Category Archives: poem

Burnt [Haiku]

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Photograph of an incense burner at a Chinese temple in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
smoky tendrils
 rise and sprawl to the void,
  so, too, the prayers?

Mayan High Priest Limerick

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Photograph of El Castillo at the Mayan site of Chichen Itza, Mexico.
A newly promoted Mayan High Priest --
 queasy, but charged with bloodletting next feast.
   Suggested a new style:
   Lymph, sweat, milk, tears, or bile
 Were offerings that made his odds of fainting decrease.

Iguana Limerick

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Photograph of an Iguana on the rocks overlooking Tulum Beach.
In Tulum, a lazy old Iguana
 was asked to leave but said, "I don't wanna!"
   They threated and chided -
   reasoned and derided -
 'til it left, bribed with good marijuana.

Ger Limerick

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Photograph of a yurt taken in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
There once was a nomadic ger-dweller
 who had no garage, attic, or cellar.
   But what it lacked in space
    it made up for in pace
 when ger turned to baggage from shelter.

Blank & Blue [Haiku]

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Photograph of cacti, blue sky, and mountains, taken near Huambo, Peru in the vicinity of Colca Canyon.
sky -- blank & blue --
 stretches mountain to mountain;
  unseen raptor: "screech!"

Frame of Reference [Free Verse]

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Photograph taken at a butterfly sanctuary on Bohol Island, Philippines.
a butterfly hangs
   upside down,

but it seems upside down
   is as meaningless an
       an abstraction for it
 as the two million km/h
    that a human sweeps, 
       spins, expands, etc.
            through space
    is for the person who
        feels only the couch
             against his backside.

what must it be to not know
     upside down -- to feel free
         to fall, knowing the air
              will catch one?

Fungi Time [Haiku]

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mushroom stands tall;
 wasn’t there the day before,
  may be gone the next.

FIVE WISE LINES [June 2026]

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Photograph of sunset taken at Moalboal, Philippines across the Tanon Strait.

When I was younger I could remember anything,
whether it had happened or not;
but my faculties are decaying now and soon
I shall be able to remember only the things
that never happened.

Mark twain

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled,
but a fire to be kindled.”

Plutarch [paraphrased]

Judge a man by his questions
rather than his answers.

Voltaire

Resist much, obey little.

Walt whitman; “To the states“

People don’t take trips —
trips take people.

John steinbeck

Understory [Haiku]

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big-leafed saplings
 line the understory:
  wee cascade murmurs.