in the deep (a play on sounds and shapes)
no other way but
to skinny deep here…see
even in the deep
the wind
pass the jelly (((-oo> please
whooshing )–oo>>>> water
even in the deep
the \V/ wind
pass the jelly <<<<-oo> please )–oo>>>> water pops
off the breath of a whale
my soul in the wind
under the wind
<shark eyelids>
as i, conger, riding the deep
solstice (a tanka*-ish reflection for One Shot Wednesday)
only in fullness
am I still–
i cast no shadow
as a rendezvous
dissipates into a sob
the wind flails
hapless
in the gingko twigs–
where perfection
encases feelings
if punctured
fibres
of wombs burst
water before blood
into birthing
a cry of rage
flags what a heart
hoards–
peace when it settles
lines its chambers
nothing like a Nautilus
the heart is but a pump
the fist opening
and closing
for fluids to flow
red colors
a river the heart
conjures–
layers of molecules
veil its nature
until the solstice
skids past its point
of stillness
wholeness is truth
until
a heart breaks
until a birthing point
reverts
to that first sound
that cry of rage
*tanka, sometimes known to be the precursor of haiku, is a 5-line Japanese poetic form used by court poets of ancient Japan. Scroll down for my post on this form in February.
Posted for One Shot Wednesday at On Stop Poetry where poets and artists of the most inimitable talents gather to share and support each other. Check it out!
The Bootmaker (for One Shoot Sunday)
photo prompt by Rob Hanson
He wraps his broadness
around the air he gathers in quiet
hands poking a wasp caught in a web.
Overhead a patch of sunlight–
he fails to see the breeze
brushing its plum seeds:
his eyes clouded over
for the flights of mourning doves
breathless as once they alit
on her gray hair whiter
than Venus rising before she flew off
leaving him a smile in a cast.
Mornings encase him in this chair
that moulds his spine arched in years
renews his fingers to love the iron last–
he fits today the dancing tips of a shoe
the red-haired woman tears each night
and comes storming in
her breath of fermented cherries
swarms on the leather swatches the jute strings
the hammer and anvil softening them as if
oiling the edges of buried embers
he bends as if cowering in fear as if
a female fox sears him with flaming eyes.
Her eyes waved on tips of ocean weeds
the first time she smiled pulling him
in an undertow of coral reefs
unresisting he yielded to her depths
softer than mollusk flesh
more supple than oyster cheeks.
She braids her red hair this morning
pulls tight her cheeks baring her teeth–
he knows from where she draws water
the well in the woods some elves abandoned
in the spring for an ocean
breeds red dragonflies that turn into wands.
In the pool under the elms
he waits at dusk long after the sun
has turned away long before the moon creeps up
as if shy for its stained cheek and curved chin.
In the wan light she rises over the reeds
afloat, a smile framed by her white hair.
Her red hair catches sparks
from skids of the hammer he blinks
she nudges him—words turn into grunts
from joints of his chair the weight
bearing down on his contracting heart—
“Come tonight I’ll dance for you.”
Her white hair catches foam
from far off billows, she swirls around him—
a braid of tenderness suffuses his darkness:
“Leave the welts on your table to melt in the night,
the lasts will walk away, your chair
will fold onto itself,” she intones lulling him.
She loosens her red hair
baring her neck down to the screaming lights
tearing her apart, her shoes bursting
at the tips, the soles flying
lost in the woods where the elves
now ghosts in the well catch and keep.
She knocks on her bare feet–
the mourning doves unfurl their despair.
She pushes the door open. The half light exhales
stale air from his chair. Up close his head bent
as if intent on her shoes–a spider web
wraps his beard, tighten his lips unsmiling.
(c) Alegria Imperial
Composed from a photo prompt by Rob Hanson and posted for One Shoot Sunday at One Stop Poetry, THE gathering place for poets and artists who share their passion for their art while nurturing each other. Come join us!
Shuffled seasons (for One Shoot Sunday)
photo prompt by Greg Laychak
The narrow aisle flows a river to a wall
Of white thought
What squares of light have no glow
On the surface of water?
Who spawns the flat bed of dreams my steps
Struggle to cover?
Imprisoned by air I breathe a stale paradise
Of jasmine blossoms
I hear the rain a hissing of limbs on trees
But the moon does not rise
Day ends at my door night turns the stars
Upside down
‘”Where is your walker?” “Excuse moi?” What tongue
Speaks in this land?
“You cannot leave without it?” “Why, who’s heading out?”
The grubs I picked wriggle
In my closed fist I am growing a butterfly
No one knows
In my bareness I feel drenched in dew my bones
Misaligned rattle
“Now let’s go back in.” “Who has left her?”
No one comes today
I draw a caul on the day withdraw into night
Retrieve what’s lost
The sign posts melt on the flowing river
My hair long undone
I shuffle the seasons: in my eyes autumn leaves fall
But cherry blossoms
Oh, he rises to me my cane I draw my arms a lover
Now my wings
Copyright (c) by Alegria Imperial 2011
Written with an image prompt by Greg Laychak for One Shoot Sunday at One Stop Poetry, winner of the 2011 Shorty Award for the Arts, the inimitable gathering place for poets and artists. Share with us as we do ours your art or poetry and your thoughts. Check us out.
