Winter Blossoms [Senryū]

Photograph of pink blossoms in Winter. Taken from the Big Creek Greenway Trail in Alpharetta, GA in early February.
Winter plum blossoms
try to trick mind and eye;
cold fingers won't buy.

Spring Cascade [Haiku]

Photograph of Shaki Waterfall in Armenia. Taken during the Spring.
Spring waterfall
grows by the day as ice --
somewhere -- shrinks.

Cherry Lovers [Senryū]

Photograph of a Cherry Tree branch taken in Yerevan, Armenia.
some love cherries;
some, blossoms; some, Fall leaves.
who loves trunk & branch?

Dine & Move [Haiku]

A House Sparrow on a cobbled road near the Cascade Complex in Yerevan, Armenia.
sparrow finds food
among well-trod cobbles,
then flits into blur.

False Heralds [Tanka]

Photograph of Tbilisi, Georgia in the Spring with wildflowers in the fore and city as backdrop.
city landscapers
find year-round blooms for planters,
but I'll await
the wildflowers that grow
way up on the hillside.

Martian Mindscape [Free Verse]

Photograph taken at days end atop Gudibande Fort Hill in Karnataka, India.
The light of day's end
brings out the sandy
grit of the arid
landscape.

The light of day's end
matches & compounds
the color of the
desiccated vegetation.

The light of day's end
turns the world
into someplace new --
somewhere I've never
been before.

My body knows this is
nothing like Mars;
my mind does not.

Gray Beard [Haiku]

Photograph taken in the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area, in bayou near Slidell, Louisiana.
Spanish Moss drapes
over Winter's bare branches
like a gray beard.

Stump Gator [Kyōka]

Photograph of a young alligator resting on a stump in the Louisiana bayou, near Slidell.
Gator rests on stump.
but my mind cannot rest.
it's not "gator"
and "stump" in the same place,
but in the same sentence.

Common Box Turtle [Lyric Poem]

Photograph of a Common Box Turtle taken in the Bayou near Slidell, Louisiana.
"The race is to steady turtles!" --
Even if the race has hurdles?
Even with its great longevity
it'll never have lift or levity
to finish before life runs out.

Hold off with race applications.
Is racer your ideal vocation?
I don't mean to be Sower of doubt,
but think speed isn't what you're about,
and that you'd make a fine doorstop.

River Mind [Haiku]

the river widens,
slows / stopping, in places;
so goes my mind.