Dancing Daisies [Haiku]

bright flowers 
dance in a breeze,
beside the castle wall.

DAILY PHOTO: Changdeokgung Secret Garden

White Space [Free Verse]

I read the space
Around the poem.
It has no meaning,
But says so much.
It betrays a little secret
That no reader ever learned
Who was too concerned
With what was written,
While wholly inattentive
To
What
Was
Not.

“The Crocodile” by Lewis Carroll [w/ Audio]

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!

PROMPT: Foods

Daily writing prompt
What foods would you like to make?

I’ve never baked a bread. That sounds satisfying.

Immortal’s Limerick

There once was a wise Daoist Immortal,
Asked the secret to long life, he'd chortle:
"If you can stand masses
Who behave like asses
You're enlightened --
but better off mortal."

Patter [Haiku]

sparse patter
on leaves outside the window:
half-hour after rain.

DAILY PHOTO: Songwol-dong Fairy Tale Village

Wen Fu 10 “Originality” [文赋十] by Lu Ji [陆机] [w/Audio]

Splendid thoughts arise from joined words --
Lucidity is awakened:
Luminous like adorned brocade,
Doleful as a string serenade.
But if crib suspicions aren't killed,
It'll be just one more pulp piece.
Though you may be these word's weaver--
Some ancestor, the prime conceiver.
You must be just and rise above,
Though it kills words you've grown to love.

The original lines in Simplified Chinese:

或藻思绮合,清丽千眠。
炳若缛绣,凄若繁弦。
必所拟之不殊,乃暗合乎曩篇。
虽杼轴于予怀,怵佗人之我先。
苟伤廉而愆义,亦虽爱而必捐。

PROMPT: Dogs or Cats?

Daily writing prompt
Dogs or cats?

Who would win in an interspecies death match? That’s a tough one. Dogs obviously have size and pack-fighting coordination, but cats are duplicitous, excel at the sneak attack, and are not constrained by moral conventions. (They’ll push things off the counter just to see them fall.) So, I doubt we’ll ever know.