World So Wide

The Artemis Haiku

2026-04-04T09:21:00.000-07:00

Moon oh moon, old grouch:
if you say you’re surrounded,
we’ll say we’re circled

Note
Artemis is preparing to circle the moon as this was written, while the moon was circling us as usual.

The cleaning lady vs. books haiku

2026-03-17T04:08:00.000-07:00

Now that she’s dusted
them, they have been rearranged
in order of height.

Notes
Once again, the more or less poetic truth and nothing but. Even though not the whole story has been told – as can be seen in the photo, some of them are also upside down. Fortunately, she did not have a height problem with the CDs, some of which are also present in the same piece of furniture. I dread to check what she’s done to the original sequence, though.

Aftertought
Sinclair Lewis is present three times in the picture, but World So Wide, his posthumous 1951 novel, after which this blog is named, is not among them.

The things we come to know haiku

2026-03-03T07:09:00.000-08:00

Now that we are shar-
ing an apartment, I know
how much she does snore.

Note
I got creative in three short lines due to something I overheard at the next table in a restaurant.

Minimal list of things experienced today

2026-01-18T09:24:00.000-08:00

Some cracknut insists
he wants Greenland. Beer bottles
and dog scats galore.

Notes
This is, of course, a much reduced list of today’s experiences – things heard or seen at home or on walks. Had to keep things short to cram it all into a haiku.

It's never too late to learn some French

2026-01-09T10:46:00.000-08:00

Last night, as I watched the 1st episode of Emily in Paris, which had been recommended by a friend, she was called a "plouc" by her lovely French colleagues. I had not come across that word before and looked it up - it means "hick". Wow! These French people really appreciate their American co-worker!

Sometimes it's even possible to learn something from a TV series.

Chris Rea - The Road To Hell Part 1 & 2 (1989) HD

2025-12-23T03:43:00.000-08:00

Remembering Chris Rea, who passed away on December 22, 2025

Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again

2025-11-20T09:22:00.000-08:00

My recent visit to the small Italian town of Lodi in Lombardy, about 30 km south of Milan, reminded me of the eponymous song by Creedence Clearwater Revival from 1969, which, however, makes reference to the city of the same name in California. John Fogerty, who wrote the song, obviously didn't like it very much (more about this can be found here).

Contrary to this, I enjoyed the Italian Lodi a lot, discovered lots of interesting places while walking through it within the limited time I had, and definitely would not mind getting stuck there again in the future.

Not really into that Halloween thing

2025-10-31T10:15:00.000-07:00

Just like the ageing poet shown in this picture, I pretty much close my eyes to the batshit pumpkin craziness of Halloween.

Entrance, thoroughly glitched

2025-10-30T09:29:00.000-07:00

A photograph with glitch artefacts of a house entrance with green plants to the left of it. Created on a Xiaomi Redmi 14 5G with GlitchCam.

Available on rarible as an NFT.

2025-10-28T07:55:00.000-07:00

Wisdom needs curiosity (Owl and Cat) No. 1

Available as a collectibe at rarible.

A slight heel problem

2025-10-05T11:18:00.000-07:00

– Alexa, medium height!
– Yes, ma’am.
– Not me, stupid! My heels!
– Can’t hear you, ma’am.
– I’m shrinking! I’m getting smaller! What do I do?
– I can’t answer that, ma’am.
– You were supposed to lower my heels, not me, dumbcluck!
– Sorry, can’t hear you. Too much background noise.
– Get me back to full size immediately!
– Your heels? All 18 inches?
– Me, you idiot! All 5 feet 8 of me!
– Were you really that tall before?

Note

The other day I learned that adjustable heels exist, so that you can adjust your footwear to low, medium or high. Based on the fact that everything must be controllable remotely nowadays – be it via smartphone app or a remote control –, I was inspired to imagine what such technology might do if misdirected or going wrong.

The nicest thing about today haiku

2025-09-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

Being out of the
sweltering mid-September
heat having coffee.

Note
I could have been more precise and detailed to say that the coffee was a cappuccino and that I had it at a bar in an air-conditioned shopping center in Rome, Italy. But that would have bloated the haiku way beyond what’s allowed. I also could have said that it was more or less one of those Kristoffersonian Sundays Coming Down, but that would have really killed the poetic form, right?

Cosmic Pizza

2025-09-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

Cosmic Pizza

Watercolor and crayon on paper. Available on OpenSea.

Dreading white space

2025-09-08T10:01:00.000-07:00

In my younger days

all it took was a pen

and a piece of paper

and some time by myself

to write something.

Some record of what

had happened during the day,

some observation, including

stuff that, when told to my

then girl friend Mary B.,

would cause a chuckle.

However, there was also

something about a dog –

a black bulldog I’d seen

in France on a hot day,

when it had collapsed

in the gutter exhausted –

that annoyed Mary B.

She called it a tacky story

that should neither be

remembered nor told.

So there I was – stunned;

my entertaining attempt

had been dealt a severe

blow. And it had all been

because she seemed to be

in a devilish mood, riding

the train across from me

silently and with a black glare.

Oh Mary B., what have you

done to me! Now black

glares tell me to avoid

well-meaning bulldog-in-

gutter anecdotes and best

just shut the fuck up.

I had an empty white

computer page in front

of me, dreading that

emptiness, but then

ended up filling it after all,

with some lengthy bullshit.

