初詣

Japanese going out into
The cold January air,
Thronging shrines
And temples everywhere,
Lined up to offer
Coins and a prayer...

Last Night, 12th Month

Might be hard for
Young ones to believe,
But I tend to sleep
Through New Year's Eve...

No more drunk in
The cold, instead,
Spend the occasion
Warm, in bed...

Some Advice

Precise is nice
But for most stuff
Better is the enemy
Of good enough

Karen

Long lost, her voice,
Contralto, silky smooth,
As if purposely
Designed to sooth,
Sweetly sung out
From a tortured soul,
With a flaw she could
Not fix, make whole,
Her songs, dear and warm,
Masking the pain, the cold,
And she was taken away
Before growing old...

   

Flexible Approach

If front-on
Won't do it,
Try sideways
For a better fit,

Head first,
Sometimes can
Be the worst...

Turn Of The Decade

So long to the
Pig, and all that,
Here comes the
Year of the Rat,
A new decade,
And promises
To be made...

想像の鉄道

Departing on track one,
Old mental train,
Bound for a ghostly
Station inside my brain,
Rolls slow, on rails
Inside the mind,
Where will it stop?
What will it find?

Epitaph

Home stretch,
End of the line,
Words left where
The sun don’t shine,
Lost in an undertow,
Somewhere below...

Theater

Proceed with planning,
Execution, of each event,
Excitement and creative
Energy, totally spent,
Too stressed to notice
Where the time went,
Then celebrate after
It ends in success,
Or soul-suck regret
When it ends in a mess...

Pub Flow

Drink, assuming
No going back,
Coca Cola and
Johnny Walker Black,
Just drift into
Your cul de sac...

Reflexive

Sometimes there
Is no choice,
But to give one’s
Feelings a voice,
And thereby
Exclaim, or notify,
Through a snort,
Laugh, or cry...

クリスマス

Lights shine and twinkle
Colors red, blue, and green,
Summon festivity from
Someplace unseen,
A holiday of myths
In which we believe,
Makes a random day
Special, this Christmas Eve...

Near The End Of 2020’s

Life seemed so peaceful,
Consumer-centric, civilized,
But then the agitators
Got things politicized,
Folks now spun-up, even
Some talk of civil war,
Kill to make America
Great like it was before?
Fear, anger, push-buttons
For partisan stimulation,
Distorting the essence
Of an immigrant nation...

冬至 2019

No surprise, I suppose,
Missed it while it was here,
Cold gray skies over the
Shortest day of the year,
In a Japanese town where
No Jutes or Celts will appear,
Unlike other parts, where
They will organize a feast,
Burn Yule logs, dance around
Stones with a Druid priest...

La Nausee

Regret mixed with anxiety is a
Feeling, starts behind the eyes,
Runs down the throat to the lungs,
Where it then sits, and solidifies,
Then taints each breath with worry,
No choice but to agonize,
Until the arrival of the cure,
No choice but to endure...

No Control

When facing nothingness,
Instead of fear, or denial,
Look squarely into the
Darkness, and smile...

Contemporary Civics

His obsessive
Poems and screeds,
Which no one
Actually reads,
Are getting harder
To ignore,
Than they
Were before,
And can’t figure
How or why
The volume got
Turned up so high...

Somewhere In Virginia

From the suburbs they
Pour out of their homes,
And start their commutes,
Deep Government gnomes,
Lined up on highways
As far as one can see,
Driving toward the swamp
In Washington D.C.

Getting Ready

Way too early morning,
Try to prepare, reflect,
While waiting for
The coffee to connect...

Jet Lag

Slowly drift away in
A place in between,
Where dark meets light,
Untouchable, unseen...

Unconnected

She tries to absorb him,
Looks into his eyes, his face,
He looks back, but his
Mind is in a different place,
And sensing he’s not there
She touches, strokes his hair,
Gently, to awake, impel,
Break him out of the spell...

Misled

The leader’s methodology
Was brilliant, and intense,
But ultimately brittle,
And devoid of common sense,
Yet, undeterred, things moved
Forward to the consequence...

Spouse

It started out all lovey
Dovey, hug and snuggle,
But thereafter devolved
Into a power struggle,
Completely unanticipated
From the start,
But relentless and real,
Till death do us part...

Nocturnal Wet

Cold December
Rain, falling at night,
Sustains no flowers,
Soaks out of sight...

竜頭蛇尾

Started out electric,
Determined, full of fire,
Then stumbled, and became
The subject of satire...

CNN Fox MSNBC

Constant news barrage,
Ultimately a bore,
The stories we all
Have heard before,
Variations on a
Similar theme,
Soon to become
An Internet meme...

Composition

String together thoughts and
Words, in a certain way,
The most important
Thing I will do today,
Words, like colors, painted
On a canvas white,
And empty, which then
Fills up as I write...

Auto-Repeat

Similar feeling days, pass in
Sequence, back to back,
Blend into each other,
And I can’t keep track,
As if I wanted to,
Or even needed to,
Things will just repeat
Until they are through...

Occupational Hazard

Fishermen take for free
The abundance offered
By the sea
But the ocean
Sinks them occasionally

東京湾日の入り

It’s like the sky and sun
Put on a scenic play,
For about 40 minutes
At the end of each day,
Creating changes, colors,
Up in the atmosphere,
All of it viewed with
Awe, from way down here...