MET 9 Modern English Tanka V3N1 Autumn 2008

M ODERN

E NGLISH

T ANKA

Autumn 2008

Volume 3 Number 1

Modern English Tanka

ISSN 1932-9083 Print

ISSN 1930-8132 Digital

Denis M. Garrison, Editor

Michael McClintock, Contributing Editor

M ODERN E NGLISH T ANKA P RESS

Post Office Box 43717

Baltimore, Maryland 21236 USA

www.modernenglishtankapress.com

publisher@modernenglishtankapress.com

Modern English Tanka - Autumn 2008 - Vol. 3, No. 1

any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval

systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers

and scholars who may quote brief passages. See our E DUCATIONAL U SE N OTICE

at the end of the journal.

Modern English Tanka , a quarterly print & digital journal, is dedicated to

publishing and promoting fine English tanka (including tanka written in cinquain

and cinqku set forms). MET is interested in both traditional and innovative verse

of high quality and in all serious attempts to assimilate the best of the Japanese

waka/tanka genres into a continuously developing English short verse tradition.

In addition to verse, MET publishes articles, essays, reviews, interviews, letters

to the editor, etc., related to tanka.

Modern English Tanka – Autumn 2008 – Vol. 3, No. 1

Published by M ODERN E NGLISH T ANKA P RESS .

Print Edition: ISSN 1932-9083

Digital Edition: ISSN 1930-8132 [ PDF & HTML versions ]

www.modernenglishtanka.com

C O N T E N T S

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

Volume 3, Number 1.

7

EDITORIALS

9

Tanka: The New Lyric Poetry by Denis M. Garrison, editor.

13

Tanka and Imagination: Terayama’s Toybox by Michael McClintock, contributing

editor.

23

TANKA

25

Hortensia Anderson

26

Aurora Antonovic

28

Megan Arkenberg

31

Collin Barber

32

Kris Bigalk

33

Tom Blessing

36

Shawn Bowman

38

Jennifer Brewer

40

Jay Bryan

41

James Roderick Burns

43

Joe Christensen

44

Janet Lynn Davis

46

Melissa Dixon

47

Marje A. Dyck

49

Amelia Fielden

53

Deborah Finkelstein

54

Linda Galloway

57

Denis M. Garrison

59

Beverley George / Giselle Maya

62

Heidi George

63

Sanford Goldstein

69

Margaret L. Grace

73

Sari Grandstaff

74

Martin Grenfell

75

Michele L. Harvey

80

C W Hawes

88

Roger Jones

92

Kirsty Karkow

94

M. Kei

99

Larry Kimmel

100

Joseph V. Kleponis

102

Jean LeBlanc

103

Bob Lucky

106

Jeanne Lupton

107

Terra Martin

114

Francis Masat

117

Michael McClintock

122

Jo McInerney

125

Annette Mineo

127

Amy Nawrocki

129

Peter Newton

136

April Orr

140

Kathe L. Palka

141

Stephen A. Peters

144

Patricia Prime

152

Andrew Riutta

153

Alexis Rotella

154

Adelaide B. Shaw

157

Radhey Shiam

158

Lynette Shoup

159

Billy Simms

160

Guy Simser

163

Paul Smith

168

Ana Stjelja

169

André Surridge

177

Julie Thorndyke

179

Maria Tirenescu

180

Chuck Tripi

182

Martin Vest

184

Ella Wagemakers

189

Linda Jeannette Ward

196

N.C. Whitehead

198

Liam Wilkinson

201

Rodney Williams

205

Rodney Williams / Jo McInerney

207

Fran Witham

208

Jeffrey Woodward

213

ESSAYS & ARTICLES

214

Irresistible Constructions: a tanka prose essay by Patricia Prime.

225

BOOK NOTES & REVIEWS

226

Tea Towel Tanka, gathered by Beverley George ; Book Note by Tessa Wooldridge.

228

Poetry and Art Postcards: Series Two , Note by Michael McClintock.

229

Looking for a Prince by Alexis Rotella ; Book Note by Karen J. McClintock.

230

Notes from a Poet’s Journal: haiku and tanka by Carolyn Thomas; Book Note by

Michael McClintock.

232

Recent and Forthcoming Titles from Modern English Tanka Press - publisher's note.

233

Cicada Forest: An Anthology of Tanka by Mariko Kitakubo; translated by

Amelia Fielden. Review by Denis M. Garrison.

237

Contributors.

243

Tanka Venues, with abbreviations.

247

Educational Use Notice.

–

Cover art , “Autumn Sun Room,” by Karen McClintock.

E D I T O R I A L S

9

Tanka: The New Lyric Poetry

Denis M. Garrison

As we begin the third volume of Modern English Tanka , it might be worth returning to

this journal’s original vision and purpose once again. In my first editorial, I wrote:

“It is not the goal of Modern English Tanka to either authoritatively

define English tanka or sponsor any particular formula or template.

Rather, it is our goal to give tanka poets a venue in which they can

showcase their tanka—not just their show-stopper, standing ovation,

fortissimo tours de force , but also their quieter, more subtle tanka, their

strange tanka, their haunting tanka, their terrifying tanka; even their

snarky kyoka belongs. We want to give space to the widest range of

tanka because it is such a new form in English. Only by publishing

the full panoply of English tanka, will we ever discover its particular

place in the English lyric tradition. While there are many centuries to

rest upon for Japanese tanka poets (and they, nevertheless, are

continually innovating), English tanka is less than a century old and

needs plenty of room to grow and find its feet in the English

language.” [Garrison, Denis M. “I’ll Tell You About Onions”

editorial, Modern English Tanka , Autumn 2006.]

