Five tanka on five words

[larryhammer]

As you may have noticed, I dislike memes that are all about me!me!. I want to hear people, not talk about myself -- I do far too much of that anyway. But with this one, at least I get something out of it: Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ/blog and explain what they mean to you.

These words were given to me by rachelmanija. They ended up being more interconnected (inter-tanka-nected?) than I suspect she knew.


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.

It need not be a yell, or a howl -- a simple request will do.

---L.

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is fantastic.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I love how you worked it all together into poetry.

[stevendj.livejournal.com]

Hamlet, Act II, Scene II, line 193.

[larryhammer]

One word is sufficient, my lord, for my shortening five:

Washington

Budapest

deadpan

beard

wit

---L.

[galeni.livejournal.com]

Excellent poetical. Words?

[larryhammer]

tough

twin

parenting

blonde

determination

[taigerchily.livejournal.com]

words =)

Heir

[larryhammer]

Schweizerdeutsch (using any spelling you prefer)

Cassandra

saga

Dutch (language, nationality, or ethnicity, as you prefer to read it)

LEGOs

---L.

[larryhammer]

(As I practice my German: I read that as "The dative is the death of the genitive," but I'm having trouble figuring out the grammatical role of "sein". Eh?)

---L.

[taigerchily.livejournal.com]

your translation is correct. "sein" = "his" - his death.

this sentence in correct german would be "der dativ ist des genitivs tod" (so the noun "genitiv" should be genitiv). but in daily language, most of the people use dative in stead of genitive, with this sentence that means (not correct, but slang) "der dativ ist dem genitiv sein tod" - using dative instead of genitive -what of course shows exactly the meaning of the sentence with the wrongly used grammar.

(not sure if this explanation is understandable ;-) )

[larryhammer]

Quite understandable. There's a similar construction in archaic English, sometimes seen in Shakespeare though it was already on the way out by then, so that one would write "John his bottle" instead of the modern "John's bottle". I hadn't met the slang German form, though.

*memorizes template form*

---L.