the Date (a haibun)

I haven’t posted a haibun in a long while. Here’s one I wrote yesterday:

the Date

I turn towards the brambles—there’s nothing but twig skeletons, and dumpsters waiting for the undertaker. The bus driver takes a minute to shake off the drizzle from his hair, another to brush his moustache, take his jacket off, fluff the cushion on his seat, wiggle for comfort, secure his belt in, fix the mirrors to his eye level, chipping off three hundred or so seconds, splintering my anxiety. The sun would have edged to its zenith by now, the moon fading in its rims, and the bay inhaling air globules soon to heave and ebb. I’ve distended into a thin membrane of capillaries throbbing with a star, waiting for his name to come up in my mind.

 

mnemonic drill

the trench deeper

in sand dunes

 

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‘duayya’ (lullaby): taking a break from haiku to free verse

the birds will soon forget
how much the sun cradled the flowers
to bear the seeds
so easily borne
in the wind
so swift
to scatter to land
and bed and root
and be transformed

but for now the singing
heightens
each day as the sun begins
a lullaby
so unlike us
so unaware of our songs
we bloom and bed
and scour around
so we may seed
you and i
but fail to find a lullaby

so swift to turn away to forget
why we held hands in the moonlight

 Also posted at my other blog, inner spaces, at http://gimperial.wordpress.com

*duayya (lullaby in Iluko of the northernmost region of the Philippine archipelago, my native tongue)

new year/waiting on the moon

Original caption from NASA: "S103-E-5037 (21 December 1999)--- Astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery recorded this rarely seen phenomenon of the full Moon partially obscured by the atmosphere of Earth. The image was recorded with an electronic still camera at 15:15:15 GMT, Dec. 21, 1999.". Courtesy of wikicommons

new year

waiting on the moon

to bask in the sun

(Note:  current moon phase is waxing crescent or 38 percent full)

reggae (haibun)

So, why reggae when I could or must dwell on variations of winter? Even the sun has withdrawn to cuddle up with hibernating thoughts and fur-thickened limbs. It’s cold and damp and gray in my city everyday. Which is why perhaps, this morning I woke up with the sound of reggae on a basin in my mind, the kind you hear on Times Square in New York from the subway station on 42nd and Broadway to the corners of that triangle where Tickits booths stand.

reggae–
the sun dripping
on his basin

Always, a robust sun streams no end on the basin from which reggae artists coax notes to rise  like it were a constant season. But we don’t return after the summer or late spring.

catching a breath
his notes leave for the moon–
reggae

Or under a November sky, without the sun and the reggae artist, we would ourselves be lamenting.

reggae  the sun we can’t find

what doesn’t end? (reflections out of a haiku prompt)

damselflies
and mourning doves
the tireless sweetness
of chickadees
the languorous dusk
what doesn’t end?

even the sun ends
not of itself but on us
but where else
do meanings lie
but on the shades
that shrink or end
or burst open with our eyes

roses laugh
leaving imprints on whorls
their petals take shape
swallows glance
and in swiftness
understand what longings
we hide

our dawns to waxwings
mere duplicates
of first dawns
we cannot know
midday points to zeniths
we alter in each turn
our mindlessness take

somethings to a fly
we end too soon it savors
until in willingness
though yet undone
its life ends
even as it captures
with million eyes
the universe the way
we cannot

because we resist
somethings do end
as simply as each day

reflections out of a haiku prompt on ‘insects’ in the soon-to-come out August issue of Sketchbook

dreamscape and other haiku on space at NaHaiWriMo

shooting star–
wish I didn’t know
who you are

dreamscape–
where the sun turns away
and the moon rises

infinity–
vow before it’s broken

(not with NaHaiWriMo)

sky–
a breath cirrocumulus
leave for the moon

in the dark
streak of light behind windows–
someone waiting?

meanings on walls (for One Shoot Sunday)

graffiti in the Lansing area, Michigan, photo by Chris Galford

1. squiggles

your words mere
squiggles on walls
if but smiles
on dry leaves–
when clouds take over the sun
the butterfly dies

2. waves

on the wall
waves splatter a froth
the sky sheds–
is it rain?
our hand carvings on sea air
but the mindless moon

3. sky

we sip dreams
no one knows of what–
were it earth
it would roll
drums beating down on our sky
to give up the stars

4. ripple

heat seeps off
tips of lanceolate
promises
disguised flames–
in the waters a ripple
once a breath twice life

5. blue fish

ocean lure–
we dig for stone fists
to ripple
the silence
a blue fish whispers to me
a broken flower

Copyright © by Alegria Imperial 2011

Five ‘haiku-induced’ shadorma, a Spanish sestet or 6-line poetic form in 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllables per line–my first attempt at it–in response to the Picture Photo Prompt Sunday (One Shoot Sunday) from photos of Chris Galford of graffit’d walls around the Lansing area in Michigan and posted at One Stop Poetry, the inimitable gathering place for poets and artists. Check us out!