Two years and several thousand published tanka later, Modern English Tanka is well on

its way towards fulfilling its vision and purpose, but by no means have we arrived yet at

some new plateau of understanding of tanka in English such that we might draw

conclusions about the genre and the form. Tanka did not develop and mature and then

reform overnight in its native Japan; that process has gone on for centuries and

continues even now. Tanka in English, entering its second century, is in its early infancy.

Truly informed criticism of tanka in English is still just being born. The initial stage of

imitative tanka in English is finally passing into a minority practice as western tanka

poets get past (or skip entirely) their infatuation with tanka as exotic and eastern . They are

discovering that tanka is a five-part lyric poem, informed by, but not controlled by, the

eastern aesthetic, which can be made in a totally western form and aesthetic by a skilled

poet. It is not, however, just any quintain; for example, it is not a limerick. It also does

not need (or want) Japanese makeup and costume; imitation may be flattering, but no

great art arises out of it.

It continues to be the policy of Modern English Tanka to promote an open flexibility and

room for development and growth of tanka in a western incarnation. That being the

case, it is not difficult to imagine some of the objections we have received from

members of the world-wide tanka-in-English community. That community, some several

hundred strong, includes poets, writers, critics, and aficionados of every description.

They include the poets whose works fill our pages. Insofar as some schools of thought

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

10

tend to be exclusionist on the basis of particular criteria for tanka in English (e.g., on

syllable-counting, being autobiographical, having a pivot) tanka which do not meet their

criteria are considered as some sort of failure (flawed, radical, or “not-tanka”). That is

not an uncommon situation or attitude; people commonly defend their beliefs, including

their aesthetics and poetics. They have every right to do so. Furthermore, not everyone

is embarked upon the same voyage of discovery as are we at Modern English Tanka . While

we are exploring how tanka might become a new and vibrant lyric form of poetry in

English, some others are more interested in replicating and/or paying homage to tanka’s

Japanese past. So be it. We all have our own interests and priorities.

It is the many readers of Modern English Tanka who write to us notes of appreciation for

the fine tanka they find in MET’s pages who strengthen our resolve to continue on our

path of openness and flexibility towards innovation in tanka. We hear from members of

the tanka-in-English community, certainly, but also from many other readers who, so far

as we can tell, do not themselves write tanka. We hear from educators who use MET in

the classroom, or as a resource for tanka teaching materials. And, from all these readers,

we often learn of some of their favorite poems and poets from MET . It is very

significant, to us at least, that the readers’ favorites cover a wide spectrum of the poets

included in Modern English Tanka . We can discern no pattern whatsoever that suggests

any particular school of tanka style is more appreciated than any other. Readers fall in

love with tanka that speak to them—poignantly, powerfully, tenderly, wittily. They love

tanka that connect with their own experience—that touch places in their hearts—that

open their minds in a new way.

All of this is not to say that MET needs no changes. We are always alert to innovative

approaches to tanka in English (mindful, of course, that most innovations sprout on

ancient roots). Accordingly, we have opened our pages more to tanka prose, which is

presently growing vibrantly. For some time, we have been more welcoming to longer

pieces and even responsive collaborations than we were at the beginning. In this issue,

I am contributing a garland of tanka; something of a rara avis . It is clear to me that we

must deal with the matter of tanka as stanza in the years to come. The strong trend of

sets, sequences, strings, and, perhaps now, garlands is a sure sign that tanka in English

will one day be units of long lyric poems as well as brief stand-alone poems. But there

is work to be done; unanswered questions. How will the traditional autonomy of a tanka

be maintained or changed in the transition to stanzaic use? What will be lost and what

gained by such a transition? Allowing the broadest creative freedom to contributing

poets is Modern English Tanka’s approach to dealing with such matters. These things need

to be worked out by poets before they can be analyzed by the critics and academics. The

new English lyric poetry of the future is out there in front of us, but poets must lead the

way themselves, working out of their own poetics and aesthetics and their goals for the

poetry itself. The new poetry must first come out of a poet’s pen onto paper to become

itself. Modern English Tanka is here to bring those poems to light. Send us your best!

~Denis M. Garrison, editor

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

11

(Nota bene : The seminal editorial, A Commentary on Modern Tanka, East-West Fusionism, and

“The Little Age of Anthologies,” by our contributing editor Michael McClintock in the

Winter 2007 issue of Modern English Tanka is worth going back to for a fresh read every

year or so.)

Below are this issue’s three tanka chosen for the back cover of the print edition. Our

congratulations to these fine poets on their excellent verses.

no more waiting

for saints and grace

I will set

this candle burning

with my own flame

Julie Thorndyke

a frog

sits with its back

to me . . .

I wonder sometimes

how I will die

Linda Galloway

the sound of the siren

is as red

as your lips closing over

the blind white

of the hard boiled egg

Larry Kimmel

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

13

Tanka and Imagination: Terayama’s Toybox

Michael McClintock

I saw the angel in the marble

and carved until I set him free.

