This is the first of two tanka published in:
Gusts No. 36 Contemporary Tanka
fall/winter 2022
so many bodies in Bucha,
even more mass graves
are dug and quickly filled
. . . no mourners, no prayers
at the gravesite today
Category Archives: darkness poetry
Dark morning & wild winds
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Kokako #36, Spring 2022
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It’s always a joy to have the New Zealand poetry journal, Kokako, publish some of my poetry. For their spring issue, they chose a one-line haiku and two tanka. I hope you enjoy them.
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seabirds drift on thermals—night becomes day
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cassia, lady slippers,
dutchman’s breeches, rue –
my garden becomes
the one circle of friends
I find it hard to leave
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dark morning
filled with wild winds
that blow the birds awake
& by the crows’ swift,
and sharp reply
Bleakness . . . (haiku)
bleakness –
the lingering taste
of a bad dream
Blithe Spirit, 31.1 2021
burning anger
Moonbathing, Issue 23, Fall/Winter 2020
hot roasted nuts
heaped into a paper cone –
all that burning anger
you hold onto
so tightly
Photograph by Monika Topolko
As an aside, I am realizing my age is showing. Do young people today even know about folks roasting chestnuts (or other nuts) and buying a brown paper cone full of piping hot nuts to eat on the street? I first came across this in Istanbul when I was young. The scent, heat, taste on a chilly autumn afternoon was one of those moments that has stayed with me all my life. Europeans had this custom, but does anyone still do this? The fragrance was so tempting.
Chekov’s birch trees (haiku)
These pandemic nights (a tanka)
Moonbathing 22, Spring 2020
a faint train whistle
passing by at 3 a.m.
. . . the only normal thing
in these pandemic nights
that makes any sense
A Poet in Time 