wind gusts & rain
turn the placid pond
turbulent.
Turbulent [Haiku]
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Tag Archives: poetry
Swamp Deer [Lyric Poem]
Everyday at an appointed hour
the Swamp Deer takes an anti-shower.
It hooks its antlers into the muck,
and with a twist and shake mud is chucked
upward, where it rains down on the beast.
It's stinky and slimy, but it's cool, at least.
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“A Passage to India” by Walt Whitman [w/ Audio]
Passage O soul to India!
Eclaircise the myths Asiatic, the primitive
fables.
Not you alone, proud truths of the
world,
Nor you alone, ye facts of modern
science,
But myths and fables of eld, Asia's, Africa's
fables,
The far-darting beams of the spirit, the
unloos'd dreams,
The deep diving bibles and legends,
The daring plots of the poets, the elder
religions;
O you temples fairer than lilies, pour'd over
by the rising sun!
O you fables, spurning the known, eluding
the hold of the known, mounting to
heaven!
You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled,
red as roses, burnish'd with gold!
Towers of fables immortal, fashion'd from
mortal dreams!
You too I welcome, and fully, the same as
the rest!
You too with joy I sing.
Passage to India!
Lo, soul! seest thou not God's purpose from
the first?
The earth to be spann'd, connected by
network,
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given
in marriage,
The oceans to be cross'd, the distant
brought near,
The lands to be welded together.
A worship new I sing,
You captains, voyagers, explorers,
yours,
You engineers, you architects, machinists,
yours,
You, not for trade or transportation only,
But in God's name, and for thy sake, O
soul.
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Green [Haiku]
in rainy season,
grass grows from every crack,
closing on idols.
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Cheetah [Lyric Poem]
A Cheetah can beat a Porsche to a hundred.
(Imagine the tumble if a clumsy one blundered.)
In fact, Cheetah's are so very, very fast
that your future is way, way back in its past.
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“A One-String Harp” by Lu Ji [w/ Audio]
When an author composes too short a poem,
it trails off with a lonely feeling
like looking down at solitude with no friends
or peering into the vast sky, disconnected.
One string on a harp is crisp and sweet
but sings without resonance and harmony.
Translation by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping in: The Art of Writing (1996) Boston: Shambhala Publications.
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Prickly [Senryū]
a swallowtail
lands on a thorny thistle,
resting in comfort.
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Donkey [Lyric Poem]
The Donkey 's known to be a stubborn beast,
But when one won't move - maybe wheels weren't greased.
I've seen angry humans push, pull, and tug,
But never give a peptalk or a hug.
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“On Seeing the Elgin Marbles” by John Keats [w/ Audio]
My spirit is too weak -- mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep
That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
Bring round the heart an undescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old time--with a billowy main --
A sun--a shadow of a magnitude.
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Idle Fishing [Haiku]
a fisherman
casts his line while leaning
his back to a tree.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 