~Michelangelo

It’s not what you look at that matters,

it’s what you see.

~Henry David Thoreau

Some stories are true that never happened.

~Elie Weisel

* * *

All three statements, above, impart something true and observable about the “real”

world. If understood and applied with sympathy to the life and works of Shuji Terayama

(1935-1983), they may afford us an expanded appreciation for his accomplishments in

tanka.

When poets throw images like this against the wall, what are they trying to do?

I buried

my father

then came home alone

with a drenched hat

and a sodden skylark

In Terayama’s case, I think he is playing. It is play that takes him out of himself and back

again, little by little building upon his understanding about where and how he fits into

the world, how he relates to and feels about it, trying always to get the measurements

right in his language. Imagination is his vehicle, the power of the mind to create its own

reality out of the stuff of events, objects, and people. He becomes the creator and

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

14

master, and the senses do his bidding and submit to his choreography: a process of

discovery, a game of identities, masks, and metamorphosis.

And since he’s writing it all down, he invites us to join in. We get to experience the

world through his imagination, through the poetry that comes out of it. It may not

be—to a certainty never can be—the same as being there, in his mind, but it is very

close. In the nearness, there is much power and beauty, casting its glow like lamplight

on our faces:

inside of me

there is a dark house

where a boy sleeps

with bent knees,

when I polish the lamp

Most readers in English got their first look at Shuji Terayama’s tanka in Ferris Wheel: 101

Modern and Contemporary Tanka (Boston:Cheng & Tsui, 2006), where five of his poems

appeared. [1] Who was this evidently brilliant poet, about whom we had heard virtually

nothing? His work makes no appearance in Makoto Ueda’s Modern Japanese Tanka

(Columbia University Press, 1996), an anthology that generously samples the work of

twenty of Japan’s most highly regarded tanka poets, from Yosano Tekkan (1873-1935)

to Tawara Michi (b. 1962). He is nowhere to be found in any of the other major

anthologies of modern Japanese literature published in English over the last thirty years.

Thanks to Uzawa and Fielden, at last some correction and rehabilitation is possible with

the appearance of their new title this past summer from Hokuseido Press, Kaleidoscope:

Selected Tanka of Shuji Terayama. [2] The book includes 201 tanka from the four collections

Terayama published before he reached the age of thirty: A Book in the Sky (1958), Blood

and Wheat (1962), Wasteland on the Table (1962), and Death in the Countryside (1964).

“Kaleidoscope” is not a title Terayama himself ever used. I wonder if he would have

liked it for this book of his selected poems, meant for reading on shores outside Japan.

I think a good poet like Terayama does exactly what a kaleidoscope does not do : puts

things into focus, especially in relation to ourselves. It’s a small quibble, and a personal

one, but I wish they’d chosen something else.

A section titled “Early Tanka” at the beginning of the book includes over fifty poems

written by Terayama during his high school days, before 1957. These tanka make evident

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

15

what a fast-study Terayama was. With tremendous energy and enthusiasm, and plenty

of hubris, too, it appears, he launched himself into creating a unique tanka aesthetic that

dumped most of the strictures and constraints of autobiographical, diarist composition

and subject matter, placing instead at the center of his work the creations of imaginative

expression—what some would assert is the poet’s real work in the first place. Let the

diarists and personal journal-keepers attend to making tanka verse— Terayama appears to

have wanted no part of that kind of platform for his work.

Finished with tanka before the age of thirty, Terayama’s relatively small oeuvre of poems

has made him “. . . still one of the most popular tanka poets in Japan . . .” according to

Uzawa in her introductory “The Life of Shuji Terayama.” Is he really that popular? The

thickets of Japanese waka and tanka politics and rivalries can be impenetrable to an

outsider; here we’ll have to accept the translator’s statement and hope that it is no

exaggeration. At least I’m right there beside Uzawa in thinking that Terayama ought to be

that popular.

Uzawa and Fielden have worked hard to bring forward a collection of poetry that is

intriguing, engaging, frequently amazing. Uzawa continues: “Most tanka poets write

tanka based on their own experiences. However, Terayama wrote tanka as fiction. His

poems read like scenes from a movie, stage play, or short story. The stories he writes in

his tanka are quite different from his real life.” Here is an example of what Uzawa has

noted:

my aunt may be

a supporting actor in my life,

the handkerchief

on her palm is pooling

summer rain

This tender and loving portrait of the woman , the aunt, comes entirely out of the summer

rain pooling in the handkerchief on her palm. Through imaginative use of language, and

through imaginative seeing of correspondences, Terayama’s feelings are objectified so that

they might be experienced and understood better, as form and substance, by himself and

his readers, rather than encountered as idea or psychological concept. It is an old trick

that the greatest poets have long played, and is what sets them apart from makers of

mere verse amusements.

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

16

Certainly that observable divide—between a poet’s art and that same poet’s life—has

validity, in a literal sense, when observed by an objective outsider who stands a few

decades away in time and looks from a distance to see what a poet is doing. On the other

hand, I think Terayama himself might tell us that the imagination was his real life— and that

the life of the imagination, wherein by choice his real self and consciousness existed, is

reflected in his tanka, and in his later artistic pursuits as playwright, film-maker, and

photographer. I think it’s probable that, for Terayama, almost everything else was

uninteresting dross or background noise: it bored him.

