the Parents' place is large and stone and indestructible - except, apparently, when fireworks are being set off in all directions.
And now, just 8 months later, I sit in the Parents' other place, in ****, fireworks exploding in every direction, worried about stepping foot outside, lest a starburst should explode in my face.
This may effect my lifelong passion for fireworks displays.
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