Himawari & Tetsujin

Sun flower,

Solar power,

Life juice for robots.

Huntress Erin In The Mountain Brook

She lofts the fly into the stream

Expertly, it lands,

And she makes a wish

That the lure, so carefully crafted,

Will fool a fish...

In the end,

The result was never in doubt,

The fly was too much

For the hungry trout.

Prehistoric Perennial

Spent the last seven months

With a mouthful of dirt,

But it's all good now,

Nothing bent, nothing hurt,

As I poke my green

Limbs out of the ground,

And suck in the fumes

Of spring all around...

I'm the scion of spores

From the time of the dinosaur,

Sprouting back from the spot

I was cut-down before...

All hail the return

Of the hard-luck fern!

Baby Boomers

Hell no, we're not too old for that,

Not too frail, or not too fat,

To roll around on the grass again,

Like we used to do, way back when...

04:30 AM -- I'm supposed to be asleep...

Half awake, rest destroyed,

In a murky, troubled, sleep;

Tribes of toxic trolls deployed

Into the tangled dreams I keep

Where they proclaim "It's party time!"

And then they scrap and dance and leap...

West Of Tripoli, May 2011

Kneeling in the cruel

Libyan desert, the men

From all walks of life,

Practice firing again and again,

At a tyrant they hope

To send to heaven,

Through the barrel

Of an AK-47...

Break Time

Drying on the back of my head,

Drips of honest toil-sweat

Evaporate, and thereby dry

What once was working wet...

Wet which cools the times I try

To lighten step-by-step the debt

I owe the gods, but know not why...

I can't give up -- not now, not yet.

Insect Ballet

Three butterflies suspended in the air,

Flying in a magical close formation of shifting

Triangles, a quiet fluttering wing-dance

Inter-weaving, blacks and blues, lifting

On an angel's breath of a breeze,

Upward into the green tree, drifting,

Leaving me below in the moment's trance...

Shower Power

Bracing morning

Of an unsoiled day,

Full of hope!

No better way

To start, than with

A fresh bar of soap.

Sonic Beauty

"Moonlight Sonata" playing

Peacefully... written

By Beethoven saying

Something mystically

Many years ago, smitten

Then by the silver light,

Which also shines on me tonight...

Where Did It Go?

Looking back, through my mind

At a week of my life

Is there something enduring to find

In the trailing twist of smoke

Of the past which swirls to unwind

Into things forgotten --

A vacuum both deaf and blind

To what could have, should have

Been recalled...

Leaving me dyspeptic & appalled...

Commuter

Balancing on the edge
Of a seat on the train,
Semi-awake, exhaustion
Dopes the pain,
While the track
Clickety-clack
Clangs a relentless refrain...

Vernal Feel

Temperate and damp,
See Spring, smell it!
From fifty eight shades of green

Random Thoughts From An Addled Brain

A baby wakes

Alive the mother's arms...

Who sits at a funeral.

- - - - - - - - - -

You are drunker

Thank you think,

When you wake up

Peeing in the sink.

- - - - - - - - - -

This week,

My economic fate,

Is largely dependent

On the yen exchange rate.

- - - - - - - - - -

Running emphatically out of the door,

As if she'll be seen no more;

Then later, she's welcomed back home,

No longer angry, no longer alone.

- - - - - - - - - -

Tasty and healthy is

Chicken soup,

But oat bran is better

To make you poop.

Into The Ether

The talk radio host launches-off

A beautiful string of words, which fly

Out from the station, and into the sky,

And from there into outer space,

Where they eventually land someplace...

The Endless Staff Meeting

Burnt-out, tail-end

Of the office meeting,

Can't even pretend

To be interested...

The energy sucked out of the air,

Leaving limpness, indolence,

Almost inducing despair...

Salary-Man SENRYU

SAKI O YOME

YOMERU WAKE NAI

SAKI GA NAI

- - - - - - - - - -

Plan for the future!