This poem, from among his early tanka, reveals the poet’s orientation and attitude:

birds banished

from the sky,

time, beasts

all collected here

in my ark-like toybox

Already dominant here are the associative, Symbolist tendencies of his rapidly maturing

work, particularly his use of animals and their imagery as stand-ins for the feelings and

passions of his emotional life. The “ark-like” toybox in which this menagerie found life

can be interpreted as meaning his own physical body, the birds and beasts therein being

representations of his own states of mind-and-heart.

Life was a toybox, and imagination was the key he would use to open it up and express

what he found there throughout his brief tanka career. The image of the toybox as being

“ark-like” is important, conveying his intention as artist to take refuge in a vessel of his

own creation (a most unlikely Noah) and to safely transfer to another place, through art,

all that he wanted to take with him from time and life—his experience “all collected

here.” Not God in Heaven but his own imagination told him why and how.

His attitude toward poetry is even more explicit in this later poem, from A Book in the

Sky :

lying down

in the attic,

where angry waves

sound very close,

I make poetry my power

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

17

His location “in the attic” expresses his sense of isolation and apartness, the attic being

a simple yet powerful metaphor for the confinements the artistic consciousness must be

aware of and deal with every day, relegated to living in a space probably not meant for

habitation, above and apart from the common living areas of the house. Both worlds

are side-by-side, yet apart. Out of the tension between them, out of those angry waves

to which he listens “very close”, Terayama draws his power and his reason for being.

There is no bitterness here, but a kind of secret glee, all the more believable because the

circumstances in which he places his Poet as Creator (himself) are so plain and un-

extraordinary: after all, literally, he is a young man living in an attic. The poem begs the

question, at that literal level, “What power could he be talking about?” The glee I sense

here is in the secret knowledge Terayama has of himself, as the poet-creator, using that

power within the same world that asks that question of him. He answers that question

in his own way: with a poem.

Significantly—for no word is wasted, and none are used as filler to flesh out a

line—“time” is mentioned on the list of things in his toybox. Here is an example of how

he uses and regards time:

inside the orchard

there is tomorrow

I draw it

pressing my chest hard

against the wooden fence

The temporal is also a dimension with which Terayama plays, along with geography and

place, the view from the window, the food on the plate, the street into town, and all the

impediments of earthly life that we mortals, made of lesser tissue, accept as givens and

just deal with. Memories of the past are embodied in the present, in tropes that permit

us to see, hear, and smell them:

in my receding

memories

towns and days are

whispering

like flower petals

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

18

Such poems annihilate time, turning it into flower petals. This is what Emerson was

talking about when he wrote that “All thinking is analogizing . . . the endless passing of

one element into new forms, the incessant metamorphosis” which “explains the rank the

imagination holds in our catalogue of mental powers . . . the poet accounts all

productions and changes of Nature as the nouns of language, uses them

representationally . . . “ [3]

Terayama’s many poems about his father are especially moving and, I think, offer multi-

leveled examples of how he made imagination the engine of his art—the source and

substance of his diary notes, so to speak. Here are a few:

this lamp is

the only thing

my dead father left ---

a winter fly rests

on my cheek

countable

as part of my father’s estate

this wintry sunset

is visible

from every ridge

an apparition

when I’m napping

in my overcoat ---

I can only think

it’s my father’s spirit

When we encounter spirit and coat again, later, can it possibly be the same spirit, the

same coat?

whose evil spirit?

suddenly I feel cold

when I pass

in front of

a hung coat

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

19

Terayama’s feelings toward his father are often ambiguous, and sometimes fearful,

uncertain, uncomfortable. Yet there is powerful beauty and expressiveness in the

emptiness, the literal dispossession, of that hanging coat. He has many poems featuring

his father, including the first poem cited in this essay; he did not bury his father and,

actually, barely knew him. His father was killed in combat in Indonesia in World War

Two, when Shuji was very young. The moody, somewhat recessive tones of these poems

are among Terayama’s most distinctive trademarks. Here are two more, on different

subjects:

behind a dog

going to hide

his bone

I walk in

the dead grass

let’s reflect

my dead spirit

in the winter well

since I have nothing

to throw there

Terayama wrote poems about being saddened by the thought of his dead mother while

she remained quite alive in a nearby town:

I gently comb

the turtledove

with my dead mother’s

scarlet comb ---

its down keeps falling out

Such a poem would have interested William Empson, who labored so long and hard to

explain how the best poetry maximizes—he called it “a multiplicity of associations”—the

denotative and connotative meanings of words, which meanings the poet holds in

tension, careful not to go too far in either direction, but occupying the entire scale of

possibilities. [4]

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

20

Sure, poetry is one thing, life is another. But about making things up, this poem

summarizes in vivid concreteness his untroubled point of view:

while an ant

toiled from the dahlia

to the ash tray

I was forming

a beautiful lie

He is being ironic, and sounding over-confident here, perhaps, but we get the point. In

beauty so formed, there is no lie.

