Double Tanka

he did not say yes 
or no, but left with 
the quiet breeze 
she’s pleading with the rain 
to get a reply 


fungi clustered 
at the base of a tree trunk 
could there be 
a tinge of poison 
rooted in her words 

Still the Greenhorn

You know it bleeds
to brood upon my own verses

How many times can a man suffer
from such fanatic spells of creativity

How can he possibly pass on
the products of his
all possible word-scrambling sessions
and merrily go on teasing the hapless reader

you in this case

Yet it bleeds
And it grieves me to ask you a favour
to place your arms around me
for a journey

One weeny beggar towing his wishes
to the bow of his violin

If we cannot find him
we might bump into the den
of a sycophant
a parasite living on its yesterdays

We may even chance to meet
a sweating Santa in summer

Or we may travel anywhere
with the puff of a weed

It is still bleeding my friend
and I do not know
whether my writing possesses
the fibrinogen to clog the flow

So yet again it is this hackneyed plead
of a self-obsessed narcissus
who needs you badly
in the hour of his crisis

in his empty mirror

Haiku

the bent tree
in a storm
my grandpa


her cold look--
my first sip of
ice tea