a butterfly flits
over blooms: a connoisseur
not deigning to land.
Choosy [Haiku]
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Category Archives: poem
“A narrow Fellow in the Grass” (1096) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]
A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides --
You may have met him? Did you not
His notice instant is --
The Grass divides as with a Comb,
A spotted Shaft is seen,
And then it closes at your Feet
And opens further on --
He likes a Boggy Acre --
A Floor too cool for Corn --
But when a Boy and Barefoot
I more than once at Noon
Have passed I thought a Whip Lash
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled And was gone --
Several of Nature's People
I know, and they know me
I feel for them a transport
Of Cordiality
But never met this Fellow
Attended or alone
Without at tighter Breathing
And Zero at the Bone.
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Zen Garden [Lyric Poem]
I see those serene figures sit
amid Zen Garden evergreens.
Like Benkei, they don't move a whit,
Their minds are free of thoughts & dreams.
The moss is growing on them, now,
and birds have left their fecal splat.
Don't envy how they've found the Dao,
but how they have no need of hats.
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“Thoughts in a Zoo” by Countee Cullen [w/ Audio]
They in their cruel traps, and we in ours,
Survey each other's rage, and pass the hours
Commiserating each the other's woe,
To mitigate his own pain's fiery glow.
Man could but little proffer in exchange
Save that his cages have a larger range.
That lion with his lordly, untamed heart
Has in some man his human counterpart,
Some lofty soul in dreams and visions wrapped,
But in the stifling flesh securely trapped.
Guant eagle whose raw pinions stain the bars
That prison you, so men cry for the stars!
Some delve down like the mole far underground,
(Their nature is to burrow, not to bound),
Some, like the snake, with changeless slothful eye,
Stir not, but sleep and smoulder where they lie.
Who is most wretched, these caged ones, or we,
Caught in a vastness beyond our sight to see?
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The Way [Haiku]
the mountain trail rounds
from shady to sunny side,
where caves line the path.
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Crucible [Lyric Poem]
It was a dreary winter day;
The world was cold, monotone gray.
But then, I caught a hint of heat:
Felt on my face, not on my feet.
A furnace burned in a dark place.
I felt it flush my frigid face --
Frigid once, but not any more
I stood inside that foundry's door.
The orange glow danced on my face.
It must have shown demon's disgrace.
Like a poor creature lit on fire,
Or the living dead on a pyre.
Cold as the day and my feet were,
I heard a voice - just a whisper.
"You must flee now, or you'll jump in,
and they'll not find a fleck of shin."
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“A BLOCKHEAD” by Amy Lowell [w/ Audio]
Before me lies a mass of shapeless days,
Unseparated atoms, and I must
Sort them apart and live them. Sifted dust
Covers the formless heap. Reprieves, delays,
There are none, ever. As a monk who prays
The sliding beads asunder, so I thrust
Each tasteless particle aside, and just
Begin again the task which never stays.
And I have known a glory of great suns.
When days flashed by, pulsing with joy and fire!
Drunk bubbled wine in goblets of desire,
And felt the whipped blood laughing as it runs!
Split is that liquor, my too hasty hand
Threw down the cup, and did not understand.
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The Tao of the Traveler [Lyric Poem]
With a pack on my back,
I lurched out of the known.
Would I ever be back?
Or go where I was blown?
Who can know where they'll land?
Maybe on a distant shore?
Or amid desert sands?
Or mountains? Or next door?
That's the joy of a life;
One can end up anywhere.
Embrace chaos sans strife,
And you'll live a life that's rare.
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Sunrise / Sunset [Haiku]
“The Arrow and the Song” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [w/ Audio]
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where:
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 