Haiku
all that
remains of his dream...
new tombstone
honing a poem...
I think over the inside
of a Hallmark card
breezy beach
I see the world for two
in a sandcastle
pondering haiku...
cherry blossoms scatter
in the morning sun
out in the cold
my shadow walks
with me
silence
punctuated
by falling snowflakes…
another dawn
rewriting haiku...
the veins on my right hand
bulge
Haiku
Sequence
Femme
Fatale
startled
doves
fill the spring sky
her hand in mine
she takes
a huge bite from an apple
my mouth on hers
wedding notice
her photo still placed on
the glass tabletop
Easter morning
as promised, I pour myself
a glass of wine
Four Seasons of Love
watching
the lake
swallow a spring sun—
her crimson lips
campfire…
the summer stars in her eyes
warm me up
maple leaves
falling all around us—
we stop holding hands
cold moon…
the twin size bed creaks
under our bodies
Spring,
Summer, Autumn, Winter … and Spring
hare
moon
a snake slithers
into tall grass
around and around
the pomegranate trees
a boy chases a girl
a maple leaf
zig-zags to the sidewalk
cicada's cries
snowfall
yesterday fifteen inches
today three
Tanka
page after
page
the evidence of a waste
of money...
the PM smiles at reporters
filling the air with words
a fire broke out...
neighbor argues with neighbor
over who will pay
in the end, they call
each other by first names
cliché-only
settlement blocks carving up
my mind...
it's time to have peace talks
with the ancients
autumn moonlight
caresses my face...
is it wrong
to remain faceless
in the crowd?
as morning dawns
and evening fades, Your name...
I want to shout
over what He whispers
into my heart and mind
U.S. wages a fight
against Asian carp invasion—
headline news
from Canadian Maclean's:
U of T Is "Too Asian"
(Note:
Maclean's is Canada's only national weekly current
affairs magazine. U of T stands for the University of Toronto)
flames
enveloped Lâm Văn Tức
Saigon, 1963...
a Tunisian set himself
on fire, an Egyptian...
(Note: The tanka is
written for the courageous peoples who are fighting against
autocratic governments.
Lâm Văn Tức (1897 – 11 June 1963), a Vietnamese Mahayana
Buddhist monk, set himself on fire performing a ritual suicide
in protest against the persecution of Buddhists by the US-backed
corrupt South Vietnamese government. The photo of his
self-immolation was circulated widely and brought close
attention to the larger structural and ideological causes of the
Vietnam War.
Tunisian unrest began in December, 2010 after Mohamed Bouazizi,
a 26-year-old unemployed university graduate who sold fruit and
vegetables on the street without a permit, set himself on fire
in a suicide attempt after police confiscated his grocery cart.
Copycat self-immolations have followed in at least four other
North African states.
Free Verse
Ways of Reading
I
remember
the first time
I read poetry
in English
letters grouped themselves
in a random way
pot and pat
were two different words
though they looked
almost the same to me
words like sex
fixed their gaze at me
others like death
made me sit still
between the lines
lay a semantic gap
from one stanza to the next
there was an emotional void
eight years passed
I realized
to read is to be read
I remember
the first time
I read poetry
The
Dream of a Struggling Poet
morning by
morning
I see the same old face
in the mirror
hours upon hours
I write and rewrite a poem
that grows old
night after night
I go to bed exhausted
with a dream deferred
weekly routine
the garbage man collects
my unpublished poems
months gone by
gray hairs pop up
on my head
year's end
I step into the same river
twice
New Year
the same phoenix flaps its wings
in my dream
