Limerick of Mexico


There was a great wrestler from Mexico
who went by the name “el Comando.”
His mask was quite garish.
His tactics nightmarish.
He’s the least stealthy soldier of Mexico.

Stormy Shore Tanka


I
seas churn
under darkened skies
raindrops arrive
pelting the sandy shore
with wind-blown violence


II
the rocky shore
becomes a fierce fountain
as wave water
hits and shoots skyward
to be blown sideways


III
this storm lingers
as metaphorical storms
are known to do
natural storms are
always in motion

POEM: Mental Catacombs [a Villanelle]

I found the catacombs, below
my mind’s deepest basement level,
searching for secrets in shadows.

 

Up top, my tracks were writ in snow,
and wet prints through keeps, medieval,
’til I found the catacombs below.

 

What would I find down there, who knows?
Let’s hope not some home-grown devil.
Searching for secrets in the shadows

 

isn’t work for weak and weary souls.
Don’t know how I ‘massed the mettle
to find the catacombs, below.

 

I felt the torment and the throes
of one who’s become bedeviled,
searching for secrets in shadows.

 

I saw highs and lows — thorns and rose,
but never had time to revel.
I found the catacombs below,
searching out secrets in shadows.

Limerick of Malaysia

There was an Orangutan from Malaysia
who dreamed of leaving Southeast Asia.
“Sure, I’d love to linger,
but it’s hard being ginger
when you live deep in the heart of Asia.”

POEM: Ancient Agonies

Ancient Agonies
abound

Written boldly
on our
souls

Cold chiseled
into the architecture
of one’s mind,

a mind rife with
desire
for things that
it does not know.

POEM: Floating Feather

A downy, white feather twists languidly, drifting downward.

I spot it as I stand on my balcony.
I’m transfixed,
compelled to follow the feather to its final resting place,
be it inside or outside the rail.

I’m transfixed because it moves impossibly slowly;
gravity’s hold on it is tenuous,
a puppy’s breath could put it on another course —
changing its fate.

And in those moments of lazy falling,
I, too, feel fateless.

POEM: Dancing Shadows

I found a world in an old book
so darkly like my own.
But built on sands I’d never seen,
their marbled grains were blown
across the land and through the door
to an abandoned house
where lived not one single soul —
nor dog, nor cat, nor mouse.

Just a flock of lively shadows
that danced on floor and wall,
in a dread silent cotillion —
a shadow monster’s ball.
And though I was not invited,
my shade was welcomed in.
I was, to my own shadow, a
second-rate citizen.

But I am just a cruel slaver;
for when it’d broken free,
my shadow moved with such swift grace
as in ‘t I’d never seen.
And standing like a stone statue,
I watched these twirling forms,
and wondered whether they’d blown in
upon the desert storms?

POEM: Last Sunflower Standing

I saw a field — once sunflowers —

now reaped at harvest time.

Just stiffened stalks and wrinkled leaves,

and one head past its prime.

Those glorious yellow petals,

drooping — facing the ground,

were the only way I knew the

crop that’d been mowed down.

How sad to be a survivor

who lives by a bowed head

once the ones that faced the sun

have joined the newly dead.

Five Hampi Haiku

I
flat waters
glide wide at the bend,
their might mute


II
boulders stacked
in precarious piles —
yet they stand


III
the palm trees
stand over stone ruins —
upright sentries


IV
a leaning tree
reaches its gnarled, bent trunk
to shade pilgrims


V
strange landscape —
rubble swept into piles
by what hand?

POEM: River Drift

Coracles spin the river’s route
like dervishes in dance,
whisked around frenetically
as minds spill into trance.