Right Before February

Mutsuki morning,
Cloudy, bleak,
Covering the Sun
The Daffodils seek...

Gastrorific

Nothing alters more one’s mood
Than an encounter with
Some delicious food...

Bottom Line

What we really think,
We cannot always say,
Unlike the rich,
Who can pay to play...

The Way It Happens

Sometimes the best
Things a day can confer,
Have no reason,
They simply occur,
And the rest
Is just a blur...

Smart Birds’ Demise

Bitter cold in Saitama,
Black dots on the snow,
Each one a frozen crow,

No food to eat
Unable to fly
Crows at their end
Under a leaden sky...

Get Up Get Ready

Early morning
Round about five
The apartment building
Comes alive
Pipes pop and sigh
With flow and flush
As plebeians prepare
For a hard day’s rush

Different Strokes

Some folks will persevere
If given enough hope
Others will deorbit
If given enough rope

It Wasn’t New

History, you will find,
Is simply things
Repeated, recombined...

元日

New Year's sun warms
The peony tree
Its blossoms a pink lunch
For a wintering bee

Appreciate The Moment

Happiness is knowing luck
Kept things from getting bad,
Awareness of avoided pain
And not being sad,
Realize it's not often
To be had...

Ship Horns & Fireworks

Suddenly awoken,
Surprised and confused,
By New Years noise,

Back to sleep, bemused...

Maybe Better

Old year
One to forget
New year
Chance to reset

Revolutionary Event

Our orbit
Around the Sun,
This cold gray day,
Is almost done,
Ticking down
To when,
It all starts
Over again...

2000 Remembered

Seventeen years past Y2K
And if you don’t know what
That means, it’s OK
It was just another game
The computers chose to play...

Foreign But Good

Yokohama Hard Rock Cafe,
Music and burgers,
Costing premium pay,
Japanese invest,
And eat fried
Pop culture from the West...

Zen

The temple monk makes
Worries disappear,
Empties consciousness:
Nothing there, nothing here,
Float on a lake of null,
Quiet, empty, and clear...

New Reality

Squeezed out of the womb,
Into light, noise, and air,
Newborn bundled on a tray,
Blinking a bewildered stare...

Transition

Each Yule-time night
A miniscule  shift
Of darkness into light
A Solstice gift...

Breaktime

When it gets
Quiet and still,
A mind will unwind...
It always will.

買い物

In IKEA the crowd
Moves like a river
No sitting allowed

Shopping for a rug
Toddler clings on Daddy
Like a tree bug

Mommy is inspired
On the hunt
But he's just tired

大晦日の焚き火

Votives and charms, last year’s luck,
Are burned at the shrine,
In an old metal drum,
Fortune’s smoke wafts and curls
Up into what will become...

鳶

Seahawk circling up above,
I hold up something to eat,
There follows an unreal
Moment where our eyes meet,
Raptor-human contract made,
Seahawk dives to get its treat...

Seahawk soaring overhead,
Looking, hunting,
If I were a mouse, I’d be dead...

Natural Order

Man, plant, animal,
Nights and days dissolve,
Into the process:
Live, die, evolve...

Jedi

A long time ago,
In a galaxy far away,
The force performs
A shadow play,
Fight against the dark side
As the stars decay...

Pensioner’s Pleasure

The alarm clock gives a warning,
While I’m half awake in bed,
That it’s a cold Monday morning,
But I just go back to sleep instead,
And it’s here, under the blankets,
Where I will quietly abide,
While commuters deal with
The relentless rat-race outside...