So many bodies in Bucha…

 

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

 

 

 

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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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 ~~~

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dark morning
filled with wild winds
that blow the birds awake
      & by the crows’ swift,
and sharp reply 

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)

Presence,

Issue 68, November 2020

sleepless nights

     Chekhov’s birch trees

become our woods

Photo by Peng Chen on Unsplash

My thanks to Peng Chen for this beautiful photograph of white birch trees.