Hills of Tranquility [Free Verse]

Stony hills
Blanketed in green;
Softened -
Yet still hard.
Silent -
Yet riotous
As wind buffets
My face when I
Speed past.

Dragonhead [Tanka]

dragonhead
rises up out of a cloud,
over the city.
how many see the cloud,
but not the dragon?

FIVE WISE LINES [September 2025]

The aim of introduction is to conceal a person’s identity.

George Mikes, How To Be an Alien

From the beginning our philosophers have tried to teach us how to die,
and our poets have taught us that to contemplate death
is to learn to live.

Jonathan weiner, Long for this world

Nothing is harder to see into than people’s natures.

Zhuge liang [a.k.a. Kongming], The WAy of the General

To know how to eat is to know how to live.

Auguste Escoffier

Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.

Mark twain

Ripple Chaos [Haiku]

raindrops ripple paddy water; 
wavelets wrap into grain stalks.

Cascade [Haiku]

after the rains,
water cascades in ways
never seen before.

Cloud Avalanche [Haiku]

clouds fill the valley:
a gauzy avalanche
in slow motion.

Sun Tinged [Haiku]

mountain snow:
tinged orange
by sunrise.

“Thou Strainest Through the Mountain Fern” (A Fragment) by William Wordsworth [w/ Audio]

Thou strainest through the mountain fern,
A most exiguously thin
Burn.
For all thy foam, for all thy din,
Thee shall the pallid lake inurn,
With well-a-day for Mr. Swin-
Burne!
Take then this quarto in thy fin
And, O thou stoker huge and stern,
The whole affair, outside and in,
Burn!
But save the true poetic kin,
The works of Mr. Robert Burn'
And William Wordsworth upon Tin-
Tern!

“Upon the Road of My Life” by Stephen Crane [w/ Audio]

Upon the road of my life,
Passed me many fair creatures,
Clothed all in white, and radiant.
To one, finally, I made speech:
“Who art thou?”
But she, like the others,
Kept cowled her face,
And answered in haste, anxiously,
“I am good deed, forsooth;
You have often seen me.”
“Not uncowled,” I made reply.
And with rash and strong hand,
Though she resisted,
I drew away the veil
And gazed at the features of vanity.
She, shamefaced, went on;
And after I had mused a time,
I said of myself,
“Fool!”

“Song” by James Joyce [w/ Audio]

My love is in a light attire
Among the apple trees,
Where the gay winds do most desire
To run in companies.

There, where the gay winds stay to woo
The young leaves as they pass,
My love goes slowly, bending to
Her shadow on the grass.

And where the sky’s a pale blue cup
Over the laughing land,
My love goes lightly, holding up
Her dress with dainty hand.