Category Archives: small poems

Changing Notes (a Tanka Sequence)

Posted on by

 

My thanks to my friend, poet and editor, Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy for writing this tanka sequence, “Changing Notes,” with me. It was published in Kokako 29, a journal of the Poetry Society of New Zealand.

 

 Changing Notes

A Responsive Tanka Sequence

by

Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy (UK) and Mary Kendall (USA)

 

glass bangles
tinkling with laughter 
rice grains
strewn on the newlyweds
seeding a new dream

(SK)

 

such longing
month after month
turning to years
suddenly the emptiness
disappears

(MK)

 

the curve of his hand
cups the moon 
quickening
the one butterfly
aflutter in my belly

(SK)

 

watching
the fragile pulse
of his fontanelle
and those half smiles
in his milky dreams

(MK)

 

rocking horse
hither and thither 
the long curls
of sun-kissed memories
braided into birdsong 

(SK)

 

one day his son will chatter
in a different tongue
raven locks
eased into smoothness
. . . a new chosen land

(MK)

 

One frame at a time (tanka sequence)

Posted on by

 

 

 

aperture-art-blur-414781 pixabay

Photo: aperture art blur/Pixabay

 

My thanks to my friend and fellow poet, Iliyana Stoyanova
for writing this tanka sequence with me. 

 

 

Blithe Spirit, the Journal of the British Haiku Society, August 2018

 

 

ONE FRAME AT A TIME

A Tanka Sequence

by Mary Kendall (USA) and Iliyana Stoyanova (UK)

 

camera in hand
you tame the world
click by click …
living your life
one frame at a time

(MK)

the old album
asleep in dust
for all these years
the last two pages
stuck together

(IS)

so alike
everyone said
we could be twins
but then one day
a letter arrived

(MK)

through the open windows
spring wind…
by the ballerina box
my old ribbons tangled
like childhood memories 

(IS)

in my hands now
a forty-year-old picture
of an unknown aunt
a tiny birthmark
same as my own

(MK)

 

 

Screen Shot 2018-09-28 at 1.39.28 PM

Photo from Freeimages.com

 

My hand in yours . . . (two tanka)

Posted on by

 

Ephemerae,
July Issue 2018

 

how softly
the light shifts
from day to dusk,
the familiar comfort
of my hand in yours 

 

 

 

all morning long
the praying mantis
clings to a window screen—
my fingers less nimble                       
with each passing year

 

 

Screen Shot 2018-09-28 at 1.11.59 PM

Praying Mantis and the Moon by Watanabe Seitei

 

 

 

 

Wild apple (some senryu)

Posted on by

Three senryu and one haiga appeared in Prune Juice, Journal of Senryu, Kyoka, Haibun & Haiga, Issue 25, July 2018.

 

wild apple–
one bite is all
it took

 

inertia–
a thin coat of dust
on his burial urn

 

cloud cover–
darkness brewing
in daddy’s words

 

 

the sudden diagnosis haiga

 

My thanks to editor, Steve Hodge.

 

Screen Shot 2018-09-28 at 12.32.04 PM

Cover Art: Happy Monk by Jerry Dreesen

 

First time in “NeverEnding Story”

Posted on by

 

 

Screen Shot 2018-09-02 at 12.23.12 PM

 

 

My thanks to poet and editor, Chen-ou Liu, for selecting this haiku to appear on his Never Ending Story, First English-Chinese Bilingual Haiku Blog. The two Chinese translations were done by Chen-ou Liu as well. I am deeply honored to have this particular haiku chosen as a selection.

 

queen_annes_lace_side_01-07-14