poetry

P Haiku

Play Parcheesi. Place piece,
pachyderm, pente paces —
Pause. Pick pensively.

Alphabet Haiku Challenge

Every word in the haiku must begin with the same letter

When written in English, it generally follows the syllabic pattern 5-7-5

Haiku/Senryu Poetry – Here is an in-depth description of Haiku/Senryu Poem (also called human haiku) is an unrhymed Japanese verse consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables (5, 7, 5) or 17 syllables in all. Senryu is usually written in the present tense and only references to some aspect of human nature or emotions. They possess no references to the natural world and thus stand out from nature/seasonal haiku.

poetry

Full and Without

I’ll stumble up and take hold
of starlit dust and hold,
hold with vigor the mighty
flames of rite.
I’ll bend my knee for the fight.

I need not tell you of my plight
I need not tell you of my blight
I need not tell you of my night.

There are too many failings,
too many wantings to fill me up.

I am bottomless;
I am full
and cannot be filled.

My emptiness is full and without.

I cannot reason why.
I cannot spy into the glass
to see and correct my past.
Would that I could,
with hindsight, never to have set
foot near the pit,
never to have dared to spit.
For my strength, it flies,
it flies like lightening from the sky —
furious, pitiless, and hot.

Then I am not.

It is not that I cease to be.
It is not that I cease to reason.
It is not that I cease to have flesh and soul.
It is that I cease to look.
I cease to remember the price paid.
I cease to recall. I cease to call.

And the gilded calf, the flowered staff, and
the manna he did breathe
should be carved into me.
They should, by God, leave me with a mark.
There should be something,
There should be something,
There should be something
left upon this ark.

poetry

N Haiku

nacreous nature
najas, nabooms, nightingales —
nobility nurtured

Photo by Boris Smokrovic on Unsplash

Alphabet Haiku Challenge

Every word in the haiku must begin with the same letter

When written in English, it generally follows the syllabic pattern 5-7-5

Haiku/Senryu Poetry – Here is an in-depth description of Haiku/Senryu Poem (also called human haiku) is an unrhymed Japanese verse consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables (5, 7, 5) or 17 syllables in all. Senryu is usually written in the present tense and only references to some aspect of human nature or emotions. They possess no references to the natural world and thus stand out from nature/seasonal haiku.

poetry

M Haiku One

Marry me, my moon.
Merry make my many mêlées,
melodious, mighty.

Alphabet Haiku Challenge

Every word in the haiku must begin with the same letter
When written in English, it generally follows the syllabic pattern 5-7-5
Haiku/Senryu Poetry – Here is an in-depth description of Haiku/Senryu Poem (also called human haiku) is an unrhymed Japanese verse consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables (5, 7, 5) or 17 syllables in all. Senryu is usually written in the present tense and only references to some aspect of human nature or emotions. They possess no references to the natural world and thus stand out from nature/seasonal haiku.

poetry

L Haiku

longing lion leaves
leaps land, leads laterally —
legend looms larger

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Alphabet Haiku Challenge

Every word in the haiku must begin with the same letter
When written in English, it generally follows the syllabic pattern 5-7-5
Haiku/Senryu Poetry – Here is an in-depth description of Haiku/Senryu Poem (also called human haiku) is an unrhymed Japanese verse consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables (5, 7, 5) or 17 syllables in all. Senryu is usually written in the present tense and only references to some aspect of human nature or emotions. They possess no references to the natural world and thus stand out from nature/seasonal haiku.

Inspired by “Heart of a Lion: A Lone Cat’s Walk Across America” by William Stolzenburg.

From the book’s blurb:

“Late one June night in 2011, a large animal collided with an SUV cruising down a Connecticut parkway. The creature appeared as something out of New England’s forgotten past. Beside the road lay a 140-pound mountain lion.

Speculations ran wild, the wildest of which figured him a ghostly survivor from a bygone century when lions last roamed the eastern United States. But a more fantastic scenario of facts soon unfolded. The lion was three years old, with a DNA trail embarking from the Black Hills of South Dakota on a cross-country odyssey eventually passing within thirty miles of New York City. It was the farthest landbound trek ever recorded for a wild animal in America, by a barely weaned teenager venturing solo through hostile terrain.”

Quick links to purchase the “Heart of a Lion: A Lone Cat’s Walk Across America” by William Stolzenburg:

Amazon
Audible
Barnes and Noble

poetry

K Haiku

Keen-eyed, kingly, kite
Kamchatka kodiak-king —
Kalashnikov-kissed

Alphabet Haiku Challenge

Every word in the haiku must begin with the same letter
When written in English, it generally follows the syllabic pattern 5-7-5
Haiku/Senryu Poetry – Here is an in-depth description of Haiku/Senryu Poem (also called human haiku) is an unrhymed Japanese verse consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables (5, 7, 5) or 17 syllables in all. Senryu is usually written in the present tense and only references to some aspect of human nature or emotions. They possess no references to the natural world and thus stand out from nature/seasonal haiku.

poetry

Better for the Course

Today lies in darkness still.
Still I hear the shadow’s call,
call with caressing voice,
a siren’s soothing voice.

So strap me to the mast.
Mark this journey down.

Round the horn.
Let the fiercest fires flare.
Stuff my calloused ears.

This ship is all I’ll ever know;
all that marks my mark,
all that sets for place unknown.