Terayama is a poet capable of showing us the overlapping of things outside with ideas

and emotions inside. Even such abstractions as “freedom” he handles with ease:

it’s written

on the dirty wall

of the subway,

it’s forgotten, like an old wound:

freedom

the house mouse

has ten metres

of freedom —

I commune with

its wild eyes

Terayama’s poetry is not, of course, a purely invented reality. After all, he draws all his

material from human experience. He practiced a deep and abiding empathy, about which

he wrote often:

this wind

carrying carrot seeds

connects

the orphan,

sunset, and me

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

21

Ordinary life is still the subject matter but imagination of Terayama’s calibre, combined

with and enabled by his natural empathic powers, is needed to make it soar, fully-winged,

into the human record as literature.

After reading his poems in this marvelous, fascinating book, it’s perhaps easier to

understand how, at about age 30, Terayama left tanka and devoted the remainder of his

short life to pursuing and seducing the wild and often chaotic world of surrealist and noir

film-making, directing, and scripting. He involved himself deeply in the punk- and acid-

rock popular subcultures of 60s and 70s urban Japan, and never emerged a poet again.

He died at age 47 of cirrhosis of the liver, a degenerative illness that appears to have

plagued him for most of his adult life, requiring long periods of hospitalization. There’s

plenty of reason to wish that he’d somehow continued to write tanka up to the last.

Hokuseido Press is to be congratulated for this commemorative edition on the 25 th

anniversary of Shuji Terayama’s death. The English translations are accompanied by the

original Japanese, which permits careful scrutiny of the translators’ versions. The poems

are presented one, two or three to a page on heavy, glossy paper, festooned with a

tsunami of what appears to be clip-art images and a miscellany of photographs and

engraved images, ranging in subject from grim urban scenes to recumbent, half-naked

Victorian ladies. The multifarious wildness and incoherence of it all is something, I think,

Terayama would have liked very much, even though sometimes it can be distracting, or

feel out of key with the poetry on the page. I got used to it . . . and began to appreciate

the sly humor.

For Shuji Terayama, poetry was a young man’s passion, apparently, and he burned out

on it. Or perhaps the passion endured and Terayama merely chose different venues to

exercise and express it. The book’s last poem, from his last collection, Death in the

Countryside , is this one:

at the dark side

of the globe

am I,

alone

and pale of face

In poetry, as Terayama practiced it, the work of the imagination is not to give a dweeb

the idea he is Superman, but to lead a person to understand one’s self and the world

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

22

better, practically and spiritually, and to take delight in the knowledge when conveyed

by language in poetic form.

The early death we have to live with and regret; it is the life that is really commemorated

here, and it comes with Terayama’s own last self-portrait in tanka. Haunting, isn’t it?

— Michael McClintock, contributing editor

September 2008

________________________________

Notes:

1. Ferris Wheel earned for its translators, Kozue Uzawa and Amelia Fielden, the 2007

Donald Keene Translation Award for Japanese Literature.

2. Kaleidoscope: Selected Tanka of Shuji Terayama , translated by Kozue Uzawa and Amelia

Fielden. (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 2008). 144 pages, 6” x 8”, hardcover; glossy, thick

paper, heavily illustrated; ISBN 978-4-590-01241-4, $20 US plus postage. Available

through any Kinokuniya bookstore; in North America through Kozue Uzawa at

uzawa@shaw.ca, and in Australia/New Zealand through Amelia Fielden at

anafielden@hotmail.com

3. From “Poetry and Imagination” by Ralph Waldo Emerson [essay, 1872].

4. For a classic, exhaustive study of this topic, see Seven Types of Ambiguity by William

Empson (1930) or, in briefer treatment, Allen Tate’s essay “Tension in Poetry.”

________________________________

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

T A N K A

25

Hortensia Anderson

half-moon —

a wedge of lemon

on the warm cup;

how a sip of pekoe soothes

the cares and chill of autumn

alone on the beach

as waves rise and fall —

I wonder

whose breasts hold your head,

the rhythm of your breathing . . .

wisteria —

blooming before

the end of rain;

we begin to kiss after

a gentle wind strokes my face

by the pond’s edge

you bend with the breeze —

weeping willow;

do my tears of grief shimmer

as they spill the way yours do?

camellias

in the moonlight

in the darkness

how whitely they glow

scattered on black grass

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

26

Aurora Antonovic

at the blood clinic

an assortment of ailments

the woman

across from me

her skin a jaded green

leaves fall faster

than I can

rake them . . .

another familiar name

in the obituaries

sick day

you bring chicken soup

he, roses

each of you waiting

to see which I like best

headlines

scream of another

injustice

this backwards world

where I don’t belong

nothing by mouth

the day of the surgery

I walk the hospital grounds

and feast my senses

on the gardens

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

27

Aurora Antonovic

apathetically

I eye the assortment of chocolates

left by my bedside

why is it everyone thinks the solution

to my ills is to feed me?

pre-dawn

head bowed

I make my petitions known

I arise from my knees

to seashell coloured light

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

28

Megan Arkenberg

I have been careful

building my heart’s palace

month by month

year by year

on only the softest sand

all things,

not least of all

your final love letter,

are where I left them—everything

but you

cool spell

words from him

are fewer each week

never enough

the distance between us

tonight

where did you go

in such a rush, as if

the moon herself were chasing you,

as if . . .

two days of clouds

have given way

to brittle hail

the way he says

all I can say

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

29

Megan Arkenberg

somewhere, now

dawn is breaking

somewhere

a night without you

is only that

long nights spent

not knowing

where you were

beside me

only sand

firefly

landing softly

calls her to my mind . . .

