Introduction to Myth Making [Free Verse]

From the hilltop,
  one can watch nature reclaim:
 green grows up the glass,
 tufts sprout from each crevice
  and the man-made world is crevice-laden,
 one seed blown into a mortar crack
  will become a wedge --
   a sprout that splits stone.

Concrete and steel prove
  digestible:
  time, water, oxygen,
 the enzymatic requirements are few.

Fungi blooms from a pile-full of dung.

I don't know whether it's a desirable meal,
  whether our trappings & vestiges are
  haute cuisine,
   or merely a meal
   of convenience.

This place was once with us.
 Now, it's hidden so well
  that it's become a myth,
 a once firm and tangible thing --
  now invisible & conceptual.

Nature swallowed our world
 and farted our mythos.

“O sweet spontaneous” by E.E. Cummings [w/ Audio]

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
   
    fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
, has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

  beauty  how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods

  (but

true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

  thou answerest

them only with

  spring)

River Ripples [Haiku]

ripples march
across the glassy river --
 faced by a reed phalanx.

DAILY PHOTO: Hippos on the Shore

Image

A Lie from On High [Lyric Poem]

All day long, clouds hung low
(pretending rains would come)
but never did winds blow --
and no rain came, therefrom.

"Oh, duplicitous sky,
why have you lied to me?"
It offered its reply,
"What grand audacity!

"You left your umbrella home.
So, what else could I do?
But close the azure dome,
and some respect accrue!"

Tree Snake [Senryū]

a snake crawls 
down out of a tree…
i have questions.

DAILY PHOTO: Trees of Lalbagh

Cormorant Flotilla [Haiku]

cormorant heads
drift over the water:
fishing in formation.

Four Haiku by Kobayashi Issa [w/ Audio]

muddy clogs
beside each gate;
Spring is here.
"don't swat!"
the fly rubs its hands,
then rubs its feet.
autumn rain,
a small sumo wrestler
pushes through.
sleeping in a row,
the Shinano mountains:
under snow blanket.
In Japanese:


門門の下駄の泥より春立ちぬ




やれ打つな蠅が手を摺り足をする




秋の雨小さき角力通りけり





寝ならぶやしなのの山も夜の雪




From: Wilson, William Scott. 2023. A Beginners Guide to Japanese Haiku. North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing, 224pp.

Banyan Columns [Haiku]

banyan roots
form cathedral columns
for the inner sanctum.