Sketchbook  M. Kei, US

 

 

Tanka Looking down on clouds as I wing my way across a vast continent, thoughts return to her I miss although I have scarcely left.     Mother sleeps at last, propped on plain white pillows, oxygen humming, her adult children stand the watches of the night.     Although there are days on which the winds do not blow, there are no days when I ever fail to yearn for one who inhabits my dreams.     I write poetry like the hills of Maryland, slow, easy, green swells, rolling from creek to vale, with all the time in the world.     When I was a child I brought my grandmother a picture of bluebonnets; she cried, lying there paralyzed in her hospital bed.     The ribbon shirt folds around her owl-tail headdress, the box closes on sage; the lodge struck and loaded, the Indians vanish again.     Spanish Bombing, March 11, 2004 In Spain eleven million cry a deeper grief; tragedy magnified in a a weeping world.

 

Free Verse Upon the Accidental Discovery of Culture in Walmart Walmart startled me with a wall of Japanese courtiers. Aristocratic figures in formal caps and Imperial robes, somber and serene, knelt against a background of lush green gardens and round, rough pillars of an ancient palace. Tv upon tv echoed the scene; the entire wall of the electronics department filled with the gentle grace of a time gone by. I stood alone, asking the silent screens, "Who are you?" But as quickly as they appeared, the courtiers vanished like ghosts back into the machine. No matter how long I stood through the banal blare of advertisements for things I didn't want, they did not return.

 

Couplets scarecrow doesn't vote, even for president     Tercets A single petal drifted from the lazy breeze to rest here with me.     Silk and iron pines as the jeweled inferno of the heart aligns.     blue-green paper like a small map of the ocean, my poems like islands     Your lips smile at me and my heart rings just like a great temple bell.     When I was a child, cicadas sang the summer that would never end.     Misty moon of spring, I want to see my lover, so don't be bashful!     I feel like a boy though I am a married man when I think of her.     a cherry petal on the fitful winds of May is my restless heart     It's just hot water, but then jasmine petals fall ah! now it's tea.     I stop abruptly, too much traffic! a peahen with seven chicks.     Cicadas in love! Rattling their legs with passion, the din never stops.

 

 

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