she never learned to take her light

with her

she hasn’t decided

if those weeks were wasted . . .

her affair with a man

whose personal motto

was semper fidelis

reading

beneath birch branches

I struggle

to lose myself in

someone else’s dreams

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

30

Megan Arkenberg

secrets

I can’t fool myself

into keeping . . .

the way he tells her

I mean nothing

taking its sweet time

a green aphid

crosses my page . . .

old tanka, better

the third time around

after her call

we talk about sounds

from the room next-door

just to escape

the silence of ours

translucent spider

crawls down the wall

halfway through my story

my lips already form

the shape of her name

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

31

Collin Barber

a slightly crooked mirror —

I watch the sun rise

as I drive

the last hour

of a twenty hour trip

clatter of bottles

as I take out

the trash —

what day is it

this summer morning?

stuck

in a twentieth century

existence

I check the fridge

for the TV remote

earphones in my ears

and a book in her lap . . .

I watch

while she listens to

our children at the beach

just beyond

our conversation

a bowl

of peppermints

at the funeral home

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

32

Kris Bigalk

Taliesin Burning

Fire scorched sandstone walls

alchemized rocks red as blood

fallen to rubble

he set these stones in new walls

they catch at the eyes like grief

Housewife

she presses her hands

against her wrinkled secrets

nerves like damp laundry

in the moldy-nosed basement

waiting for starch or iron

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

33

Tom Blessing

the raven

so still

then ‘hop’

and a return

to stillness

in this slow

holy season raven walks

erect proud

his tracks are dark

shadows in the snow

hanging on

raven rides the branch

rides the wind

“hang in there buddy!

I’m trying to hang on too!”

early morning and

the old house cat runs away

calling his name

a faint “mew” from

the empty lot

old coyote

in the morning trash

must have thought

it was a drive-thru

BK boxes on the lawn

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

34

Tom Blessing

evening

the big lake

is quiet

distant lights

of a freighter

you say

“I don’t understand

tanka”

neither do I, nor do

i understand apples

playing cribbage

you count your crib

as i watch

your hands

move the peg

in the center

of all this chaos

there is calm

in the warmth

of your hand

my old dog

is snoring beside

the basement door

getting old

i snore too

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

35

Tom Blessing

the small chipmunk

who chattered at me

is gone

into his silence

the wind

so real

i tipped my hat

to the fake

coyote sitting so patiently

by the side of the road

the mom

working so hard

pedaling the bike

towed behind

the child laughs

scudding from the light

the crayfish hide beneath

rocks and branches

like me they like

to stay out of the light

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

36

Shawn Bowman

Inside

of the darkness

that I fall asleep to,

she is on the porch reading by

daylight.

one pigeon

atop each lamppost,

I alone

am mocked

and applauding

never richer

than today,

teaching our children

how to panhandle

from the mulberry tree

Youth is

one of life’s

great constants

We are the waves

running through it

he is a place

where a part of your life

went to fall in love,

a part that’s obviously

still with you

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

37

Shawn Bowman

not the words

but the memory of

her New Year’s poem

illuminates

my melancholy

a billion

particles

make up a man,

how did we

underestimate him

crank radio

subtle liberty

play-by-play

in a rowboat

on Independence Day

Windless

day of ho hum

Half of a mini-flag

lies folded, like an L, atop

the hedge

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

38

Jennifer Brewer

behind the counter

the espresso machine spits—

a man tips his chair

away from the table

as his wife sputters on

overhead a low-

flying jet breaks the silence

of the morning—

on the neighbor’s balcony

a caged canary sings

sprinting through puddles

of sycamore shadows,

he trails a leash—

the metal chain lashes

his winter white legs

the women gather

to celebrate the bride—

fake flowers adorn

the center of tables

passed down through generations

the bride glides

through the gaping double doors

toward the altar—

her father offers her up

to the grinning man in black

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

39

Jennifer Brewer

the puppy barks

at the neighbor’s bloated form,

which wanders alone

in summer pajamas,

searching for runaway cats

sisters

swimming alone

beneath a cloudy sky,

laughing at lightning’s pitchfork

approach

boxes

tower over

two children hard at play,

planning out with blocks and dolls their

next move

the door

opens, spilling

golden light and laughter,

the scent of sage and cloves into

the snow

beneath

smudged glass, today’s

special cakes and cracks while

the teenaged waitress touches up

her face

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

40

Jay Bryan

star covered lake

a loon family

calls to each other

the evergreen air echoes

their songs

as if we’re playing

hide and seek

we bump furniture

and giggle and in the end

find you in a chair

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

41

James Roderick Burns

Through parted curtains

a dry, rebarbative moon ––

though you sleep content

I thirst for the friendly light

of my unrepaired street lamp.

Why should it matter

that those circling swallows

stay within the bounds

of these slack telegraph wires

before the wall cuts their flight?

How pleasing the wake

of this broad white ferryboat ––

only the buoys tugged

down into the dark, that slick

gull falling might disagree.

Cloud-capped mountain, sails

starchy as linen snapping

through the reflection

of an early summer sky ––

nothing is impossible.

On roles and functions ––

as heads nod in conference,

kamikaze flies

shoot for a glorious end

in the open mouths of frogs.

