Category Archives: poem

Flameless Flame [Free Verse]

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walking through a darkened temple,
a jagged hole perfectly aligns;
 the kinked white-light washing inward
becomes a shimmering flame,
topping a stone pillar, 
becoming a faux candle
in my shimmering mind

Bamboo & the Buddha [Haiku]

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nestled amid bamboo,
a stone Buddha sits:
stone-mind / bamboo-mind

Smoke & Fire [Common Meter]

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The spastic flame that dances fast:
too weird to match to drum.
The teary eye strays into trance
as if deadened by rum.

Where will the flame transport us now
that smoke has made us cry?
Where will the cracking sounds take us
as we turn to the sky?

The moon is out and casts a glow,
a glow of milky white.
And each dim point of starlight burns
trillions of times as bright
as that feeble, little campfire 
that rules what I now feel:
the heat, the smoke, the popping sounds
that now make my head reel.

Web of Roots [Haiku]

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a web of fig roots
drapes in wild tangles, & a 
sapling - straight & green

Tree Nature [Haiku]

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under the tree sits
a potential Buddha;
human mimics tree

Prickly Pear [Haiku]

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a prickly pear patch
stands free of bird and beast;
i wonder why?

Rock Agama [Tanka]

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a Rock Agama
peeks over a rock, stops,
and tries to be
inconspicuously
bright orange

Discovery Distance [Free Verse]

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Mountains are best viewed at a distance,
despite humanity's "closer is better" bias.

Up close, one is invariably in a cloud,
looking at an undifferentiated mass
of gray-white:
ice -- granite -- snow -- fog.

One may climb a mountain 
to see other mountains in the distance,
but standing eye-to-rock with a mountain
offers little spectacle & grandeur.

Massive things can be too close to see.

I wonder whether I'm also
 better viewed from a distance.

Not everything is.

Consider the opposite mistake:
People say things such as, 
"My Great White Whale is out there."

But Great White Whales are  
always found looking inward --
not out in the distance.

Nocturnal [Kyōka]

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owl sticks its head out,
staring in silent rebuke
as if to say:
"Hey! I'm nocturnal.
What's with all the ruckus?"