February 29 Tanka

The frog leaps highly
in all the years of the rat -
a gorgeous high jump.
An Olympian gameshow
of theatricals it is.

Mood indigo

A fool's tirade
or a gambler's arcade?
The first's serenade
against the second's masquerade?
All a big charade
in the world man-made.

Smothering

when mothers protect
their offspring too much
we neglect to let them fail
in motherly smothering
in the name of our love
a child just derail'd?

Virtute et armis

Thousand ships launched
for a beauty of a face
Thousand rockets hurled
for a true just cause
Thousand stones thrown
for an innate sacred right
Inhumane humanity
in vain - only vanity

Hamlet's dilemma

belated
updated
rotated
debated
negated
indicated
to be
syncopated
or not

Chance encounter

unknown poet-man
admired an essayist
found a tome of his
read it quite avidly.

unknown fellow-man
a solid worldly view
quiet happenstance
a fab allegorist.

On reading one of Christopher Hitchens's
books on an unknown man's recommendation

All clowns

Clowns clean faces
front the world
with its own idosyncrasies.

American senryu

feeble foible
2. amendment
kills - right?

Hopeful haiku

Little white snowdrop
hearty herald from brown dirt
spikes imminent spring.

A comment on the world!

Mundane mutants
of regrettable sorts
fall over each other
to properly comport.

A funeral

tomorrow will be white
then brown,
fertile dirt, dark,
full of worms and life
the coffin with the body
will mingle well
mors ultima linea rerum est

Icerain

How very germane
that the weather
adheres to
my mood.
Icerain.

A choice for a woman

In her cape lined with bear fur
the Volva Vigga wandered aimlesely
in the woodsland she used to feel
safe and secure and stable in.
This had been six weeks since
her vicious vitriolic violation.
The healer she had sought healed
her beaten, bombarded body so-so.
Her sister Sophia who had come
soon after sat with her for seven
despairing days and seven sad nights
talking and reading to her from
their grandmother's old diaries.
These leatherbound parchments
bore witness. A child's rape.
Gruesome reading it was
and somehow their granny got through -
but only when Grosswolf was knifed.
The steel from Toledo well sharpened
had sheared the perpetrator's neck.
The woodsland fey had made sure
that the hushed hut was enchanted,
so Vigga the Volva could rest
and get her bearings, alas not brought.
She would remember till her dying day
the victimization of her true self
and the total helplessness towards
the power of the cruelest brutality.

Vividly she replayed the rape in raw visuals.
Not being able to stop the pounding
hit her womanhood with such frustration.
She was perfectly and purely powerless.
How could she live on? Facing real reality
she wringed her slender white hands.

Her bosom had started to swell
Her nausea nipped her in the early dawn
Her missing monthly female flux -
Vigga the Volva wanted to weigh
the various ways of her crucial choices
something that any woman would do
in her strenuous and sticky situation.

She was not as young as she pretended.
In her womanly prime she would weigh
the prime possibility of ever carrry a child
or elect to bear the vicious rapist's copy.
Her delicate dilemma was not easy.
She came to the little brook she so
often had gathered healing herbs for fey.
Staring at her self - an image of healthy woman
in the water she was asking herself,
could she truly come to love the child?
In truth - she sighed - she could not.
She would always both see her perpetrator
that face was engraved with a rage so bound
in hatred and think of her own helplessness.
One thing she wanted for a child of the earth
was happiness from within, and she could not....

Having mulled over the rippling waters
she sighed and started to warily walk
towards the healing woman's hut.

Vigga the Volva had made her choice.

My brother

The chain is broken -
a link to a past gone,
vividly remembered
for his humor and joy
his politcalized talk
inspiring his friends.
No doubt about it -
a wonderful husband
and a great father
and a fun grandad.
Wanting the world
in his own special way
and he designed it so.
Alas, memento mori.

Common Cold

the common cold
turns and twists
in nasal cavities;
can doctors find
a cure for these
vulgar calamities?

Thoughts on Super Tuesday

American woman
to vote for a woman president
is to embrace herstory.

If this is gender bias -
then this is the time
to change hisstory.

Woman to vote
for a smart woman
is a vote for herself

Why?

Why, she asks,
did he leave?
Why, she asks,
did he leave me?
Why, she asks,
did he leave me and the children?
We had a family.
Why, she asks,
did he change?
Why, she asks,
did he change after 30 years?
Why, she asks,
did he change to have a new mistress?
We were a family.
Why, she asks,
couldn't he talk?
Why, she asks,
couldn't he talk to me?
Why, she asks,
couldn't he talk to his children?
We would have been there for him.
Why, she asks,
did he buy the house?
Why, she asks,
did he say he wanted the house too?
Why, she asks,
did he all of a sudden change and we did not see it?
We could have worked it out.
Why, she asks,
do I still love him?
Why, she asks,
do the kids still love him?
Why, she asks,
does he destroy our family after 30 years?
Why? she asks.

wild haiku

Wildebeast - wombat
in the noisy savannah
willingly abide.

mask for peace?

tired mask
of civil conduct
rips rationale
for mortals.
in short:
no civility
no ability
for peace.