Just can’t help it! Haiku can be love poems for me: posts from my wall at the NaHaiWriMo fb site, yes, it’s still on
#2.28b dawn
frosted dawn-
words hang
on his last kiss
(her in the original)
#3.5 partings
between her
and his goodbye—
sudden hail
#3.7 water, etc.
after his goodbye—
tossing tear-soaked tissues
in* street waste bins
*I later fussed over this preposition, citing my ESL brain taking over–in both dialects I spoke, Iluko, the one I was born with and spoke as a child (but with which I’m now writing poetry), and Pilipino, our national language I speak with as an adult and never did write with both–prepositions are not definite. So I think ‘in’ as I wrote it is wrong and added a rewrite of the last line as follows: ‘into street waste bins’. Alan took note, saying’ the rewrite made it prosaic’ and told me ‘to follow your instincts’ because the first one works better.
Just can’t help it! Haiku can be love poems for me. These were posted in the continuing NaHaiWriMo fb site, prompts by Alan Summers.
mirror/tangled vines/dawn (16th,17th,18th NaHaiWriMo)
16.
mirror-
she sees her flaws
in his eyes
17.
tangled vines in the snow–
our thoughts sometimes
18.
dawn
ripples on the water
as we speak
heron’s splash (published tanka)
heron’s splash
on river marsh rocking
the sound of water –
a mountain of wash
after he left home
First published in LYNX XXIII:3, October 2008
This tanka was first returned to me with a lovely note from the editor of a tanka journal, telling me to read more on the art form, work on writing it and perhaps submit again. She said though that first attempts don’t usually make it, nor the second ones. After reading a lot on tanka, I was convinced I wrote mine true to its form and so, I pushed my luck. I submitted the same batch to LYNX and lucked out on three of them getting accepted, one of them, the above.
Heart on wings (One Shot Wednesday)
Stone on my steps,
is it? But a sparrow
side-lain, staring
ending a flight quite swift
arrow-taut toward water
that fooled its foolish heart.
How could pea-eyes
know traps between air
and sky could seem nothing?
Tiny hearts spurt sighting
their longing–to a sweet sparrow
wings on water.
Flitting straight on,
heart on wings
the water a beak within–
except that glass
is also water.
I am posting this poem for One Shot Wednesday at the One Stop Poetry blog.
Join us – throw in your verses. Here are the rules (taken directly off their blog):
1. Write a poetic piece & post it on your blog
2. Then let us know about your post. Link back to One Shot
3. Sign up in the Mr Linky list, linking directly to your post, AFTER you’ve posted it.
4. Go visit others who have signed up! Offer support & encouragement. Share your love of words and insight respectfully. Please try to visit as many participating poets as you can. We all could use and appreciate kind feedback.
About
autumn wind
wondering about lilies
in a mountain pond
Tell me a writer who really gets a satisfying jornal, in Spanish a daily wage or its equivalent, and I’ll bare a spirit in constant bouts of doubtfulness. Does a writer earn more because of what he writes and how he does it? Or is a writer paid more or less because of who he is? Is it money or honor he expects to receive?
Ahhh … but money as wage, and praise or honor as reward would be too predictable, too common as Job lamented in the Book of Job. It is in these lines that read: “Is not man’s life on earth nothing more than pressed service, his times no better than hired drudgery? Like the slave, sighing for the shade, or the workman with no thought but his wages, months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief. Lying in bed I wonder, ‘When will it be day?’ Risen I think, ‘How slowly evening comes!’
Restlessly I fret till twilight falls. Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle my days have passed, and vanished, leaving no hope behind. Remember that my life is but a breath, and that my eyes will never again see joy.”
Not money but joy is the ultimate wage as the passage implies. And joy is not hard to earn for it is in everyday life if we have eyes to see, a nose to smell, fingers to touch, ears to hear–a heart beating. This to me, is how a writer earns a daily wage. His wages then take the guise of treasures his heart can transfigure into a universe of thought that taps into other hearts, that causes a swirl in the depth of other souls, or that makes wings to sprout on leaden heels.
Sometimes not joy but rueful, poignant moments are my pick. Take what I earned once: On my walk home in my neighborhood, I caught two clumps of snowdrops–such tiny blossoms smaller than fingertips that do not look up but shyly droop close to black patches on the ground winter has frozen. That afternoon in the frosty wind, they trembled as if ready to turn away and run but how could they? For that poignant moment on seeing the wintry rain beat on the fragile snowdrop–as if pushing it to go home now, go to sleep–I earned my jornal, my daily wage.
Once on summer walk, the crackle of dried leaves just hit me both like the laughter of children and sobs long suppressed. Neither one of them would resolve the dryness, but I recalled how each does bring tears: laughter for joy, sobs for healing that comes with the release of a dammed-up pain. My jornal that day came as two haiku.
Fall has since shortened the day and the heart begins to crave for lost space that it doesn’t even recall which or where. I feel that most treasures have turned into mush so much so I wouldn’t be able to sift them off the ground. Yet I caught the dying day yesterday–so glorious in the gold of autumn it opened a flip side of serene heaven. Blades of grass coated in diadems of rain that carpet the lawns render royal walks poor by imitation. A burst of red maple against an inky blue sky humbled me, a soul bragging about her skill to recreate beauty in words.
I suppose I’m taking Job’s reflections to heart. I’d rather not gloss over each day and look beyond what’s there, right before me, or else fragile as is my breath one day “my eyes may never again see joy” to write. With what then will I compare the eternal joy, the ultimate wage I await?
Yet for now, as other eyes hanker to make the invisible visible, I put a tag on some moments of joy. Like on seeing the snowdrops, I paid myself $200 as my jornal.
What could have been yours?
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