January Moments

In my dark garden
wind chimes clang faintly, I breathe
the smell of the sea.

Steamy nights

on this tree-thick hill;
my grey cat 
sits silent 

on the top step, keeping guard

while we toss in heat.

Like my cats

the plants are very still
this hot morning.

The heat revs up
as the morning brightens.
What time today
will humid rains kick in?
Summer at full throttle.

Downpour.

At last a bud
on the rosebush.

Quiet –

the rain pauses
waiting.

Trying to come up with a poem for the new year, and uninspired, I looked through several years of micropoetry written in January, selected one from each year (with a bit of tweaking to some, on seeing them anew) and found that they could be read as a sequence. 

Tan Renga for Jane

At Carpe Diem, in honour of the late Jane Reichhold, we are asked to add two lines to some of her haiku, in 'tan renga' – which I found challenging, because I learn that the idea of tan renga is to associate on one aspect of the haiku, not what it says as a whole. My associations are with  the middle line of each, except the final one where I associate to the last line.

morning breeze

coming in the window

surf sounds                                              © Jane Reichhold

scents of briny ocean

and the shrill calls of gulls                      © Rosemary Nissen-Wade

*

without lights

the brightness of a blue sky

full of stars                                               © Jane Reichhold

the white swathe of milky way

superimposed like a cloud                        © Rosemary Nissen-Wade

*

balanced at dawn

a full moon slides into the sea

without ripples                                         © Jane Reichhold

the sun melts upward smoothly

from the opposite horizon                        © Rosemary Nissen-Wade

*

stars bend down

into the wind of whitecaps

morning light                                           © Jane Reichhold

the stars gradually fade

sky and water brighten                             © Rosemary Nissen-Wade

Written for Carpe Diem Universal Jane #16 Morning Breeze
Also linking to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #352

Paulownia Trees – tan renga

A tan renga for Carpe Diem: the initial haiku is supplied (in this case it is by Nozawa Boncho); we are invited to add two lines.  This one was interesting for me, as I have some old history with paulownia. Here are my two efforts:

from the paulownia

without a breath of wind--

falling leaves

remember that house

where they used to grow?

*

from the paulownia

without a breath of wind--

falling leaves

so many years ago 
we planted those trees

The Child Listening

the child listening 
to the flower with closed eyes
doesn’t know he’s dead
already and the flower
also dead whispers of life


For Day 7 of April Poetry Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads', Let's Paint a Picture, we are invited to write a tanka on a painting by Kaoro Kawano.

The image is from WikiArt and is used according to Fair Use Principles.

I usually don't worry about strict syllable count for tanka and do worry about other traditions; this time it's rather the opposite.

I wanted the small ambiguities (which may be too small to be seen!).

Yes, I was thinking of the children's deaths in Syria – but I am sadly sure they would not have been so gentle as my poem implies.

Thin Cries

heavy rains 

and me all alone 

without you

all my tears unheard

in that louder storm

Notes:

Title:
I play on the name of this new form,

created by the inventive, innovative

Magaly Guerrero: Thinner Tanka.

Line 1:

I call on nature 

I call on my home

I call on the truth of now.

Lines 2 and 3:

Not only alone

in the storm (has she cover?) –

more alone without

that one, longed-for lover!

Lines 4 and 5:
Tears go unheard

by the one they mourn,

not merely drowned

by the flooding storm.

Arising simultaneously from a prompt by Kerry O'Connor: Literary Excursions ~ Annotations at 'imaginary garden with real toads', in which the annotations are necessary to and even part of the poem, and a conversation on facebook with Magaly Guerrero about innovations to traditional forms. (She was thinking about trying a 'thinner tanka' with reduced syllable count of 3/5/3/5/5, and I couldn't resist the idea.  Dear Magaly, I hope it isn't mean of me to leap in ahead of you – if indeed I have – and I hope you don't mind me 'outing' you as creator of this kind of tanka!)

Erotic haiku / senryu and tanka: February 2016

your strong body
in my arms again –
you fill me

***

the smell
of your warm flesh
and the taste ...

***

a long time
between drinks – here now
I drink deep

***

you uncurl
and stretch your long limbs
exposing
the magnificence
I love to stroke

***

no need for touch
the mere thought of you
and I flower

***

I lick your skin
your nipples harden
I feel you swell

***

your hand stroking
my breasts and belly
heating my blood

Bits and Pieces

Some micropoems from my files, which it seems I haven't posted here before (arranged in alphabetical order by name of form, not by date of writing) –

Erotic haiku:

our soapy hands

as we shower together

slip and slide

1/8/15

he bends his head

I stand on tiptoe

our first kiss

3/8/15

(No need for curiosity, dear readers; there's no-one new. I write my erotica these days from memory and imagination.)

