Pillbox Kitsch [Tanka]

what is this place,
 with its defensive bunkers
  on every rise?
 lasting vestiges of war,
  so unlike my childhood home.

Silk Road Vagabond [Free Verse]

Dusty trails & caravans.

Traders & spice
  slow walking 
    toward coin.

A thousand merchants,
   a thousand tongues,
     & lingua franca confusion. 

Dazed & dreary 
    every eve.

Wired each morn. 

Sleeping under starry skies
   with long silences between
     bleating goats or screeching hawks.

Dog, companion & security guard,
    barks only when someone approaches,
      and there is so much space 
      to lend wide berth. 

Silk Road vagabonds 
    walk the path alone:
       exploiting and dropping  
       opportunities at will. 

Infinite Regress [Free Verse]

The sweep of trees
   forms a mandala.

The eye roams over it,
    looking for a center
      that doesn't exist. 

Those roving eyes
    rove & repeat:
       caught in an 
       infinite loop. 

And I wonder what hides
    in the arc of trees?

What monsters mimic
    the sinuous spine 
        of those pointy trees? 

Whose eyes catch
    the fine light,
       reflecting back a
       burning bright-yellow?

What lives unseen?
    What flows unbidden?
       What empties out, 
           but returns?
           and returns?
           and returns... 

Willow River [Haiku]

willow leaves,
 slender and sinuous,
  hang to the river.

Due West, All Day [Free Verse]

driving due west
   at day's end,

the sun too low for visors,
   an angry sun, 
      flaring in one's sunglasses.

the interminable tick-tocks
    it takes for the sun to drop
      down behind the mountains.

oh, how one wishes
    the sun would disappear,

even though, having driven all day,
    there's something demoralizing
      about knowing you require a couple
      more hours of dark drive time 
      before pulling into a motel.

such a big country, 
    so much West remains.

Sunny Side [Haiku]

the setting sun
 fires the mountain's Yang-side
  to max contrast.

Columbus Limerick

There was an explorer named Christopher Columbus
 who entered the New World to fanfare of trumpets.
   He thought the Bahamans
   were Hindu Brahmins.
 His map wasn't so good as his compass.

Into the Woods [Haiku]

how short a walk,
 back turned to the city,
  to be free.