But no way to plan

No future either

FU-KEIKI DE

SHU-KATSU AKIRAME

KON-KATSU E

- - - - - - - - - -

Bad economy

Give-up job hunting

Try wife hunting instead

WASURE-MONO

MUKASHI WA "CHUU" DE

IMA WA GOMI

- - - - - - - - - -

"Honey, you forgot something"

Used to be a kiss

Now it's the garbage

SAIBAN-IN

TAKARA-KUJI YORI

SAKI-ATARI

- - - - - - - - - -

Instead of the lottery

What I win is

Selection for jury duty

HATSU MAGO GA

JUKU-NEN RIKON NO

YOKUSHI-RYOKU

- - - - - - - - - -

The first Grandchild

Is a deterrent

To a gray-haired divorce

TAMATTA NA

O-KANE JA-NAKUTE

TAI-SHIBO

- - - - - - - - - -

Finally saved-up something

Not money though

Only body fat

WASURE-NU YO

"MEMO"-SHITA KAMI WO

MATA SAGASU

- - - - - - - - - -

I'm trying to find

The note I wrote

So I wouldn't forget

Old Market, Omaha, 1978

Walking off my pain,
And the cobblestones, reflective
Under the tumbling rain,
Mirror the neon light beams
Shining down on the city street,
Where shadows breed, grow, and meet
Mingling with puddles and streams...

From a window, opened up above,
Music drops with the rain,
Staining each moment, each further step,
With memories of love,
With the haunting verse
Of a half-forgotten song...
Remembered for an instant,
And then mathmatically paled into obscurity,
With distance traversed.

Emergency Along The Japanese Sanriku Coast

Didn’t you hear the siren, the claxon, the bell..!?

Chaos and destruction are approaching

Like a bull-dozer of death from Hell…

The earth starts to shake, with panic encroaching

Into the formerly well-ordered-stable peace

We considered our birthright, our world

Of commerce and fun, where comfort’s increase

Was assured over time, and assumed

Would continue, until a subterranean tectonic crease

Shifted and released the violence which will now consume

All that lies before it -- perhaps sparing our lives…

So hear the siren scream, the claxon squawk

The loudspeaker stressing “Run! Don’t walk!”

And we scamper and limp toward the higher ground

As death’s brown dust billows all around…

We, who now we realize, were the fools

To ignore our ancestors’ warnings not build

On the low lands by the sea,

Which, after the black tsunami has killed,

Will be nothing but rubble and pools,

Testament to the fierce power of Nature,

And its incontestable forces and rules…

We who, wet and shivering, must now

Find a new way ahead, somehow…

Sunday Afternoon Farce

Every pot his its lid,

Even those pots

You think would not...

Every parent has a kid,

But so do goats,

And pigs make shoats...

Every ego has an id,

Nature's tricky way

Of passing on one's DNA...

Every day has its night,

And you can't dream through it,

Try as you might...

Ear Buds...?

I feel lonely, isolated,

Stuck in a boredom vacuum

Without ear-buds mated

Firmly between my skull

And my I-phone,

Or one of its clones...

Poor, poor insatiable me,

Without my fix from the Cloud,

It's unfair and unholy, dude,

Like "no fun allowed"...

I'm crashing-mental affected,

I can't be disconnected...!

Kindle

Nine hundred fifty eight

Literary masterpieces

On my e-book reader,

But no place to re-charge...

Upon Viewing "Avatar" For The 1st Time

A classic Western movie,

Where the Indians

Are big and blue

- - - - - - - - - -

Living in trees

Must be cool,

But where do you poop?

- - - - - - - - - -

Certain very big & old trees

Are revered in Japan,

Called: Shin-Boku (god trees)

- - - - - - - - - -

Couldn't help it, but

With Sigourney Weaver on-screen

I kept expecting the ALIEN monster

To jump out of someone's chest

- - - - - - - - - -

I wonder if when I sleep

Someone gets out

Of a control box somewhere...?

Am I an Avatar,

Or am I in the Matrix...?

Will I ever end-up being

A traitor to my race...?

Glass Half Full

There's a cost to interacting

With people, through the course of a day,

Which comes from the friction

Of lives rubbed against each other,

In every which way...

An unavoidable infliction

Of mundane bruises and bumps,

But also hugs and miracles

Which bring smiles, as we take our lumps...

Don't Go To Them For Comfort

Highly intelligent engineers

Are paid to analyze and think,

Yet they cannot calm your fears,

And their bedside manners stink.

Science, facts, and objectivity

Are cast aside by feelings

And adrenalized relativity...

Engineers so honest in their dealings,

Refuse to to defuse uncertainty,

Driving the masses to panic and drink,

And their bedside manners stink.

Smart people like them

Would know to act better,

You would think...