Gogyoshi:

so many clouds

plump and round

and apparently rollicking

over their big blue meadow —

kids in a playground

2/8/15

Senryu:

cold morning 

waking to back pain

and cat on bed

21/8/15


aqua-aerobics

I float in warm water

emerge wiped out

23/10/15

Tanka:

the rain stops

the stars are still dark

blanked out

the night’s loud silence

pierces like a scream

7/5/14

Even with 

the toy teddy bear 

beside me,

I fail to sleep –

until I clasp it.

18/8/15

on holiday

I begin to lose me

in the new

until this morning

I make a poem – ah!

25/8/15

I reach up

pull off and crush

a thin leaf

inhale the tang

of eucalyptus 

we do this 

starting in childhood

we Aussies

instinctively

breathing in home

26/8/15

like water

the light slants down

pouring

like silver rain

on your shining face

7/10/15

Tilus:

long grief, then all at once

I reclaim

me

9/6/14

the small cold days come down

I winter

lone

12/6/14

Linking to the Tuesday Platform for 1 Dec 2015 at 'imaginary garden with real toads'

Drawing Lesson: Orange

using charcoal

I make a tree of dreams

black white and grey

then I add orange chalk

to bring my dreams alive

song-birds in the branches

*** 

feel your way she said

desire is born of orange

today we create

an emotional landscape

let it be messy and fun

***

I pressed hard

for black and colour

then I smudged

the finger-soft grey

and left some stark white

the orange sang loud

At dVerse just now we are looking at Japanese forms which can be seen as non-identical twins: the tanka and the bussoku-sekika (which has an extra line). Mine are two bussoku-sekika, each in a pattern of short and long lines, sandwiching a tanka with a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable count. 

These are variations on a theme: my drawing attempts today based on my friend, artist and art teacher Sharyn Willliams's blog. Have a look; she has very interesting things to say and show.  

(Tanka and bussoku-sekika are usually untitled, but this blog post seemed to need an overall descriptive label.)

Linking this post to Poets United's Midweek Motif: Energy, Vitality

Entering the House of Death

This wet Spring night
I cross the dark threshold

to meet with you –

a union more intense
than our Beltane revels.

A Jisei (death poem) which forms a companion piece to an earlier one, as well as marking a personal Pagan ritual.

Linked to The Tuesday Platform for 10 Nov. 2015 at 'imaginary garden with real toads'

All winter: Tanka for August and September 2015

another day

without your eyes

your voice

your quiet movements

your huge presence

13/8/125

yesterday

we were all singing

forgetful

of time or our tasks

it was a party

16/9/15

all winter

my bed was a nest

inside a cave

the room full of books

my warmth and safety

30/9/15


Few and disparate, these from the last couple of months! Linking to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #272

At the end ...

At the end
I’d have your eyes, your voice
your hands on me
to soothe and reassure –
had I not outlived you.


A Jisei (Japanese death poem) in the form of a tanka –
written for a dVerse prompt. (They can be written as haiku too.)

Now I can speak: Tanka, July 2015

now I can speak

of him and our life

with no tears

as I found out today

in the doing

15/7/15

on cold nights

I read love stories

very late

until warm sleep

embraces me

21/7/15

they rev cars


chatter, drink from cans


not sleepy


this warm afternoon


young men out of school

29/7/15

Purring: Erotic haiku and tanka, May —June 2015

he strides
firm buttocks and thighs
tightly outlined

19/5/15


he strokes
the cat on his knee
I yearn

****

his fingers flex
massaging her fur ...
purring

4/6/15


too old now
for limbs no longer lithe
to exit with ease
a bath whose embrace has cooled,
I love my hand-held shower nozzle

29/6/15

Linked to the latest Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Red wine: tanka, June 2015

red wine

the full moon rises

bright white

I raise my glass

through the pane

2/6/15

gazing

at the young beauty

decides

to nurture instead

the old companion

9/6/15

High whine. Roar.

Revving his bike

yet again

in the driveway,

he spins his wheels.

16/6/15

In the Tarot class

we do serious readings

and laugh together.

I boss them: ‘Stop chattering!’

and they reward me with cake.

23/6/15


Linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #259

Silver River: tanka, April – May 2015

The wind and I

dance out into the street

to play with leaves.

