Illness and Haiku

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Illness, Hospital Bed Time

***** Location: Worldwide
***** Season: Non-seasonal Topic
***** Category: Humanity

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Explanation


***** Common cold and flu (kaze)
influenza, swine flu, coughing, sneezing,
God of the Cold
Illness and disease in all seasons


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I found a page by Abigail Friedman to start this entry.





“One would think that lying in the hospital bed with all your wants attended too, the muse would pour ideas into one’s head for sonnets, villanelles, and reams of free spirited verse. Not so. I wasted half a tablet of paper before giving up and I felt very grumpy about it.”


HAIKU REFLECTIONS FROM A HOSPITAL BED
from a ninety-year-old man

The nurse, an angel
in robe of white, brings a pill
filled with summer days

the leg stripped of veins
mourns loss of mobility
bounce of July grass

faces filled with love
shine down like April showers
nourish aching heart


©　Illness Haiku
Abigail Friedman


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During his illness, Shiki sometimes contrasted his physical decline with the buoyancy of nature. This haiku refers to that, as well as to aging and the marking of time, which Shiki must have indulged in towards the end of his life.


last gales of the millennium
thin trousers whip
my skinny legs

Robert Scott


persistent cough
the whippoorwill
can't sleep either

Cindy Tebo

Shiki's writing was influenced by his illness. Sometimes our pain keeps us awake. And all we can do is listen

WHC Shiki Haiku Poems Contest
　©　www.worldhaikureview.org


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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way


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HAIKU


Thanksgiving week Illness Haiku

working in retail
swollen sore throat and fever
doesn’t look good

©　Brandon


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Hoffman includes a number of haiku written by Japanese masters when they were ill and dying. Western equivalents were not hard to find.

the last ember dies
a chill takes the house
by moonlight

Marianne Bluger
(died 2005, age 60)

Read MORE
Western Death Haiku
　©　Simply Haiku, Winter 2007


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Related words

***** Arc clam (akagai) "red clam", arc clam
Edo wazurai "the Illness of Edo"


***** Common cold and flu (kaze)
influenza, swine flu, coughing, sneezing,
God of the Cold


***** Death Haiku, Last Haiku


***** Medical Kigo, seasonal affections and disorders 　
SAD, the FLU
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
...Medicine Day (kusuri no hi) ...
Medicine-related kigo. Chinese Medicine (kanpo, kampo).


***** Pain and physical suffering


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