Category Archives: poem

FIVE WISE LINES [September 2026]

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Luck, diligence, spontaneity, and inspiration
are all needed to write a poem.

Mary oliver; A Poetry Handbook

…above all let us never accept as cause for what we do not comprehend something we comprehend even less.

Marquis de sade; Juliette

…wise people don’t tell us what to do;
they start by witnessing our story.

david brooks; How to know a person

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,
but to those who can see it coming and jump aside. Like a frog evading a shillelagh in a midnight marsh.

Hunter s. thompson; The Rum Diary

We do not see things as they are,
we see them as we are.

Anaïs Nin

Autumn Afternoon [Haiku]

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Autumn afternoon,
 light warms a copse of pines;
  beyond: crisp blue sky.

Head of the Table [Haiku]

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Photograph of Great Kiskadee (bird) sitting on a chairback at the head of a table.
yellow bird perches: 
 the chairback at table's head.
  it's eyed like a boss.

Slaughter-bot [Free Verse]

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Image generated by CoPilot from the prompt: "Draw me a Kung Fu Robot."
Image by Microsoft Copilot (AI)
Clumsy Kung Fu robots
   will become slaughter-bots
      in our time.

What they lack in Zen spontaneity 
   and warrior ethos they will make 
      up for in speed, power, and
          dense metal alloy.

Replaced limbs will make them more
   -- not less -- capable fighters.

Will a battling robot ever wonder
    How did we get here?
                   or
    What is the point?

Or will it only wonder why it is
    using its feet as impact weapons
         when it has ray-guns?

(It is a little like building a typing pool
    of robots... only way, way cooler.)

Speed Kills [Kyōka]

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speeding across
 the river bridge by car,
  i miss the scent --
 sweet riverine perfume --
  that I'd smell from the bank.

Askew [Haiku]

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a tree grows, askew;
 canopy stretched one way -
  wind can’t shake it.

Twins [Haiku]

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Photograph of two flowers that look nearly identical. Taken in the Bogota Botanical Gardens.
two flowers
 -- side-by-side -- neither
  outgrows its neighbor

Lonely Rose [Haiku]

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a lonely rose
  awaits winter frost:
    short, gray day.

Purple [Senryū]

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Photograph of purple flowers taken in Zipaquirá, Colombia.
though purple flowers
 adorn a shrub,
  it doesn't act kingly.