So I know, I should take
care to care. I should know how
to knot, how to tie with flare
and with surety of eye and hand,
know how to set a course
and guide by star and verse.

And yet this course is coarse.
Full of uncharted isles, isles
of cyclops, titans, and villains worse.
So I’ll fly with wings of wax,
and so soar and never lax.
And if I tumble, I’ll tumble
and be better for the course.

poetry

When All Could Be Gold

Crackers, crumbs, and milk in little carton drums.
I held mother’s hand and smelled the day so grand:
Chalk coming off the board in clouds,
Crayons held in new-formed hands, and
Blocks of wood all ready to stand.

All our cubbies lay right by the door,
Where we placed all that we brought,
all that our mothers and fathers thought
would make us what we would become;
all that would set our clay to marble-grand.

The room smelled of hope and bright eastern sun.
The room smelled of wood and bright colored fun.
The room smelled of promise and crisp new clothes.
The room smelled of smiles and pink-colored bows.

Kindergarten socks,
kindergarten hands,
kindergarten lambs
play in kindergarten bands.

These were the days when all could be gold,
when none of our fools showed their true face,
when none of our promise was broken and spilled,
and none of our parents died under their wheels,
when all could be fixed by
crackers, milk and small blanket sips,
when all of our curls were just so,
and no one laughed at our club-footed toe.

We were at the edge of all that could be,
Tree-top houses were in our future, you see.
Jack was sitting on white-painted seat,
Camelot was forming ‘round high-city stage,
and space’s frontier was laid at our feet.

Before bullet sang into President’s pate,
before Junior bled in Egypt’s old town,
before Dick hid the heist from the gate.

We sat in a circle, as we were taught,
as a dark-headed girl edged to the door,
her legs cradled in steel,
her hand cradled in flesh,
her smile cradled in bashfulness.

Kindergarten socks,
kindergarten hands,
kindergarten lambs
played in kindergarten bands.

poetry

H Haiku

hawfinch hunches
heavy hoarfrost, hearty haar — ¹
halcyon hushes

Alphabet Haiku Challenge

Every word in the haiku must begin with the same letter
When written in English, it generally follows the syllabic pattern 5-7-5
Haiku/Senryu Poetry – Here is an in-depth description of Haiku/Senryu Poem (also called human haiku) is an unrhymed Japanese verse consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables (5, 7, 5) or 17 syllables in all. Senryu is usually written in the present tense and only references to some aspect of human nature or emotions. They possess no references to the natural world and thus stand out from nature/seasonal haiku.

haar, a fog or sea mist ↩

poetry

Kick the Goad

Face façades force me to face
the clay that clings to my flesh;
that clay that shapes itself
depending on the crowd,
depending on the shroud.

I just want to kick the goad.

I’m angry at death,
angry that the stain
still clings and reigns,
angry that death’s not done
wreaking havoc, gaining gains.

I should speak in tense-past,
when discussing death’s out-cast.
I should light where Light
has dealt death to death.

But
death’s death is shrouded,
hidden from my unseeing eyes;
blind I stand and blind I rise.
I refuse to wash my muddy eyes.

for my friend KW

A reflection on James 1:23, Acts 26:14, Hebrews 2:14-15, and John 9:6-7 and the too soon passing of a friend; may light perpetual shine upon her.

poetry

G Senryu

gangly gangs grandly
gait gallop grab gain —
gargantuan ¹ glass

This senryu envisions the seconds before the breaking of jewish owned storefront glass on November 9-10, 1938 in Germany and parts of Austria.

“The November Pogrom, known alternatively as ‘Kristallnacht ²,’ also led to the desecration of over 1,200 synagogues and looting of thousands of Jewish businesses and homes.
Following the assassination of a junior diplomat in Paris by a young Polish Jew, the Nazi Party seized the opportunity to incite mass anti-Jewish violence, claiming it was a spontaneous popular ‘retaliation’ against the ‘enemy within’. As a result approximately 90 people were killed and over 25,000 Jewish men were arrested and deported to Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen, leading to the deaths of hundreds more in the camps.”³

May we never forget. May God show us more mercy than deserved.

For more information please visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum or The Wiener Library.

Alphabet Haiku Challenge

Every word in the haiku must begin with the same letter
When written in English, it generally follows the syllabic pattern 5-7-5
Haiku/Senryu Poetry – Here is an in-depth description of Haiku/Senryu Poem (also called human haiku) is an unrhymed Japanese verse consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables (5, 7, 5) or 17 syllables in all. Senryu is usually written in the present tense and only references to some aspect of human nature or emotions. They possess no references to the natural world and thus stand out from nature/seasonal haiku.

from Gargantua the name of a giant king in François Rabelais’s 16th-century satiric novel “The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel” ↩︎
The Night of the Broken Glass ↩︎
http://wienerlibrarycollections.co.uk/novemberpogrom/home ↩︎

poetry

G Haiku

goldenrod garden
growing glowingly gorgeous —
gadwall gaggle gabs

Alphabet Haiku Challenge

Every word in the haiku must begin with the same letter
When written in English, it generally follows the syllabic pattern 5-7-5
Haiku/Senryu Poetry – Here is an in-depth description of Haiku/Senryu Poem (also called human haiku) is an unrhymed Japanese verse consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables (5, 7, 5) or 17 syllables in all. Senryu is usually written in the present tense and only references to some aspect of human nature or emotions. They possess no references to the natural world and thus stand out from nature/seasonal haiku.