overcast dawn:
cloud edges burn... briefly,
then cool to gray.
Fire, Short-lived [Haiku]
2
Category Archives: poem
“Song of the Open Road” (2 of 15) by Walt Whitman [w/ Audio]
You road I enter upon and look around, I
believe you are not all that is here,
I believe that much unseen is also here.
Here the profound lesson of reception, nor
preference nor denial,
The black with his wooly head, the felon,
the diseas'd, the illiterate person, are not
denied;
The birth, the hasting after the physician,
the beggar's tramp, the drunkard's stagger,
the laughing party of mechanics,
The escaped youth, the rich person's
carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,
The early market-man, the hearse, the
moving of furniture into the town, the
return back from the town,
They pass, I also pass, any thing passes,
none can be interdicted,
None but are accepted, none but shall be
dear to me.
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Blue Sheep [Lyric Poem]
The Blue Sheep must be ever so sad:
For of all the colors in which its clad --
None is blue; there're shades of brown, black, and white,
But blue must be symbolic, if judged by sight.
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Brisk Morn [Haiku]
brisk morn dragonfly:
too cold to move, or dead?
unmoved by footfall.
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Full Moon [Senryū]
a drunk staggers
around the corner, and stares
into the full moon.
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“Song of the Open Road” (1 of 15) by Walt Whitman [w/ Audio]
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open
road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading
wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself
am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone
no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries,
querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to
them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them
with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of
them,
I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in
return.)
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“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –” (236) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]
Some keep the Sabbath going to Church --
I keep it, staying at Home --
With a Bobolink for a Chorister --
And an Orchard, for a Dome --
Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice --
I, just wear my Wings --
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton -- sings.
God preaches, a noted Clergyman --
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last --
I'm going, all along.
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A Day’s Last Gasp [Haiku]
warm pre-dusk light
glows through yellow blossoms;
sundown sneaks nearer.
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“The Joy of Words” by Lu Ji [w/ Audio]
Writing is joy --
so saints and scholars all pursue it.
A writer makes new life in the void,
knocks on silence to make a sound,
binds space and time on a sheet of silk
and pours out a river from an inch-sized heart.
As words give birth to words
and thoughts arouse deeper thoughts,
they smell like flowers giving off scent,
spread like green leaves in spring;
a long wind comes, whirls into a tornado of ideas,
and clouds rise from the writing-brush forest.
Translation by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping in The Art of Writing (1996) Boston: Shambhala.
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“Ebb” by Edna St. Vincent Millay [w/ Audio]
I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 