immovable objects

growing older. two titans form in my mind. primary is the memory of everyone i have known as ‘friend’. so overwhelming it is that ‘counting’ is lost on me. all of the playmates of youth. the games both sporting and romantic. two marriages one of which i cherish completely to this day. the children both mine and the ones that make me ‘grand’. the scent of incense and peaceful reflection that flow through all of these.

but then there is loss. that war from early years. the struggles of sudden youthful deaths. beautiful memories that turn to tears. the bridge i have to cross some day in the future. in the most silent of ways. i wonder will all the memories come with me. will anyone remember me.

where i fit in
with others
potholes in a winter road

First published in:  Hedgerow!

the value in going over the line…

i firmly believe that the third glass of wine is the best. the fourth glass is good too and i highly recommend it to you. without it you will never know for sure that the third glass is the best.

sometimes
the future is already dead
moon viewing

First Published in: Hedgerow!

clarity overrated

some people like to nail things down. me i just wonder at the wonder of it all. good days. bad days. what are they anyway. sometimes the closest you are to anyone is the day they die. not to be morbid but there is no longer any expectations. no worry about what they might or might not do. only that peaceful reflection that comes when you place the last piece in the puzzle and can finally marvel at the entire picture. but even that is just a dream. in the end all the puzzle pieces go back into the box.

fog horn
but i already knew
about the fog

First Published in:  Hedgerow!

theory of poetry

i am at a poetry reading. i am sitting in the back of the room and my mind wanders. they read for another hour or so it seems. then the person leading the reading suddenly points at me and says

what do you think mike.

so i blurt out a question.

i wonder how far the closest Hard Rock Cafe is from here.

the sudden silence in the room stuns even me.

 

the parking lot
is full of cars…
i am a pedestrian

 

First published in Hedgerow!

miles davis was a haiku poet (yes he REALLY was)

yes. the previously sealed archives have been opened now. it is an established fact (like sunshine and rain) that every note he blew was a syllable in the trumpet language. long ignored by anthropologists this language has persisted for thousands of years. older than sanskrit is the speech of notes. first on hollow logs. then on branches hollowed out to become flutes. the industrial age gave us brass sections. and the electronic age synthesizers and override tubes for amps. but it took miles to put it all together for us. we can now close our universities and gather around a huge fire and recount our moments in the poetry of music.

winter rain
the piano man works
it into the tune

This was first published in Haibun Today!

Visionary Heat

I remember an old town on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas. You could walk across the river and buy amethyst from the children and hot tacos from their mothers. But at 2 PM every day, the town went silent in the heat. I learned the meaning and purpose of “siesta” from that town.

clinging
to the image of
a day moon

First published in Haibun Today!

Over the Top

The Mogollon Rim in central Arizona is a special place from which to ‘view’ the world. You can hike over 130 miles along the rim, with views of the treetops and clouds changing with your every step. Nature’s gift to us is our own senses with which to enjoy the beauty of an ever changing creation. It was a shift of the earth’s gigantic plates that created each precipice here that we use to view the myriad landscape. Who knows what the next shift will bring.

clouds race
chasing themselves
into new shapes

First published in Haibun Today!

terminal velocity

for H. Gene Murtha

you cant fire a gun at it. it wont die that way. i am not religious. never saw the point. and yet his cancer spreads. it must know that the success it has in him means the end of it. but it cant stop itself. when a poet dies the poetry remains. on the page but still full of whatever life you had right up to the end.

the further i fall into sadness the stronger the memories become. strangely i find solace in the sharp focus this pain creates in my mind. it is as if i can see through the veils of the universe. and there you are with a hint of a smile as your eyes slowly close. as if you were listening to Miles as his trumpet fades. hanging on to that last note.

waning crescent
i can see you
only in my mind

First published in Haibun Today!

two cigar day

i have thought too much. and now it is time to just sit. when the losses pile up it sometimes seems to burden your soul in a special way. not something you can define. not something you can share with others easily. so i will not do that. just smoke my cigars and watch clouds of my own making move away and disappear. i am sad in a way that does not have a healing.

getting older
the friends i have lost
getting closer

First published in Haibun Today!