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

42

James Roderick Burns

Ah, sleeping baby ––

all my lovely images

gathered from this train’s

galloping coincidence

dissolve into hot silk dreams.

Under folded cloud,

a dirty green horizon

the magnet artist

lays flattened automobiles

like strips of crispy bacon.

Other people’s rooms ––

with the family in bed

after a long day

I shake my head at such bright

and unattainable space.

Before hitch and flow

comes the urinal’s sudden

dropping silence, dry

as a pair of skeletons

reaching for an oasis.

The night gardener

plucks a solitary root,

uncertain whether

it is untapped potential

or the end of everything.

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

43

Joe Christensen

Jamie’s Grave

Vines like green serpents

choke dead the cherry trees

that darken a tiny grave.

We drive on by

and talk about tomorrow.

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

44

Janet Lynn Davis

the outline

of its wounded body—

this fit of rain

not bold enough

to wash it from my mind

a loyal heart

that’s held so much inside—

beating beating—

will these new thin pills

keep it seamed together?

secrets slip

into my tanka,

foreign thoughts

from countries where

I’ve never even been

to think,

the only stress I knew then

in Paris:

picking out the dress

he insisted on buying me

a few flecks, still,

from the south coast of France . . .

our boundless

young spontaneity

the wife you later brought there

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

45

Janet Lynn Davis

an aging

rocker-motorcyclist

in thick traffic

waves his tattooed arms

to a beat I don’t quite get

embroidered

by my grandmother,

muslin tea towels

too steeped in memory

to ever reuse

never thought

a life could grow to be

this unadorned,

my daily pot of oatmeal

steaming on the stove

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

46

Melissa Dixon

summer sunshine

spilling into my room

what can I do

but stretch out like

an artist’s model?

on the plains

where I was born

a sad

absence of rock gardens —

an absence of rocks

rocky passage stretched

between two city streets —

silently

I thank the planners

who let its wildness be

on my balcony

I gaze at thriving plants

all reproducing —

is this all any species

is required to do?

abandoned farmhouse----

I visualize the family car

turn

onto the highway

no one looking back

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

47

Marje A. Dyck

cloud building

on cloud

thunderstorm—

if I tell you the truth

will lightning strike

long black string

of cormorants

over blue-green waters

how they rise and fall

like the vagaries of life

waves slap the shore

I gaze into

deep blue distance

intersected by

a sun-gilded dragonfly

tentative

these raindrops

like tears

that begin

and become a flood

forest

at night

the air

so soft

I could weep

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

48

Marje A. Dyck

three geese

from the top

of a hill

watching

freeway traffic

fresh breeze

over the water

my aloneness here

adds a special patina

to day’s end

on the horizon

a storm is building

wondering

should I ride it out

or run for cover

beautiful green

of stinging nettle—

some things of beauty

are best left

alone

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

49

Amelia Fielden

man in the moon

rabbit* in the moon,

why is it

I see nothing but

a delay of daylight

Japanese myth has a rabbit in the moon

one star lingers

between dark branches

of the pinoak —

switching off my alarm-clock

I sink back into love time

train station dawn

rosy light behind black trees

riffs of birdsong

and all those cliches

about new beginnings

Grandma’s ring

on her finger, she leaves

for foreign parts,

explaining her Grandma

never had a chance to travel

seagulls scamper

at the edge of rough surf

as if

they can’t just fly away —

why do you hesitate so ?

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

50

Amelia Fielden

I could weep

or scream with frustration

but I choose

to soothe myself with music,

the Waltz of the Flowers

withered and brown

last rose of summer,

I can’t bear

to face our realities

and behead you

wind swirling

round this isolation —

if only

he’d use his hearing aids

we could converse again

autumn once more . . .

waiting for the town bus

we fish out

our senior citizens’ cards —

so many journeys together

accessible

only by steep steps

my doctor

forbids me to attempt,

a Lost Paradise beach

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

51

Amelia Fielden

when you are

dangerously near me

refrains

from old dance tunes

tango in my heart

those night hours

we spent parked in your car

above the bay

how we talked, the kissing

sweet but incidental

raindrops bounce

on the patio table

tea will be set

some fine afternoon

for some fine family

you serving me

coffee in a porcelain cup

once poured air

from a tiny teaset

for your dolls and teddies

three black dogs

frolicking on a white lawn

in a city

where snow seldom falls —

this, too, I want to remember

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

52

Amelia Fielden

why wear black

let’s illuminate winter

with tulip colours . . .

and please, no white lilies

at my funeral

grandaughter reclined

on the grass against my knees

both of us

spooning pink ice cream,

delight upon delight

friends dining

with other childless couples

surprised, she said,

to realize they were

the only ones without a dog

home from abroad

it takes me two days

to notice

the heeler’s gone from next door

. . . call myself a dog lover

home is

where the heart is,

so they say —

and if this heart

is divided into three ?

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

53

Deborah Finkelstein

trying on her red dress,

mother dances in front of her mirror—

her son stares out the window

rotting debris,

his friend’s abandoned house

wooden sled,

plastic angel,

a fish drinks from the pond,

red shack,

empty freezer

riverfront—

colorful blankets

graze the shore,

where sunbathers

meet rag pickers

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

54

Linda Galloway

like so much

flotsam and jetsam

old love letters

in the bottom drawer

of my dead mother’s desk

she talks about

her splenectomy

over tea,

again that time

of the sweet rain

last leaves down,

banked against the house,

the heating grate

and my uncertainty

rattle together

this morning

nothing in my drawer

but holey socks,

outside a raven picks

at frozen compost

he talks about horizons

on the edge of space. . .

still

the pale tinge of hepatica

wrapped in twilight

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

55

Linda Galloway

a frog

sits with its back

to me . . .

