Haiku # 447

Premier jour de l’an…
le noir de ses cheveux
dans le cri de l’aube

Free Verse # 388 (itinerant heart)

Winter moon
in the aching window…
you, my insomnia,
combing my hair,
your breath
in the pathless night
weaving all my ways,
your fragrance
a candle keeping vigil
in the sinews of my veins.

~

Your poem
a voracious thing
in the hollow
of the moonless night
biting at my skin,
veins deep spewing
the melody of its blood,
its ferocious ink.

~

Anise and incense…
the oars of your breath
splashing in my skin

~

Itinerant heart selling tea
In a breath of poetry

~

Night falls –
her blood and mine
one inkwell,
all the poets of the world
dipping their pen
into our hearts and writing
the holy name of love.

~

Night falls –
the silence
a skin of dew lacing
our tangled bodies,
merging in a soft fusion
the seams of our skin,
our joined breath
poetry…

~

Her body she offers,
a sea to be crafted
by the ink of his fire,
exalted on the altar
of lust and poetry.

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Wandering Thought # 44

Change sets in and our first reaction is one of resistance; we fear the pull into the unknown, and the way it forcefully pushes itself into our lives without care for our feelings. So we resist, yet simultaneously and reluctantly react, as we must, since change will not disappear simply because we wish it. Yet down the river and as its waters pull us further and further from the shore where we felt safe, we notice how we are no longer looking back; we have accustomed ourselves now to the motion, the waterfalls, and the eddies of the water, have grown perhaps the suitable set of muscles to swim these particular curves, and are now coming to a new shore we were not previously aware of its existence. Our resistance ceases, and our fear drops away. The water throws us upon this new shore, and, looking back, we feel a subtle gratefulness in our hearts as we become aware of just what it is we gained by being thus hurled out of our safety into an unknown and something not common to us. Surely, we have gained a new set of skills we previously lacked, skills we are now eager to practice and show off and perform, skills enabling a better grasp upon our life, a better navigation through life. We also laugh at our resistance, and deem it a bit infantile from our part, that we resist precisely where we should embrace and be daring. We understand that change will come again, and that as it comes we will still fall upon our age old emotional mechanism and resist; but, we hope, time after time our resistance will lessen as in contrast our sense of daring will gain the upper hand; we hope that, one day, we will become seafarers and daredevils, daring the widest ocean and the most unsettling experience to come our way.

Obituaries

Obituaries,
instantly present
when a person dies;
yet true obituaries
are written long after
in the hearts and minds
of those whose life
was intimately shared,
and they are not called
obituaries then,
they are known
by a hundred other names,
enumerated
by a hundred other facts,
they are the shared moments
and their intimate depths
growing in the seedbed of life,
they are a hand still moving with ours,
and a heart beating in our own,
loving as we love,
crying as we cry,
they are the imagined togetherness
still breathing in and breathing out
as we carry upon our shoulders
the weight and the promise
and pledge in our daily bread
the laughter and the tears
of all that brought us together
and the death that made us part,
continuing our journey,
witnessing with our eyes and theirs
right into our own demise.

Haiku # 446

Winter daybreak…
the moth on the window
no longer there

~

Through winter grasses
the birdsong a shadow
in the fleeting wind

~

Warbling almost
if you really listen…
the candle’s flicker
in the silent eve

~

Vanished in the grass…
his poem’s dew
falling, falling

For an anonymous poet, long dead.

Haiku # 445

Crumbled silence,
leaves falling,
alone by your grave…

Free Verse # 387 (sewing her skin to the crest of dawn)

Awake all night
sewing her skin
to the crest of dawn;
daybreak,
the perfume of her light
a tidal wave
in endless ripples
washing
the face of the world.

~

Your perfume
drifting on the wind
entraps my poem;
your perfume
is a world
enclosing my poem,
its sky opening
to the other side.

~

How old is it,
your perfume
on my pillow
this winter morning?

When did the bees first fly
from flower to flower
gathering the honey
of your name?

~

Moment vêtu
de la soif
de nos lèvres,
sa mèche brulante
avec le feu
de nos yeux
croisés,
désir solaire
de deux corps
englouties
dans une goutte
de poésie.

