Haibun 110

singer in a rock and roll band

i should have learned to play the guitar. maybe sing a little or a lot. and learn music too. yeah that would help with all the other stuff. but if i had done all that then i most likely would be long dead. kurt cobain sang leadbelly and he died way too young. yeah best that i was a banker doing leases for a living. i guess it all worked out the way it had to. 

childhood
mirrored closet doors and
the shine from my air guitar

Haibun 109

at the end of the light

when the day ends. i have the dangling glow of the big dipper. i am watching stars whose light has traveled all day to meet me. turning around on the path i cant see the road. only black holds my eyes. keen senses will have to guide me.

journey home
i linger with slow breaths
in the woods

Haibun 108

dinner with socrates

i love the true debates of my youth. as a debater we were presented with two sides of an issue. build the dam. let nature determine the flow of water. we would study both sides. flip a coin and be assigned a ‘side’. during our preparation we had filled a large three ring binder with each flank of the issue. when you knew the argument assigned to you ‘flipped’ the binder to the side you had prepared for that case. often my own thoughts changed while exploring the ‘other’. then as luck would have it i would be selected to defeat my own personal beliefs. sometimes my own logical presentation changed me back to my original convictions. there is always data and logical arguments but there are very few if any ‘facts’. the heavens are less a mystery than our own views and constructions are to ourselves.

locked
in a prison of opinions
i stage a breakout

Haibun 107

how the poems come

they just appear. as raindrops on my glasses. you cant ignore them and they must be dealt with. either look through their prisms and discover new worlds. or wipe them away assiduously as you would a mustard stain on your new tie. oh and the lines drawn through imprecise thoughts lead the way.

weather report
i blot runny words
from my notebook

Haibun 106

frightened by time

just had a birthday. seventy two. so many people wish they had more time. well i have had more time than anyone expected. i remember vividly richard farinias book ‘been down so long it looks like up to me’. he died in a motorcycle accident shortly after it was published. ‘cult classic’ is what they call it. so young and he was just a passenger on that bike.

never ask why…
the stars in the milky way
rearrange themselves

Haibun 105

color wheel

when you take a photograph you are not capturing anything real. knowing that i fuck with my photos a lot. color. highlights. contrast. brightness. and my favorite ‘local tone mapping’. i love to pull my own colors out of the silicone air of a computer. there is no such thing as truth in an image. we have to make that up as we go along.

this present moment
stolen
from a past life

Haibun 103

visionary reality

the best side of me is not grounded in reality. my habit is to stretch what we call reality into something more. reality is a fabric of our making but to be visionary you need to see through and past these constructions. the fruit of a walnut resides within.

impossibly
rain fills the barrel
with a rainbow

Haibun 102

oracles and wishing wells

you see a lot of things if you live long enough. the politicians come and go. never saw a single one i felt i could trust. plans for liberty equality and fraternity fade into mindlessness destruction. but it does not get me down anymore. living life is so much more fun. it is just up to me and the rest of the universe to come to terms with my beating heart. engendering smiles and giving frowns only the briefest of moments. if you can just leave off the nonsense happening all around you then your ‘safe space’ just moves with you through the day. dragging the sun into the lives of others. been doing this a long time now and just sitting quietly watching the dust sparkles in the sunlight is more than i will ever need. i pet my cat and save the elephants of india and africa. enjoying the worldly nature of a hummingbird staring at me staring at him.

walk in the woods
holding my shadow
like a lover