I wade through them, kick them up,

and the wind takes and swirls them.

 21/4/15

I thought I found

one of your socks in my drawer,

grabbed it up to hug.

But it was one of mine —

I threw out all your clothes.

28/4/15

we must all die

only I didn’t want you

to leave sooner

than our elderly cats

and that grey tree in the yard

5/5/15

silver river

in afternoon sun

late autumn

I linger alone

watching the water

1/5/15

distant music

a tune I think I know

I strain to hear

the soft fall of notes

your face comes to mind

19/5/15

You are not

that very young man

long ago,

my incomparable lover.

Aged now, you look happy.

21/5/15

Uneasy Tanka

A fragment of leaf

dances, frail yet insistent

in the white shallows —

withdrawing, approaching

on flirting tide, teasing sea.

*****

With her long fingers

she kept moulding the wet clay,

but it gnawed at her

with its great blankness, empty.

Some truths must be shaped by knife.

*****

The suburb is masked.

Each door hides a secret face;

each house holds stories

pent up, threatening to spill

like wastes unflushed, or dark blood.

Written in response to 'Get listed for May' at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

The word list we were asked to use came from poems by Neruda, but I don't know that my efforts owe much to him! The words, from three different poems, were fragment / insistent / withdrawing / sea; clay / gnawed / empty / knife; suburb / face / house / blood. I decided to make a separate poem for each sequence, and the tanka form suggested itself — 'uneasy' because they get progressively darker. I'm not sure where that mood came from — but perhaps, after all, from Neruda, getting into my subconscious.

Ghosts Blow Me Kisses — random micropoetry 2014

(tanka / haiku / two lines / gogyohka)

after so long

we exchange pleasantries

as if normal —

as if years of coolness

were only imagined

13/5/14

loverless

I write erotica

why now?

10/6/14

Who loves me?

Ghosts blow me kisses.

11/6/14

saying goodbye to her

evening shadows fall

8/9/14

striped by sunlight
her purring form
remembered

13/9/14

Sydney

in climate change summer —

and she wonders

if she should buy a fan!

(Been living in England.)

1/11/14

the mystery of tea —

almost

I could forsake coffee

(after reading haiku in praise of tea)

3/11/14


Linking to Poetry Pantry #273 at Poets United.

Lift up the covers: Erotic haiku and tanka, November 2014

your voice

an old recording

I’m caressed

1/11/14

Dangerous Flirtation

Hiked up my skirt

danced at the edge of the swell

teasing bare-legged.

The ocean kissed my toes

then surged up past my knees

10/11/14

under his touch

I myself can feel

how soft my breasts

12/11/14

your heart

beating strong and rhythmic

beneath my ear

***

my head on your chest

I listen

to your heart dancing

#lune

15/11/14

warm breath on my skin

his whispers

turn into kisses

#lune

22/11/14

lift up the covers

to bare all

the smiling poet

#lune

Promotional pic for SHE TOO

28/11/14

Linking, on 28/3/15, to dVerse Open Link Night #145

On Coffee — haiku and tanka

After looking at beautiful tea haiku in the journal brass bell, I was inspired to create some about my preferred beverage, coffee. I couldn't resist making some tanka on the subject as well.

morning coffee

the daily news

on facebook

***

coffee

black and hot

his eyes

***

he liked it

‘black as sin, hot as hell,

strong as death’

but coffee wasn’t

the drug that killed him

***

he orders

two-shot espresso

mine is

skinny cappuccino  

can we be compatible?

4/11/14

black coffee

at my elbow

black cat

sprawled beside me

morning can begin

***

new morning

strong black coffee

sipped slowly

5/11/14

suddenly

the coffee tastes bitter

lonely morning

7/11/14

Moving in a Trance: Erotic haiku and tanka, October 2014

moving in a trance

I gaze down

catch his eyes dancing

3/10/14

my friend poses naked
with copies of our book
flesh overflowing

Promotional pic for SHE TOO

11/10/14

the scent

of fresh peaches

I succumb

***

their flesh

yields to my touch

ripe peaches

***

I watch

his long fingers

caressing a cat

***

he is leaving

the sun

shines on his hair

14/10/14

thoughts of you

my breasts

thrust forward

16/10/14

the phoenix

rises fiery hot

and I melt

in proximity —

so our lust renews

23/10/14

the naked poet

revealed within these pages —

oh, open the book!

***

eager fingers

unwrapping  her cover

find poetry

More promotional pics for SHE TOO

24/10/14

alone

with memory and wish

I imagine

29/10/14