#poem, «Looking Out My Backdoor» (An Euro-Ku)

Close enough to touch yet frightful, the shapes and forms of nature blend with time and time has allowed man his domination,

his creations stand, though sometimes withered, aged and rotten, yet still there,

the thoughts, not they, they are absorbed, defeated, and thrown into the boiling pot where no one cares…

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As a poet/artist, I have always engaged, wholeheartedly, in the search and I must say that what I find both amuses me and amazes me as well. In searching through Haikus…Japanese poetry…that I greatly admire, I realised that as a Western man I could not formulate a Haiku and give it the spirit that it recognises and desires. It is impossible. One must be true to one’s experiences, history and geography and because of that, and my love for expression…in its simplest forms…I developed the Euro-Ku (and the Ameri-Ku) on 02/02/2022 here in Europe, as I hail from Spain.

The idea remains the same, to express a thought, but not with the same intention of the Japanese original Haiku. The Euro-Ku must reflect our way of thinking and most importantly, our way of expressing thoughts, emotions, feelings et al. The three verses have no syllabic count restrictions, but they must flow into each other easily and smoothly. Rhyming is optional. The main difference is that the poem must be accompanied by an original, unedited illustration created by the writer. Spirituality in art can only be achieved by being faithful to the current time in which the writer lives. No one can write with the mind, the experience or the history of someone else, but we all can and should respect what is not ours…

C.2023, Francisco Bravo Cabrera, 16 AUG 2023, Valencia, Spain