Sunday, August 25, 2013

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

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

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