Tag Archives: poems

Paddy Shacks [Haibun]

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Near Khonoma, Nagaland
In a quiet valley, terraced rice paddies lie flooded but unsprouted, their glassy surfaces vaguely mirror the sky above. More than the narrow dykes, it's the mere inches of elevational difference that gives each irregular patch of water a distinct appearance. Each one is hit by light from the same distant source, and though they are as close to equidistant from that source as imaginable, each tells its own story in hue and glint. Amid the paddies, squat supply shacks pose as an inhospitable village -- all moat, no yard, and unneighborly distances between them. And yet there is something quaintly soothing about this fiction of a village.


squat shacks stand,
islands amid paddies --
a faux village

POEM: Down the Valley [PoMo Day 9 – Haibun]

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The air was dry and the valley was dry. Tufts of yellow grass clung to the hillside and to the edges of the valley floor -- where they joined with the barren, brown tines of bleak shrubbery. In the riverbed, smooth stones and boulders sprawled to the shoulders, far wide of the feeble stream that flowed at the moment. The water ran gray, having come from the edges of a glacier that scoured its way down a granite channel. And in the "V" far ahead, clouds as thick as the mountains were being lifted and dropped over a snowcapped peak, pretending they'd bring their moisture into this arid landscape.  
mountain clouds
may become your fog, or
may sit in wait

A Trio of Tanka

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9

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

Rainy Day Haiku

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2

I
in corn country,
the scent of rain often
outpaced the clouds


II
a slanting rain,
sounding machine-like
pounds the ground


III
with these mean rains,
my invite to outdoors
has been revoked


IV
mossy mountain,
its flipside is dry grass –
yin to its yang


V
hanging droplets
on the fringe of fungus
drip in due time

POEM: Mundane Magic

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The girl cast an incantation —
and as her words bore fruit —
they burned her as a witch.

-Blaming the woman
-Blaming her magic
-Blaming a Devil,

But granting amnesty to the words.

What human endeavor is unswayed
by the force of words?

What marauding army was sent off
without a flurry of furious words?

How many Generals have tried
to match the grace of the St. Crispin’s Day Speech?
And though they fail,
their words aren’t without kinetic effect.

What lost cause found victory in words
spewed by a red-faced coach
in a half-time locker-room?

Hasn’t the stab of careless words
been felt more deeply than a dagger?
— splitting up couples, if not Empires.

It may be true that words don’t kill people,
that people kill people,
but when did anyone ever get lethally worked up
in the absence of a well-sequenced string of words?

Stormy Shore Haiku

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I
waves bash stone —
volcanic rock walls pocked
a grain at a time


II
crashing sounds —
perfectly formed waves to
sizzling foam


III
beach sweeping
waves push and pull sand
step tales erased


IV
gray skies
the typhoon unseen
but expected


V
wave doubles back
upon hitting the stony shore:
return to sender

POEM: Day’s End Dance

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Patches of pink on army green —
the rhododendrons bloom.
In the hills of Himalaya —
gone the sad winter gloom.

Gone the weight of weary sinew —
the soul begins its float.
We feel the fire of shining skies
as we shed pack and coat.

The body, so still and silent —
nonetheless takes to dance.
The hike’s exhaustion falls away
and one tunes in the trance.

POEM: Reading Courageously

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If you’ve never been incensed,
challenged, or nauseous —
your reading is too safe, puny,
and far, far too cautious.

Reading should be a courageous act
that threatens all you know.
It should shove your feet into shoes
far different from your own.

If you want your world unchanged,
T.V. is right for you.
Books will insist you be torn a-
part and rebuilt anew.