Some Poems for Ukraine

.

 Two tanka recently published in Red Lights,
Volume 18, no. 2, June 2022

.

.

with ruins, rubble
and death on the news,
we learn their names—
Mariupol & Lviv,
Bucha and Donbas

.

.

image after image of
bombed out buildings and corpses –
far away in my corner, prayers
& more prayers that you will
always rise from the ashes

.

.

ukraine-gc49e105c4_640

Image by bookdragon from Pixabay

Lucid dreaming

 

Brass Bell June 2022

Theme: One line haiku

 ~ ~

lucid dreaming wild-eyed pansies glancing back and forth

~ ~

Screen Shot 2022-07-28 at 5.39.20 PM

Screen Shot 2022-07-28 at 5.48.34 PM

Screen Shot 2022-07-28 at 5.48.17 PMhr_70041134_4

~ ~

Note: All pansy pictures are taken from Pinterest. No specific photographers were listed.

Dark morning & wild winds

.sea-nature-bird-wing-white-seabird-1183211-pxhere.com_

.

Kokako #36, Spring 2022

.

 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.

.

.

seabirds drift on thermals—night becomes day

.

.

~~~

cassia, lady slippers,
dutchman’s breeches, rue –
my garden becomes
the one circle of friends
I find it hard to leave

.

 ~~~

.

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

Inner Life . . . (tanka)

 

The third (and last) tanka published in the latest issue of Gusts:

 

 

does inner life
start or end in the heart
     I heard it for the first time
in a deep red canyon,
that distant river of me

 

 

 

GUSTS no. 35, Contemporary Tanka,
Spring/Summer  2022 Tanka Canada

Imagination . . . (tanka)

 

universe-gerd altmann

Universe by Gerd Altmann

 

A second tanka published in the spring/summer issue of Gusts:

 

imagination . . .                                
the only place it’s always
safe to go and wander,                    
just the songs of stars
and sweep of ice-drifts

 

~

GUSTS no. 35, Contemporary Tanka,
Spring/Summer  2022 (Tanka Canada)

 

 

Spring’s soft greening (tanka)

Like so many other people, the year and a half pandemic has thrown my sense of time way off. I’m so far behind in posting newly published poems on this blog that I find myself now playing catch up.  I am both honored and happy to have had such fine journals select some of my work to publish in 2021. 

 

both of us relieved
we made it to this side
of the pandemic –
falling back in love
with spring’s soft greening

 

Published in Ribbons, Tanka Café, Spring 2021