Inscribed my “Today- A letter!” haiku for Hongo Sensei into his book
Category Archives: Shoebox
all the odds and ends… scraps of scribbles and digressions, unfinished, almost forgotten and without a cycle to belong
Poetry snippets: handwritten, from Japan
Post office closed
(again)
You’ll need another
day to know
you are loved
by a lost poet
without a watch
Walking alone while
rain falls
Thinking of you
or rather, us –
Together, umbrella-less
Wisteria mystery
Found me before
I knew i was hidden
We lay in a field
Watching rice in breeze, lazily
A bench picnic, waving as
boats pass a castle, slowly
A tatami room…
With memories of
a poet forgotten to much
of history
He came to be
part of it all
meeting at least
halfway.
Not change or mock –
Somewhat to document.
Today! A letter –
Written as you ate a peach
In last weekend’s sun
Ease, Desired
Somebody, kindly lie to me
Tell me I am “going to be OK”
Soon, life will be like driving down Laurel Canyon in 1973
In a Galaxie 500
Top down, radio up
Nothing but possibilities
That I will rest easy… like so many humans do with ease
Someone, kindly lie to me
Whisper I’ve done enough meditating, stretching, giving, therapies, effort
That soon, I will sleep (!) and wake up (!) and every muscle, joint and nerve won’t be on fire
Please, kindly lie to me.
I promise to believe you (for now).
Remember you well…
I won’t wait til after an incident
Instead, i’ll miss you now
And now and then and often
Always remember you well
Poem: You play accordion…
You play accordion
I’ll play trombone
A pygmy goat for an audience
We’ll play slow songs alone
I’ll play trombone
A pygmy goat for an audience
We’ll play slow songs alone
Poems in process (Circumnavigation)
Chopping, editing, and curating #poems by pairing them with fuzzy, vaguely metaphorical Lomo snapshots, like cheap wine and old cheese. Themes of circumnavigation, hubris, abandonment, confusion, rainy windows, dogmatic traditions, jealousy and zealots.
Coarsest Carbon
coarsest carbon compression
creates the finest diamonds
strong rugged
with a gleam channelled
from a promised land
we create this future daily
with appropriate subtlety
20 Mule Team (for Smoke Blanchard)
1
Whip that 20 mule team
“just so” he declared
They’ll drag up
to the pass
to commune with
the ghost of
ole rambler Smoke
2
Peanut butter
wrapped in wax
wooden staff
machined to the end
Wanderer equipped with gaiters
bearded mischievous serene
the Sierras to the Wasatch
forays to box canyons
hidden from those who see
trees stunted by degrees
But clear to those who keep
their Sanskrit skrimshaws
bundled up in rock and sage
3
Gathered in a desert
witnessed only by peregrines
and rising orbs
named for Roman lords
4
O’er the pass
20 mule team
Mojave plateau
to the spaceport
shiny glassy steel
5.
Passing Shasta and the sidekick
– noble in diminution
~ shaggy crags below
Shasta’s silver flank…
the signs point to Weed
6.
Somehow Jupiter and Venus
came along – glancing from the high right –
mighty mass of glorious gas
the longhaulers swing before the
end of the Cascade blowers
Baker to Lassen
with all peaks between.
Coffee and cigarillo
Another milk coffee
Cigarillos smoked to nib
Considering a present
Passports and Friends
More stamps in the passports
More poems to write
I know who my real friends are
NOTE:
Kobayashi Issa was the man who developed the 5-7-5 format but Japanese and English are very different languages – Japanese is syllabary and English uses diphthongs (great word) for starters. So i take the classic intent of haiku to heart in writing “not about the rainstorm, but about a single drop” — in other words, convey emotion briefly and succinctly, rather that dogmatically adhering to the 5-7-5 format which forces one to “shoehorn” in words or pries others out to fit.
so, and/or:
Ink stamps in passport
Friends offer shelter from fear
Poems come after rest