Five Tanka on Five Words

[lnhammer]

Iceland

    In the furthest north
sustainability's edge:
    Vikings held on
with their only luxuries
landscape and the spoken word.

Sagas

    Grandparents talk of
love, law, loss, blood, and revenge
    in the winter night;
a storyteller listens
and runs howling to his art.

Poetry

    Against truth's harsh light
we shade ourselves with small lies,
    softening shadows;
a writer listens to his lies
and runs howling to his craft.

Terrible science fiction

    The future isn't --
we fill up that empty time
    with comforting hopes;
a liar takes them for truth
and runs howling to his crap.

Tall

    Tall tales are needed:
they show the limits of truth.
    Tall coffees as well:
sometimes, they are just enough.
Tall people are excessive.

—13 July 2009

Done for the Five Words meme that's going around, these words supplied by rachelmanija. With apologies to Auden for ... certain phrases, but they were needed.

---L.

Comments

[ex_asakiyume313]

I like the chain of "Sagas," "Poetry" and "Terrible science fiction." Of course by the end you're making us laugh, but those first two stand as serious statements, too, I thinking.

I like the idea of landscape and the spoken word being a people's only luxuries.

tall tales, tall coffees, tall people--a tall order.

[lnhammer]

All three, really. I prefer to wrap my most serious statements in laughter.

---L.