Poem-a-Day 3: Haiku Golden Shovels

A three-line headline calls for a haiku golden shovel. Here are two.

What is history
But loss and beauty hammered
Into a burnt home.

Here's your history
Bound by tinsel and hammered
By tears into home.

September Golden Shovel #4

I read about rural women in Afghanistan, how

They feared the Taliban, relied on the Taliban, feared the

Taliban again. They did not understand the myth

Of urban women wanting education. Women of

The countryside wanted food, peace. What did digital

Pictures mean to them? Did they have cellphones on a platform

Of mountains blocking signals, but not bombs, drones. Magic

Could explain the craziness of liberators hiring enemies. It goes

Without saying that normal life, in these times, goes poof.

 

source: How the Myth of Digital Platform Magic Goes Poof

May Golden Shovel #14

 source: A Vision That’s Epic and Brutal

 

The plot to save democracy unravels a

Skein of weeds and lies. It promotes a vision

Of sourdough, of braised love, of salted action that’s

Protecting its defenders. It could be the most epic

Picnic, feeding all, or it could drive off and

Abandon democracy, defenseless against those brutal.

 

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I’m continuing to use Terrance Hayes’s Golden Shovel poem format, as proposed by the Sunday New York Times "At Home" section, for 30 Poems in 30 Days during National Poetry Month.

 

Take a newspaper headline that attracts you.

Use each word in the line as the end word for each line in your poem.

Keep the end words in order.

Describe the story that the headline is for.

The poem does not have to be about the same subject as the headline that creates the end words.