I was once her (for one Shot Wednesday)

who sits on the couch in the music room
lost in autumn hair, violins on a CD player
wafting smiles not hers, smiles of a piquant woman
her lover lost on the river walk that evening
briar roses crumbled on their steps shredded
foliage cushioned.

She sits on vacant clouds, eyes
hinting wakefulness on pools
the sun once mirrored
then drowned. The geese left no sign
that evening of the walk not even a note
to hold up to a sun sinking on the barge:
logs swayed on the water, old men rasped
scraping brawns the tide whittled,

bumping to the rhythm. She hears
her lover hum the tune,
a river whistling in the runes, flowing
infinitely like words in
a vow: in this and that state
no breath in between
but death. Not geese but iron flies
buzzing into her heart shattered

the pool that afternoon, shards of water
blinding her her lover saying good-bye, to fly
on blades that whirl not wings that beat
on air, to return an angel, breast beribboned
to preen to count those fallen
from his fingers.
She peers through her cloud this afternoon:
a river ebbing at her feet, touching

her wiggling toes, she giggles over
silly notes as violins rise, twirling
allegro on the river bank where she once sat
mourning over geese that afternoon
her lover returned a name
in a note unsigned, the lover

who once was mine.

Posted for One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry, the gathering place of poets and artists yet unmatched in calibre and talent. I’m a follower here. Do check us out!

under a wilting sky (for One Shoot Sunday)

'he never calls' photo prompt by Rob Hanson

notes you left on a wrinkled sky
that’s never blue always a heartless hue bruises
no sun can stand

shifts eternity imposes: no mere pauses—
your convenient absence these slashes
on tender paper you tore off the back of my palm

excuses I proffer—my veins throb so
in your presence—you deride lips smacking
on listless air my shroud

under a waiting sky, wilting
no one knows why

who but the heart
that knows knows when a smile
alights on a voice

who among the spaces senses
a smile as it wings its path to the heart
that knows

a flight quite swift aboard a voice still quite
mute its ring a sound only when it alights
on the heart that knows knows

what that smile knows knows its birth in the heart
only the heart that knows knows
why waiting

wilts the sky

Posted for One Shoot Sunday at One Stop Poetry from an image prompt by Rob Hanson in this inimitbale gathering place of poets and artists.Cenck us out. Better yet, hop in!

red (for One Shoot Sunday)

photo prompt by Walter Parada

the truth about red:

my heart is like a man’s
although it flickers not throbs
as the Sun I am absent at the zenith
but in living things i lend my flare

my color is red not gold
as Red i seep in or withdraw
i blossom vermillion in camellias, azaleas,
or metamorphose into the rose

when blossoms shed petals,
leaving a litter of brown scraps
i desert the flowers
or blaze in berries, persimmons—
when juiced i spurt red

after coupling with Earth
i, as the Sun, leave it with
fire for smoldering births

find me, Red,
on chipped off terra cotta bricks
a mitt of rust on stray feet
a red organdy dress
to lift the shroud off grieving
i drip red on tubs of basi
shared after evening prayers
flaring on a monsignor’s cheeks
chanting a Te Deum

i pull Red out of my chest
to cloak archbishops
in carmine the color of fresh blood
the blaze of martyrs
who bleed for others
drain their heart out

but locked in self
i dry out a heart turn it black
blood when it dries up
that’s me, a two-faced Diablo
the apparition sneaking in at night
death masquerading as love

a bouquet of red carnations on Fridays
seething trees through bumpy rides
a stone in the moonlight rooting on a mango tree
a branch for a splint on broken bones
a face bruised by kisses
scarlet spears in childhood dreams
your name on my breath
a deep breeze

i, Red, am also the Sun swirling down
on a violent hand
but soften on pink tulle over the fields
coaxing you to reach up to me
scooping you to turn in my arms
switch off your fears
to smoother you with my most tender tinge
i, the Diablo slung in your heart:
you‘re freed

*basi, fermented sugar cane, native wine in the northernmost edge of the Philippine archipelago.

Posted for One Shoot Sunday at One Stop Poetry where I can’t resist the challenge as the other poets and artists who congregate to share their love of art and poetry in this site. Check us out!