The Silence of Bones
I want to once again thank Freya Pickard for featuring one of my haiku as part of the Portal Series on Pure Haiku. You can read it here.
I will be taking a few weeks off from posting to deal with ongoing family medical issues, but I will try to check in with WordPress every once in awhile to see what’s going on. And Nina will still be posting her work every few days, so we won’t be totally absent.
Shapeshifting Moonlight
My haiku “Shapeshifting Moonlight” is posted today as part of Pure Haiku’s Portal Series. You can read it here, along with all the other wonderful portals in verse. Thanks as always to Freya Pickard for including my words on Pure Haiku.
Joyce Fienberg, 75
Richard Gottfried, 65
Rose Mallinger, 97
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66
Brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, 59 and 54
Bernice and Sylvan Simon, 84 and 86
Daniel Stein, 71
Melvin Wax, 88
Irving Younger, 69
Remembering those who lost their lives in the Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday. May they rest always in a portal of light.
reflecting into themselves
reassembled air–
details gathered and released
into shimmering
trembling suspended,
the light falls into silence–
neither night nor day
throwing the questions
into vast infinity–
what the night reveals
This haiku sequence was inspired by Sue Vincent’s photo prompt, above.
The night sky is full of questions…
Scarecrow Joins the Circle Dance
Autumn. I fall into disrepair. The sky still covers me, but my shadow dissolves into the remains of the golden ocean that heretofore eddied and flowed at my feet. My skin lies ragged, unfilled.
I was crowned, once, with dark discordant ornaments. They sit on other thrones now, unrepentant pretenders, still calling the sun, the wind–the land itself–to task.
A crow flies over
a graveyard—blackness on stone–
change hangs in the air
When I saw Frank Tassone’s Haikai Challenge about scarecrows, I was intrigued. I can’t think of Scarecrow without thinking of Robert Okaji’s wise sage. So whatever I did would be colored by what Robert has written. I also decided to use the words from Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, synonyms for ghost and hollow, as many of them seemed to fit on Scarecrow too.
As to Crow–he’s always around here somewhere.
Once again, different light makes the metallic paint change like the weather and the seasons…and this is another artwork inspired by Joan Mitchell being inspired by Van Gogh. Circles within circles.
Also linked to dVerse Open Link Night.
Draw a Bird Day: Which Bird?
I thought I saw blue jays, but red feathers and whistles turned them into cardinals. I thought I saw cardinals, but the starlings stole their song. I thought I saw starlings, but they grew huge and then they laughed in a raucous crow chorus.
Which bird? you ask, which
bird?—sparrows, tiny sparrows–
wings to wish upon
This is based on a fragment of a dream that came back to me with the birds in the morning. All five birds mentioned are often both heard and seen outside my windows and doors (and, apparently, also in my dreams).
we rearrange the patterns to reflect light
ghostnames wandering
a map of endings—the sounds
of feathers and wings
For Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, using synonyms for plan and finish.
Remembering the stillness of the days after 9/11, and the crystal blue sky, and the autumn leaves echoing the wind.
September 2018/Leaf Koan
almost dusk—color
deepens and rustles insect song–
thick light frosts the wind.
For Colleen’s 100th Tanka Tuesday celebration, she asked us to choose our own words for our poems. I consulted the magnetic Oracle in two ways for my September leaf grid–the online one, and my refrigerator one, which is currently filled with Zen words. Two very different views of the season.
between finding out
and insight lives the whispered
silence of why not
Severed Synapse
I wear myself inside out. My mask is hidden; my thoughts scriven mysteriously in code. Sleep returns me to my origins. I fall, resisting, afraid to let go.
I get up and it’s yesterday, dreary and inexact. Memories come together and instantly fall apart. I am unbuttoned from the brain down.
All those rituals, the names and places, surrounding me lost and confused. No one can count them. No one can say when or how they disappeared.
completely unfilled,
outlines stand centered between
never and not now
For Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, a haibun using synonyms for sad and write. The top artwork is actually part of the stitching for a totally different project. It’s done on iridescent plastic paper, and the scan makes it look brain-like I think. The collage above I did awhile ago, but it also seemed to fit.
The mind is a delicate balancing act, always.
Noises
Were I Other. Were I spoken in a different voice. Were I fallen into impossibility.
I would be like stars.
I would echo the feeling
that follows the wind.
Were I made of light. Were I pulsing like oceans. Were I to open as wide as never and nothing.
I would radiate
rainbows. I would paint moments
with sound. Fill absence.
For Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, with synonyms for love and time. I’m not entirely sure this qualifies as a haibun. In the spirit of, anyway.
The embroidered watercolor is a work in progress. I plan to keep embroidering it until I stop.
Comment-a-Haiku Poetry Contest: Hearkening
The moon sailing free–
hare pauses in the forest,
listening for light
Vita Brevis is once again sponsoring a haiku meet-and-greet. You can post your own haiku here, and then read all the other ones that have been submitted too.
As I stated in my entry, this haiku was inspired by Jane Dougherty and her many hare poems, like this one or this one. And of course the moon.