New Book of selected works by Alan Pizzarell

New book of selected works by Alan Pizzarelli,”The Canary Funeral”

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From the Author’s Note:

Back in 1920, the grandfather of one of my childhood friends held a huge funeral for his pet canary, “Jimmy.” The funeral was attended by more than ten thousand people and included a small white coffin, pallbearers, a hearse, and a 15-piece band playing a solemn dirge. The plaintive melody was accompanied by tears of laughter and merriment while moving through the streets of Little Italy in Newark, New Jersey.

In compiling this collection, I have selected haiku and senryu poems I wrote living in Newark’s first ward and other nearby towns. These poems are dedicated to the memory of the vanished Italian community of Little Italy and, of course, to “Jimmy” the canary.
 

POEMS

burying a dead bird
the small boy
hums the wedding march

 

done
the shoeshine boy
snaps his rag

 

with no money
i go
snow viewing

Label / Recorded by: Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics

Get on board for an exciting trip. Destination HAIGA. Podcast hosts, Donna Beaver, Alan Pizzarelli, and guest Anita Virgil have packed classical and contemporary haiku, senryu and tanka with striking visual accompaniments —many with a twist.

haiku and senryu
by Alan Pizzarelli
 

Amusement Park Book Cover (photo by Alan Pizzarelli)

the tattoo’d man
walks onto the crowded beach

a monarch flutters out to sea

drop of ocean
in my navel
reflects

the amusement park

under the boardwalk
sunlight brightens and fades

the setting sun
lights the top
of the high striker

spinning cotton candy
the girl with the teased-up hair

the taffy pullers
                  the taffy pullers
the taffy pullers

on the merry-go-round
that empty blue bench

      before the fireworks
             fireflies

above the arcade
a yellow moon flashes
through drifting clouds

skee ball
the kid with a fistful of tickets
wins a plastic bubble pipe

the fortune teller
snaps the curtain shut

the ferris wheel turning
into the fog

              copyright ©2010 Alan Pizzarelli

Music by Alan Pizzarelli
Lyrics by Herschel Silverman

urban haiku, senryu, and sequences
by Alan Pizzarelli

from City Beat
(City Beat book cover by Cor van den Huevel)

in the rear-view mirror
tombstones

crossing the bridge
car wheels humm
over a metal grating

Vup!
a distant tugboat

Manhattan skyscrapers
the sun sets red
in all the windows

dik-duk dit-duk
a loose manhole cover

a hubcap
rolls down the midnight street
into its distant sound

   —

a bright awning is cranked
over the corner fruitstand

in front of the go-go bar
  a broken umbrella
    shakes with the wind

in the tv store
on all the screens
cloned sheep

the windowpane reflects
a tv cartoon
snow falling

slicing a ripe pomegranate
watching the horror movie

in the shade
of the animal hospital
white azaleas wilting

blistering heat
  the snow cone vendor
      pushes his cart uphill

on the curbstone
a dog licks the boy’s
scabby knees

summer moon
everyone sitting
out on the stoops

in the stream
  a shopping cart
      fills with leaves

a few snowflakes
fall on the candy store window
the lights go out

darkness moves
over the rooftops
snow light

blue shadows loom
the snow corniced street

snow falls from trees
         rumble
of passing boxcars

twilight
staples rust
in the telephone pole

City Beat (Islet Books, 1991), first place winner of the 1992 Merit Book Award, Haiku Society of America.

         copyright ©2010 Alan Pizzarelli