Notes
All true, except that some of this happened around 2003, and that part may have undergone some memory mutations. Dreading white space is definitely a problem these days. I might suffer from something vague like writer’s block.

Ugliest car ever?

2025-07-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

Tesla Cybertruck

Surely one of the hottest contenders for the Ugliest Car Ever award with its design reminiscent of Soviet practice.

This one was seen and photographed as parked in a No Parking spot in Idaho, USA.

Lucinda Williams / The Night's Too Long

2025-06-12T10:22:00.000-07:00

This Lucinda Williams song from the eponymous album released in 1988 has been a favorite of mine for many years.

It contains this memorable line:

And she's holding a Corona and it's cold against her hand

Sure comes in handy during the hot season of the year...

Lily Hearth

2025-05-06T06:05:00.000-07:00

What can I add to
one who was in every way
true to her own name?

Note
This transpired as a response to the daily haiku prompt for May 5, 2025.

What’s that stench?

2025-05-06T04:56:00.000-07:00

Is is that painful
smell of someone so rich he
denies his own farts?

Note
Where exactly this one came from I don’t know. However, I’ve been thinking a lot about these times and some of the rich and powerful personalities they feature oh so prominently. Bluntly put: they do not smell good.

Heather Nova - I Wanna Be Your Light (Live At The Union Chapel, 2003)

2025-04-08T08:33:00.000-07:00

A beautiful song about someone who actually wants to light the way.

Unlike the ghouls that are in power everywhere, be it USA, Russia or any number of countries, whose only intent and purpose is to darken the way.

To each its own

2025-03-17T12:07:00.000-07:00

Complained the crocus:
Rain again! Water, water,
water – so boring!

The sardine: Feels like
heaven. My element! – I
like it, and salty!

Note
Today’s haiku prompt was this juxtaposition: crocus (North) and sardine (South). I decided to travel both ways.

Haiku mishap

2025-02-23T02:13:00.000-08:00

Was going to type
furry cricket but then wrote
flurry cricket. Brain!

Note
That’s what I did about the suggestion for 2/23/2025 from Daily Haiku Prompt.

Six Haiku Madlibs

2025-02-12T00:50:00.000-08:00

In the dense mouth

these tepid lights –

an artificial dust

– Lee Nao Doh and Basho

✧✧✧✧✧

No one bulge

along this mouth but I,

this dense light.

– Lee Nao Doh and Basho

✧✧✧✧✧

A dense tepid mouth...

A light bulge into the dust,

bellyache! Daffodil again.

– Lee Nao Doh and Basho

✧✧✧✧✧

Dense mouth,

the light

is tepid of dust.

– Lee Nao Doh and Buson

✧✧✧✧✧

Don't bulge, mouth

light, dust themselves,

must nip.

– Lee Nao Doh and Issa

✧✧✧✧✧

Bulge me,

as one who nips mouth

and light.

– Lee Nao Doh and Shiki

✧✧✧✧✧

Note
Once again I felt the urge to test the poetic vein of an artificial intelligence (even though of an apparently very lowly kind) in creating haiku out of a list of words I, Lee Nao Doh, had defined. The AI then mixed this input with haiku from the masters: Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki. Rendering poetry that is partially reminiscent of slightly surreal Chinese proverbs or fortune cookie stuff.

Feel like doing the same? Click here.

An earlier attempt, from which I picked three haiku.

Yours,

Leonard B., aka Lee Nao Doh

The End Of The Rainbow - Richard & Linda Thompson

2025-02-11T08:41:00.000-08:00

Richard and Linda Thompson, The End of the Rainbow

Written by Richard Thompson, released on I want to see the bright lights tonight in 1974.

A great song and one of my favorites, but also the mother of pessimist songs, containing upbeat lines like this:

There's nothing at the end of the rainbow.There's nothing to grow up for anymoreTycoons and barrow boys will rob youAnd throw you on the side

The Master Poses with a Terrifying Creature

2025-01-12T05:42:00.000-08:00

I’m happy and honored to report that my 42-word story The Master Poses with a Terrifying Creature is part of the anthology Book of 42² published in November of 2024. The anthology was compiled by B. A. Mullin and comprises 1764 ultrashort stories in 42 genres, such as Alternate Reality, Apocalyptic, Crime, Culture, Romance, Steampunk, Tragedy, Vampire and Western, to name just a few.

My story is story #6 in Chapter 5, Culture.

My biography (also 42 words long) says:

Leonard Blumfeld, a character sprung from a story by Franz Kafka, is the only contributor of the World So Wide blog and has published a book of poetry and short prose, Best of Meme (2008), and 101 (2014, haiku and fibonacci poems).

The story was inspired by the following photo by French photographer Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) from 1952:

Instant recognition

2025-01-11T09:14:00.000-08:00

Meryl Streep with the
most outlandish hat ever
and Klaus Maria Brandauer,
white-hatted colonial style,
among black people
speaking Italian on TV
in a Roman bar. Well,
if it ain’t Out of Africa!

Notes
Based on genuine recent experience during a walk.
Refers to the 1985 movie Out of Africa starring Meryl Streep as Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), Klaus Maria Brandauer and Robert Redford, which won 7 (!) Academy awards. It's weathered a bit – somehow I don’t believe it would win that many awards nowadays.