Still More Twitter Tanka

the first cold night
of August,
and the shirring of
crickets mourning
summer


I take
another bite
of the apple,
the gibbous moon
wanes a little


a morning
without sparrows
just the debris
of a long winter
tapping the window

the tips of 

the leaves of 

the chokecherry tree,

yellow in the 

summer rain

it’s another night

spent waiting for 

lightning

long past the season

for thunder

the bay breezes 

at cross currents with 

the wind off Bulle Rock;

so it is with

the affairs of men

orange needles

even pine trees

come at last

to the autumn

of their lives

if I wanted

to turn the world

upside down,

I’d be

a possum

More Recent Twitter Tanka

two eyes staring
out from the glass coffin
of my skull,
Snow White, I wish I could sleep
as peacefully as you

waking from a nap 

to sunshine and 

Frank Sinatra singing, 

“The Sunny Side 

of the Street” 

dreams

stuck to the pavement

like melted ice cream

     your words 

     a gathering of flies

astrologer-poets 

argue about stars, 

Orion and his hounds 

continue across 

the winter sky 

ladled out of

mother’s womb,

I continue to 

splatter and spill

this life of mine

the motorcycle riders

didn’t stay long,

a cigarette or two

and they were 

gone again

it was 

the kind of moon 

that called for

train whistles, 

but gave only memories

so many windows 

on yesterday,

but none 

that see into

tomorrow

Recent Twitter Tanka

I enjoy Twitter. It's so much simpler, but so ephemeral. Here then are some of my recently tweeted tanka. Some of them will appear in my forthcoming collection, January, A Tanka Diary, due out this fall.

I don’t seem
to have anything
profound to say,
limp leaves on the tree are
just another juxtaposition

graveyard of insects

every morning

the heap of the dead

who flung themselves in vain

at the light

the Prince

with butterfly wings

and tinfoil sword—

when I was ten,

what was my quest?

empty

but still attached

these two clamshells

something like

a husband and wife

I am not Basho,

I am that peasant

he found

digging potatoes

along the road

the trees 

begin to talk,

tossing their green heads

and whispering 

about the weather

cargo shorts,

what dreams 

will I stuff

into these pockets

today?

three dollars 

to live on 

until Friday

slips in 

through the keyhole