There was an old man from Kazakhstan
happy to hear of the testing ban.
His house didn’t explode,
but sometimes it glowed.
&
Despite a lead vest he still had a tan.
Kazakhstani Limerick
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Category Archives: Poetry
POEM: Silent Forest
What’s leached the life from these lands?
Winter snuck in. True enough.
But that doesn’t mean a bird can’t hoot, caw, screech, or titter.
We may be too deep in the season for lizards to dart, or even schlep in tailless bluntness.
But surely squirrels, fluffy-tailed rodents, should be out, shoving aside leaf litter in search of sacred acorns?
I don’t trust my mind in a soundless forest —
it leads me to believe that I tumbled back into the recesses of my mind, and only noticed [too late] that I forgot to load the soundtrack.
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Japanese Limerick
There was a beautiful woman of Japan
who was never without her folding fan.
She seemed to play coy,
but it was a ploy.
Her saké breath could kill a caveman.
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Windy Day Haiku
I
two tall pines —
one bends more in the wind,
lean-in for kiss
II
the tall grass
lunges and retreats
with wind gusts
III
in springtime,
breezes, gusts, and gales
affirm flower’s view
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Indian Limerick
There was a gregarious girl from India
who was bonkers for Bollywood cinema.
With great happenstance,
she’d break out in dance
in classrooms and clinics across India.
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POEM: Imagination Tree
Under blue skies, the live oaks were just trees — hearty and expansive trees.
But in the feeble light of waning days or the frequent forays of morning fog, the rangy and sinuous moss-draped limbs became a Lovecraftian monster, head stuck into the damp loam in an attempted retreat to the underworld.
And if one stood still enough, those limbs just might start to writhe.
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Hungarian Limerick
There was a young man from Hungary
who always wore his blue dungarees.
In summer they fit;
in winter not a whit.
Kürtőskalács made his rump “rumper-y.”
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POEM: Wandering Off to Die
And when the darkness looms
we wander on our way
deep into the forest
and from the path we stray.
A lonely way to go?
I’m not sure I agree.
No lonelier than a bed
far from the nearest tree.
Not blocked from the agents
of Death or of Decay —
perhaps, we feel the Web
more than the fear of prey
as we stagger that last mile.
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A Trio of Tanka
I
beware the wolf
wearing sheep’s clothing,
but – more likely –
you’ll meet sheep wearing
wolf attire while talking shit
II
light green leaves,
in early amber light,
flare brightly,
drawing the eye from
mundane forest greens
III
a lone tree,
standing atop a hill
doesn’t feel lonely;
a nexus is assumed —
invisible or not
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Ethereal Hoarder [Prose Poem]
Straight out of college, my first job involved strolling into the homes of strangers. This is when I learned about hoarding. Turns out, you don’t have to venture into many American homes before you stumble into a full-blown hoarder’s lair. I don’t mean a messy home. There’s no moderated middle for hoarders. If it’s not floor-to-ceiling chaos, you’re just a slob — not really a hoarder. [Oddly enough, “hoarder’ sounds less offensive than slob, but it’s worse… much worse.]
The occupant of the first hoarder-labyrinth I sidled into was an old lady who’d busted her hip slipping on a glossy magazine from an avalanche that had collapsed into the narrow, navigable canyons of her living room.
At the time, I couldn’t understand the impulse to hoard. I’ve never clung to used up material objects. For me, books are the closest thing to a precious, inanimate object, but they’re like soup bones — once one has sucked the marrow out of them, they just take up space and gather dust. [With precious few exceptions that are uniquely-shaped and -sized for a task like opening a beer bottle or clubbing an intruder.]
Still, if I’m to be honest, I’m an ethereal hoarder. All that page-extracted marrow is clogging up my mental attic. I don’t know that I even have narrow, navigable canyons at this point. Too often, it’s a soul-crushing slog to schlep one of the few fine pieces out from storage. It may sound like a good problem to have until one realizes that a lot of it is rubbish, rubble, and remnants — no more useful than the broken-hip lady’s twelve-year-old newspapers, twenty-three year old Good Housekeeping magazines, or eight-track tape polka music collection.
