The Poet’s Life

A poet lives a lonely life
that he may shape birds
out of his own heart
that he sends flying
into the deepest forests
and over the highest mountains
to enliven the mist of the world
with the warmth of his song

Lost in the Wild

Away from the world,
I long to live in a little cabin
lost in the wild,
there to listen
to the heartbeat of the world,
to wait for the sunset and the dawn,
to be found by the forest,
to read and to write
not as a hermit,
but as a man who has come
to the essence of things.

Tanka # 214

كالنجمة الوحيدة
بقي الشعر في داخلي
،كل هذه السنين
أتبعه لأمضي
.على دربي الوحيد

This poetry within me
a lone star shining
through the passing years;
following its light I go
on my solitary path.

Poem for my Future Life

All I’ve got left
is this growing body,
in its dark depths
preparing the seeds
of a future life
I will not live,
fermenting the ink
for a new poem
that will be written
long after I’m dead.

Tanka # 179

This solitude
it grows around me,
waning like the light
of a candle
slowly fading away.

Abandoned

Who comes here where I live
On icy peaks of rocks and stones,
Abandoned and full of a grief
That calls for a friend I’ll never know.

Desolation breaks and buds
With flowers that smell of cold snow,
Star-breath, a space of emptiness
Fills my soul to its hollow bones.

وحدتي

لم يعد يعرفني أحد
،ولا حتى قصيدتي
ذلك العصفور
ضاق فيه القفص في صدري
،ورحل
زهرة الربيع على
الغصن الأخضر
تفتقت بذكرى
،لم تعد تعرفني
حصاد السنين
وحدة قاتلة
وريح كلما اقترب نفسها من وجهي
ذوت
وبذور حب
نبتت فوق صدر امرأة
.مجبولة بالسراب والألم

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Haiku # 541

Bien-aimée
à toucher ton visage je deviens
l’haleine des étoiles

~

Mon cœur
abime sans borne
où meurent les étoiles

~

Entre nos lèvres
le pacte invisible
des étoiles de nuit

~

This poetry that I write, addressed to no one.

By the autumn road
waiting for no one
I listen to the wind

Unfree Poet

In my solitude I live,
The mortal wound which the knife
Of dame poetry did give
Bleeds a sea around my isle.

‘Who would venture into me?’
In starry nights and lone dawns
My waves in rattling chains sing
The clutch of infinity.

What am I? An adventure
Though a prisoner I be,
And the dungeon holding me
Burns aquiver with dawn-light.

Unfree thoroughly, and yet,
You tears, you fire, I do bless,
And pray the ache in my chest
Spread you wider poetry.

Tanka # 84

Alone with the stars
and the soft murmur
of the distant river,
down below the city
will clamor till dawn.

Haiku # 401

Gece Manzarası, Neil Welliver

In the moonlight
a hermit sits
lost in the sky

Haiku # 397

One more dawn…
my heart a scatter
of leaves in the wind

Tanka # 81

Toute seule
dans l’immense nuit
elle est partie
chercher son ombre
dans l’ombre des étoiles

Tanka # 79

The day ends,
with a chest full of longing
I round my nest,
its twigs, tea and poetry,
its balm, silence.

Free Verse # 360 (unheard untouched unsean)

When spring shakes
his flowery branch and sings
do not wonder, that is me,
come back from the dead to show you
what it means to be free,
what it means to live
without restlessness and fear.

~

Her touch reminds me
of the deep presence
from which I was born.

Like a roaming ribbon of fragrance
her touch recalls me
into the heart of the flower.

~

People wish to travel places,
but this being with you
is all the places in one,
and your single touch
completes the journey home.

~

This heavy ache inside
at dawn a wound gushing
unheard untouched unseen
with the silent scream
of a distant star

~

Incarnate solitude…
heart become a bowl
welling to overflow
with the bitterness of tears

~

Since I cannot pen my joy
let me pen my tears,
into the heart of solitude
let my pen weep.

~

Can the world be fixed?
The silent jasmine,
The rising moon.

Haiku # 382

Paradise Lost By Joe Freeman

In the fog
the limbs of cut trees
wailing

Haiku # 381

Deep into the night
I tremble with the ache
of things untold

~

All the things I didn’t say
chipping my lips —
alone in the moonlight

~

All the things left undone —
in a puddle of moonlight
red leaves steeping

~

Soft rain on the snow —
a world of fog
blowing in silence

Tanka # 69

Year after year
My green tea
Darker and more bitter,
Growing old
With my books.

Haiku # 347

Winter of dreams…
in the frosty wind my poem
burning ash white

Haiku # 333

Solitary winter days…
the piano alone weeps
with the falling rain