My poems “Self-Portrait as Hoot Owl,” “The Shadow Behind You” and “Self-Portrait as Compost” have been published in Issue 125 of Right Hand Pointing. Thank you to editors Dale Wisely, Laura M. Kaminski, F. John Sharp and José Angel Araguz for taking this trio.
There is such movement in this quiet haibun by Merril D. Smith!
It is dark now when I wake. Fall is coming, though the air is still summer-steamy. The moon winks good morning and good-bye, in a sky that has turned from midnight blue to indigo. I watch as the sun, heralded by streaks of peach-tinged clouds, slowly rises, and the sky fades to bleached denim. A blue jay screams as he tries to land in the kitchen window bird feeder. He swoops and tries again, then heads back to the trees to tell of his adventures. I drink my coffee as the cats take their morning nap. Rosh Hashanah comes early this year. Soon—despite the heat—I’ll be baking loaves of round challah and simmering a pot of golden pumpkin soup for the new year.
lush green leaves and grass
harbor blue birds and brown squirrels—
one red-gold leaf falls
This Haibun is for dVerse, where Mish asked us to write about…
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My poems “Letter to Schnee from the Stent’s Void” and “Genealogy Dream” are live in Issue 4 of Lost River literary magazine. Many thanks to editor Leigh Cheak for publishing these two.
Read this beautiful and timely poem by Jose Padua!
In certain ways the thirty-year old guy with the man-bun
and beard wearing a neatly fitting tee shirt on a summer day
is just as much of an asshole as the drunk guy with the
Confederate flag and gun who ends up shooting himself
in the leg thinking he’s defending America from the next
great invasion, each deluded by the pressure and trends
within their respective peer groups, except it’s unlikely
that the hipster with the man-bun is ever going to shoot
anyone or consciously exercise his political will for the
purpose of oppressing anyone who doesn’t look like him,
while the only person the good ole guy with the gun is
going to save is a man wearing a three piece suit who worries
less about his sagging balls than the possibility that his profits
might one day sag along with them. And so the system
as it now…
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The Loneliness of the Last
Always exposed, never sharing the comfort
of between, you see only the departed
diminishing with each second’s passage, blurring,
shrinking, and finally blinking out, all points
erased in the null, an eye closing in the tunnel.
Or, inhaling the fragrance of an unseen orange
grove filtered through coal and thick, black
coils, you accept the limits of possibility,
known only by edges flowing past, lost
to touch and forever beyond reach in the draft
of the inadmissible. Departure defines
you. What lies ahead is not yours to embrace.
* * *
“The Loneliness of the Last” was published as a mini-broadside by ELJ Editions in February 2017.
“Trem Abandonado” by Rafael Vianna Croffi
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/rvc/29472173566)
Brian Geiger, editor of Vita Brevis, offers excellent tips for submitting poems.
Lake Pavilion
The boat carries the honored guest
so regally across the lake.
We look out over the railing and sip our wine.
Lotus blossoms, everywhere.
As is nearly always the case, I had more questions then answers when I first considered this adaptation, beginning with “what is happening here?” Yes, someone crosses a lake to meet a guest, they drink wine and see flowers in the water. But what does this signify? From my 21st century Texan viewpoint, the poem seems to be a piece about spiritual passage, and I colored my version with this in mind, using visual references to capitalize on and support the theme – crossing a body of water, looking outward, and of course, observing the lotus flowers, which hold great symbolism in Chinese and Buddhist culture.
The Chinese-poems.com transliteration:
Small barge go to meet honoured guest
Leisurely lake on come
At railing face cup alcohol
On all sides lotus bloom
This first appeared on the blog in November 2014. My, how time has passed.
O at the Edges 