Tanka Prose

a poor harvest
of winter wheat . . .
still, I grind the grain
on the old stone wheel
then sow the fields again

It’s morning. Nails protrude through loose floorboards, throw rugs lie threadbare. Like ghosts, curtains hang over shuttered windows. A steady drip from the kitchen faucet echoes down the hall. The closet door is off its hinges.

The other side of the bed is empty, just as it’s been every morning for the past three years. But I’ve had enough. I get up, throw open the window, pick up my hammer, and start pounding the floor.

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The wandering woman curls her toes into the sand as a wave cascades over her feet. The cool, frothy wash provides an interesting contrast to the heat of the merciless sun above. As the wave recedes, it leaves a small patch of seaweed on the beach. The next wave rolls in and washes it back into the sea.

As she continues down the beach, each new wave caresses her ears with a methodical roar and swish as it crashes and then rushes back into the path of the next oncoming wave. Sometimes a wave just covers her toes, while other times, the water goes up to her knees. The sand is ever shifting with her thoughts.

we were born into this life
to be what we can be . . .
to believe
our dreams are real
and all that we’ve imagined

“What shall become of me?” she wonders.

Atlas Poetica 37 Summer 2019

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~Chicago: In the Hypnopompic State of Illinois, USA

In the early hours of a brand new day, I back my car out of the garage and park it temporarily on the street. The ominous sky above tangles in my mind with the distant memories of a long-lost wife. Slowly my thoughts turn and wander around the corner where I find myself wondering if animals have dreams…

thunder brings the rain—
my cat curls up
to take a nap
on the dry side
of the window

What I’ve discovered is that dreams are bittersweet and memories are just along for the ride. Driving down the back alleys of my mind I see a sign that reads “NO U-TURN.” Breaking that law is just not possible. We’re not programmed that way…

rays bleeding
through wounded skies…
across the lake
a skipping stone eventually
complies with gravity

A car door opens somewhere inside my thoughts. I step out and begin to wonder where I’ll be tomorrow. I wonder if the squirrels in the almond trees believe in God. I wonder if God believes in me. I’m wandering through a forest of moments, dancing with my waking memories but the waking’s really all I need to begin another dream…

in the taste of morning
a fleeting dance
unfurls
as sunlight
greets the leaves

Atlas Poetica – Stacking Stones–Summer 2018

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It begins somewhere in the nebulous inklings of REM sleep, at just about midnight, as we’re speeding down a quiet wooded road. Sara has the wheel in a stranglehold. We’re in the midst of a major tiff.

From out of the darkness, a pair of glowering-white eyes suddenly appears in the headlights. Instead of hitting the brakes, Sara flips the overdrive switch. The car leaves the ground with a whoosh and transforms into a flying carpet in the shape of a raven. Gravity pulls at the pit of my stomach. Sara is nowhere to be seen.

My temper slowly settles to a simmer as the raven-carpet soars higher and higher into the moonless, starlit night. Soon the earth vanishes, and the rug pulls over next to a narrow set of stairs stretching upward in the direction of the constellation Orion. Three hula dancers step forward to greet me with leis in their outstretched hands. They lead the way, swaying hypnotically in the starlight, strewing petals along the steps. Together we climb into an endless realm of sky as my thoughts reach out for Sara.

oh, that I had never left
such echoes in your ears . . .
butterflies
morph into wolves
feasting on my words

Saint Peter stands at the top of the stairs next to Sara and an archangel wielding a trumpet. Suddenly, the horn sounds and the stairs fall away.

Falling is far from flying. There is no bottom to space. Stars whiz by as a cold sweat pours out onto the sheets. The dream ends with a lurch, and I wake up feeling unworthy.

Haibun Today, December 2018

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my muse and I
make love on the placid page
soon drenched
as Hokusai’s Great Wave
breaks on our shore

There is a quiet here—save for the clack of my Smith Corona*—that only midnight knows. I think about the end of our relationship, Jennifer, fiddling a few words about it onto the page as my inspirational sprite slumbers—for the moment satiated—in the chambers of my mind. This is not a song or a sonnet—more a lament. I know you left for all the right reasons . . .

Oh, snap! Try writing about something else for a change.

Let’s see, there were the childhood fishing trips—toting the skiff through the underbrush—and, once we were afloat, the fish came to us. Grandmother’s battered bluegills, Norwegian soul food.

Damn, dwelling in the past again.

I have this midnight—it’s mine alone. Bouncing from memories to figments of imagination, the blur of these digits searching for a future where you swoon at the sound of my poetic voice. Instead, dear Jen, I find myself back in that boat, bobbing alone on this turbulent sea. It’s not like we drifted apart, though. No, we leaned on the oars and rowed in different directions.

origami ship
sailing out of sight . . .
lucky for me
when you packed your bags
you didn’t take my muse 

Ribbons Spring 2023

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My muse has seduced me again.

You’re the Writer. You’re the only one who can write it.
It’s your responsibility to write it—your duty!

So, here I sit, fingers massaging keys that whisper letters and words—whispers spun into sentences, woven into paragraphs, loved into poems.

bearing gifts
for a barren hillside—
one sprouting seed
swaddled in sheets
of rain

Contemporary Haibun Online, 19.1, April 2023

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