~

You laid on the bed
and I saw the sea
elongated,
denuding itself slowly
wave after frothing wave,
all the horizons smothered
in the salt of her kiss.

~

Dawn comes
sauntering
with your skirt
for skin,
the red
of its billow
in the summer wind
lifting
to cover the world
with…

~

Happened in the night
while thinking of you,
my heart drowned
and couldn’t pull through.

~

Your breath
in the cold night,
vapor on the outside
on my windows;
I open to let you in
but the dark alone enters
to share my bed,
nest in my heart.

~

My poem…
the breath of a candle
trembling on the walls
inside her ribs;
moon-birds at night
rising from her skin,
falling from her hair.

~

Rain at dawn…
your breath
a candle burning
in a corner in my heart;
your face
a fountain of light
pouring
from inside of me.

~

Tombe la pluie…
mon cœur
un poème brulant
dans la chandelle
de ses yeux.

~

The light of the moon
goes on shining
untouchable like destiny,
the breathless dew
from its white sinews falling,
a moment, a thousand years.

~

I grew up
inhaling your skin,
in the breath of tea,
in dawn’s mist,
in the pages of books,
in strangers’ smiles,
in poetry’s hair,
in silence,
in all of life.

Tanka # 93

The white Christmas
you dreamed of…
snow covering
the darkness
of your grave.

Wandering Thought # 43

The sorrow, greatness, and foolishness of the poet — the compulsion of his instinct that wills him to unify the poetic and the amorous acts; intimately, poetically, amorously, he is dumb otherwise.

Haiku # 444

The tree’s bare branch
bone-fingers jutting
out of the snow

Artist & Temptress

Let them search for you
in their socially acceptable
and well-ordered places;
I look for you in the dirt
since you are the essence
that makes everything grow.

But each gardener
has his own garden and dirt,
the poet’s, the painter’s,
the musician’s, the carpenter’s,
each artist courts you
in the way most endearing
to his abilities and heart,
and you are there,
a temptress in ever shifting forms,
enticing, luring, calling,
offering your body
as a sea to be crafted
(but can the sea be tamed?),
you are there
the flower of a love
that makes the journey worthwhile,
and the seed of the fruit
that makes your garden leap
from heart to heart,
that makes your sea flood
across the ages of mankind.

Tanka # 92

First winter snow…
here and there
the birdsongs,
fires scattered
deep in the woods.

Free Verse # 386 (my love for you is a faithful dog)

This life
rich in small moments,
a cup of strong tea,
how the jasmine
under the moon smells,
towards the end of winter
the sun on my face,
a lock of your hair
on your bare back,
poetry…

~

Your name
under my pillow,
a heart beating
all through the night,
each pulse a star
in my dreams quivering
with hope, with light.

~

In your presence
yesteryear’s dry branch
suddenly blooms,
water itself
burns with thirst,
and the flowers
without need for bees
spill pure honey.

~

This place
where I live…
an autumn field
soaked
in the dark rain
of your hair.

~

The moon
shines on and on
as though this night
can last forever,
you and me
a fleeting shadow
passing
into the dawn
of flowers.

~

The one poem we wrote
still shaking
the flowering branch
at the edge of dawn,
its fragrance
covering the earth
with a soft rain
of burning dew,
the insignia
of our breath.

~

My poems…
fireflies eclipsed
in the moon of her face

~

I pretend
to live my life
but in truth
I have been
in a train station
waiting for so long,
gazing into
the passing faces
searching for you.

~

I am a house
haunted
by the candle
of her absence,
all night all day
it burns,
and in my windows
its light aches.

~

My love for you
is a faithful dog
that will not leave me,
all day all night
it barks in my heart,
its racket
sometimes comes out
as poetry…

Haiku # 443

If for a moment
I can touch you…
how distant the stars…

~

Waking from the dream
in which I saw you…
the coldness of dawn

~

Summer, winter,
cock crow
at dawn

His Ink; Her Juice; Their Poetry

She laid there
surrounded by candles,
the inked verses
of past night’s lovemaking
sprawling like vines
all across her naked skin,
the bowl of grapes
placed on her belly
trembling each time
his pen pushed
into her, into the pink flower
between her thighs,
wanting her essence, he said,
her juices mixed
with each word he wrote
in his private journal,
and as the writing
became feverish
her mouth caught fire
and flared with moans
brighter than all
the surrounding candles,
brighter than the moon
peeking jealous
through curtains.
At the pen’s last stroke
the grapes
pressed between their bodies
burst like moans…

