Out Of Luck

That point in time when
Things start to go stale,
Green turns yellow or brown
The bad odds prevail
To pull you down

A Bit Of Advice

When in doubt,
Run in circles,
Scream and shout,
Or, don't do a thing,
And wait for whatever
Fate will bring...

Tokyo Dismaland

A day spent in the company
Of Mickey Mouse, and the
Expensive Silly Symphony
Of cartoons come-to-life,
Giving happiness, temporarily,
To those who would receive
It, from imaginary hand-drawn
Beings, in whom they believe...

Digital

I don't, or maybe I'm
Not meant to, understand,
Why there are four, not
Seven, fingers on my hand,
I mean, it all works fine,
Fingers and opposable thumb,
Quite an elegant design,
About as useful as they come,
Holding my bottle of wine...

Broken Then Fixed

When a plan fails
A solution can emerge
When balance prevails

From Within A School Of Fish

Events barely viewed or perceived,
From inside a constant moving
Influx, too much to be received,
Some of it gets retained,
To coalesce into opinions, or
Deposited as wisdom gained,
But most of it is momentary,
Unnoticed and unexplained...

Opening Night

I'm lost, in a room full of art,
And art lovers, milling about,
Trying to recognize beauty,
Before the Riesling runs out...

Behind The Strip Mall

Surviving without wealth,
Meaningless, disposable
People, dwell in stealth,
In worn-out trailer parks,
Lives passing in parabolic
Drug-sedated arcs...

Cocktail Talk

Good conversation, like a cow
On a path, never goes straight,
Pauses, and wanders in curves,
Never ceases to fascinate,
A badminton match of sounds,
Harmonize to communicate,
While staying in bounds...

Forgotten Devotion

A child cries out at night
Comforted by mother
Assured that it's all right
Whispers, sighs, back to sleep

And decades later,
No one around to take
Away the midnight angst
When I suddenly wake

Somewhere deep inside
Lost memories of
Nighttime nuturing hide

長い草

Green and sharp-edged
The long grass grows
Summer will soon pass
The long grass knows
And its leaves bow down
When the wet wind blows

Life Force

Out of nowhere,
Hope sometimes springs,
Can't explain why,
Just one of those things...

Hostage Horizontally

Helpless to stop,
What dreams keep
Video-ing,
In lieu of sleep...

夏至

After the rain, steamy and clear,
Trees drink up the sun's light,
On the longest day of the year...

Mean Green June

Stunned by the humid heat,
Lie on tatami, perfectly still,
Wish for a breeze to breathe
Across the windowsill,
Nothing to do but wait,
Perspire and evaporate...

Big Curve Ball

Life plays wicked
Nasty tricks on occasion
IRS audits
Mongol invasion
Viewed from above
And as a whole
Life is basically
Out of control

Immigrants

They, having come across and through,
All the barriers, unscathed, now
Staring, pondering what to do...

(Art by Mark Harm Niemeyer)

Thanks-taking

Turkey is cooked, cranberries deployed,
Now is null, before the appearance,
Of the guests we would rather avoid...

  

All Part Of The Process

Pick up the pieces,
Recover, surmount,
Time after time after
More, than I can count,
I concentrate on the fix,
Duct-taping solutions
As the big clock ticks
Away the hours, and
Minutes, lost in the mix...

戦艦大和

Beneath the waves of the East China Sea,
Sunk in desperate battle, many years ago,
Lie the gray steel and long lost souls,
Of the Navy Battleship Yamato...

Now fishing vessels drag their nets
To harvest what will become sushi,
In Shanghai, consumed under sunsets
Never imagined by the samurai sailors
Dying for the Emperor, with no regrets...

We Are, For Now

As we travel through our autumn days,
Each of us, towards our various ends,
We realize, as our memories fade,
The treasure of long-loved friends...

Hug them, keep them closely now,
For what lies ahead is known,
A steady, unforgiving, attrition,
Until one of us, is left alone...

No Refund Available

When a happy marriage
Is blessed by a priest
Money gets paid for
The clothes and the feast

When a broken marriage
Needs to be dissolved
Lawyers take money
From everyone involved

Through the good and bad
At the end if the day
It's the father of the
Bride who has to pay...

平役人

Japanese bureaucrat,
Well into middle age
Passive aggressive
Full of pent-up rage
Over the growing gap
Between his dull reality
And what, in his ego
Dreams, he wants to be...

Viewed From 60

It is some kind of Zen
Knowing shit will happen
Again and again...

Post Orlando

Politicians perform and preen
Not saying what they really mean,
They declare and they chatter
But it doesn't really matter,
Unlike the angry bullets
And the lives they shatter...

Lost Memorial

On a forgotten hill,
The three crosses,
Are anemic symbols
Of outrageous losses...

(Photograph by Geoffrey M. Hamilton, 1955-2011)

Beacon

Morning beacon, what do you proclaim,
So potentially dramatic, and colorful,
Yet this day seems just more of the same...

The beauty of the moment casts its spell,
How long it will linger, on this new day,
May be an unknown, too early to tell...

(Photograph by Geoffrey M. Hamilton, 1955-2011)