cormorant heads
drift over the water:
fishing in formation.
Cormorant Flotilla [Haiku]
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Category Archives: poem
Four Haiku by Kobayashi Issa [w/ Audio]
muddy clogs
beside each gate;
Spring is here.
"don't swat!"
the fly rubs its hands,
then rubs its feet.
autumn rain,
a small sumo wrestler
pushes through.
sleeping in a row,
the Shinano mountains:
under snow blanket.
In Japanese:
門門の下駄の泥より春立ちぬ
やれ打つな蠅が手を摺り足をする
秋の雨小さき角力通りけり
寝ならぶやしなのの山も夜の雪
From: Wilson, William Scott. 2023. A Beginners Guide to Japanese Haiku. North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing, 224pp.
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Banyan Columns [Haiku]
banyan roots
form cathedral columns
for the inner sanctum.
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Tree Weave [Haiku]
Purple Cow by Gelett Burgess [w/ Audio]
I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one,
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one.
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Willow Watching [Haiku]
riverside willows
viewed through the reeds --
voyeuristically.
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The Thistle’s Moment [Haiku]
in late summer,
thistles flower brightly --
then fluff & cede to wind.
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When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer by Walt Whitman [w/ Audio]
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
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Darkly Still [Haiku]
early morning:
it's still dark & darkly still.
one boat floats through.
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Dancing Through the Graveyard [Common Meter]
When you're dancing through the graveyard
you'll get some angry stares.
They'll call you "disrespectful cad"
for failing to show care.
To be carefree won't offend ghosts;
they'll wish they'd done the same.
But mourners act as if, for Death,
you are the one to blame.
Why should one hold the dance within,
when it longs to be out?
Why should expressing such pure glee
be cause to point and shout?
Tiger Riding for Beginners 