Haiku # 442

With so many wounds
my heart can very well be
a field of flowers

~

In a sea of clouds
my poem a kite
tied to your moon

Lovers’ Meditation; A Prayer

We sit facing each other,
wordless, our eyes
resting in contemplation,
attentive, listening
with all the primitiveness
of our blood,
listening to our breath
in its ebb and flow
weaving tighter
the life inhabiting us,
sussing the warmth
out of each other
as deeper and deeper
we inhabit each other’s bodies,
the internality of each
flowering in a moment
of openness,
flowering behind our eyes
and spilling into our hearts
a prayer-like knowing
as slowly, slowly,
the light accumulating
in the ponds of our faces
at last shines and spills,
our faces, merging,
from amid the silent hills rise
white as the moon.

A Hymn to Lost Childhood

The quiet
of a winter evening,
the church bells
tolling somewhere
in the days of my childhood
all around are falling
like white flowers,
the dew of their voices
burning with a question:
where have the days gone?
The faces vanished in the shadow
where are they now?
What poems have become
of their halos?
Is their laughter
still weeping into a mighty river
and converging with everything
in the heart of the great sea?
You friends who have wandered
far and away I miss you
with every note
of my bleeding heart,
I miss you
and I fold the petals of your laughter
between the pages
in the book of my days.
The fragrance of your faces
now rises like incense
in the air of the cold evening,
you burning grains of silence
from a time an eternity away,
between me and you
the gulf is insurmountable
though the field you live in
has my boots covered in mud
from walking it every day.
Tonight I wear my thick coat
and go out into your field again,
the field of childhood,
the field of every beginning and end,
and I smile and a tear hugs my cheek
as under a dry leaf
a star from that bygone time
smiles and peeks.
All is not lost, my friends,
and the laughter we shared
is still carrying us
into the heart of the great sea.
Let the days tear and bend and push away
we will have our day again,
and though our bones may rest
our day will outlast the last burning sun,
a flower in an unknown garden,
a stream in an unknown field.

Haiku # 441

Her savage ancestry…
in dawn’s silence
the moon’s white flower

~

Her savage skin…
under the full moon
a sea of waving flowers

~

In the dawn breeze
the falling dewdrops
too silent to be heard

~

Beautiful death…
all at once the camellia
giving her head

~

If death is white
flower-heads falling
in a pond of moonlight

Free Verse # 385 (tucking her hair behind her ear)

This poem
a river loitering
in a strange land
waiting for one glance
from your eyes
to begin its journey
into the heart of the sea.

~

Poems…
paper boats
across infinity
sailing
between you and me.

~

Photographer unknown

In the silence
of my soul
my poem
is a solitude sailing
on a journey
of no return
ever deeper
into you,
you
all the oceans
with one voice calling,
you the port
where my sail rests
in the house
of eternity.

~

Here I am,
it is cold again,
and in the white wind
my heart
is a red coal burning
with the fire
of your name.

~

Your breasts –
late autumn apples,
sun laden figs,
and my mouth
fed upon their milk
whispers in soft sighs
flower-poetry…

~

My poem
a fern branch
into your forest
of white silence
reaching…

~

On the silent ledge
above the sea
of dawn
I wait,
my hands
a poem of stars
ripening your name
into a dewy pour
on the eyelids
of the earth.

~

Night, rain, soul ache,
and the solitude of the world
sitting with you
as you read
to a burning candle
a book of poetry.

~

Breaths exchanged
over a book
and two cups
of jasmine green tea,
his fingers tucking her hair
behind her ear,
and their looks
in each other drifting,
birds flying through mist
over the endless sea.

~

A sudden heat
rose in her veins
as though a new blood
entered her;
somewhere in the distance
in the shade of flowers
his ink was burning
as it wrote her name.

~

The many books
still to read,
kisses to share
and poems to bleed,
before winter
the curtain draws,
and lays me to rest
in the white of sleep.

~

Mouth against mouth
let us drain
this poem-sun
to its last drop,
drunk and laughing
let us spin
this world sober
in the womb of our love.