I wonder sometimes

how I will die

a large cockroach

treads the corners

of the elevator —

I consider rescuing it

until the door opens

the gazing space

between her and me

empty . . .

“more rose jam”?

I ask

Puppet Show

a circle of

three-foot dancing puppets

in tuxedos,

the urge arises to rush

into their midst

feeling erased

in any language is

feeling erased. . .

a limbless puppet

made of support hose

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

56

Linda Galloway

in a brown cape

all the way down to the floor

a life-sized puppet

with her own puppet,

the rope around its neck

joining us

via satellite he urges

acceptance,

that stick-thin puppet

with a toilet brush head

a row of

ventriloquist dummies watches

a taped interview of themselves . . .

I like

this distance from you

the happiest place

in the world has to be

where

all chair legs, all table legs

wear hand-knit socks

__________

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

57

Denis M. Garrison

Beauty at Day’s End (a tanka garland)

struggling singles,

each of us finding our way

past daily alarms—

through classes, tests, and schedules,

the dating game, the dreaming

we were a couple,

just two of us, together—

no one else existed

our love was like a high wall

nothing could come between us

playing with the kids

we never saw the sun’s race—

mindless of the time

we lived Now and worshipped Now

—it came and went like a dream

tender tangled limbs

now languid, flushed, slow-moving

exhausted by our love

our bodies draped in soft light

we lie in sunset silence

beauty at day’s end

your face in the low warm glow

youthful in rose light

beneath the old chestnut tree

that once was younger than we

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

58

Denis M. Garrison

past daily alarms

just two of us, together—

mindless of the time

we lie in sunset silence

beneath the old chestnut tree

__________

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

59

Beverley George / Giselle Maya

The Other Side of Blue

A tanka collaboration between Beverley George and Giselle Maya

Winter – New South Wales, Australia; Summer – Apt-en-Provence, France

knowing nothing

of your reality . . . I sketch you

in a shady hat

baguette in a woven basket

larkspurs in your garden

rising early

I go to market

for white peaches

back to the garden to water

morning glories and green tomatoes

playing tennis

on this chilly blue sky day

I am diverted

by whipbirds in the undergrowth

and kookaburra umpires

summer people

come again from the north

like swallows they fly

in and out of village life

and my over-sensitive heart

fly-by-night developers –-

those of us who live here

assert our right

to view the Pacific Ocean

through fronds of Norfolk Pines

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

60

Beverley George / Giselle Maya

a long day

at the Avignon Festival

incredible sights

we meet for Japanese dance

a fox changes into a woman

granddaughter and I

stroke snakes and alligators

at the reptile park

this feeling of privilege

to be close to what’s untamed

my grandson asks me

long distance about his dad

I remember him

high up in the wide-armed tree

shaking walnuts to the ground

why do picture postcards

depict wattle on stark blue?

far lovelier

their tender yellowness

speckling rain-washed skies

a brief summer

thunderstorm rumbles

through the valley –

green lizard shelters

under lacquered brambles

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

61

Beverley George / Giselle Maya

how well do they sleep

these cold ocean-thumping nights –

ducks on the lagoon

spiders beneath paperbark

wallabies crouched in bracken?

I see the poet

on the far side of the globe

deep in winter

reaching out with words

I paint her in russet hues.

__________

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

62

Heidi George

blistering sun

sears through the bus window

traveling hot miles

to you and from you

as I perspire

five years a Jew—

Catholic mother calls

through gritted teeth

says

Mazel Tov!

you write

my name

on the pavement—

spring downpour

obliterates me

anxious and sad

yet I said “okay”

to your leaving

just yesterday

it was

along the bus route

a friend says—

“it’s hard to be

a tree

in the city”

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

63

Sanford Goldstein

Akiko, Takuboku, Mokichi: An Interloper’s Triad

you wished, Akiko,

the child born that morning

would later find love

never did I think my granddaughter

would learn there’s joy in writing

often I felt

your restless frantic need

to walk, Takuboku:

desire builds in narrow spaces

and a rapid pace spins it out

Mokichi, the suicide

of your mental patient was grim

grievous

long have I tried to imagine

Buddha’s yellow tears

how often I mused

on Flaubert’s line in a letter

“Madame Bovary, c’est moi”

like some frail wisp of cloud

I tried to become Akiko

my co-translator

never said a negative word

about the trio—

I found many a Japanese

silent along a peak on Aso

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

64

Sanford Goldstein

how my wife loved

the lighter I gave her

for her birthday

delighted was Akiko

with Buddha’s friendly face

all these years

ashamed of my mediocre

Japanese skills,

I scooped up those sad toys

like a kid finding new worlds

incongruous, Mokichi,

how you took out your dentures

wherever and whenever

lovely it has been to see

the devotion to your mother

not once, Akiko,

did I write a tanka

on a dove’s wings

a calligraphy brush is held

in firm perpendiculars

Mokichi, how you ran

that night you heard about

your master’s death—

it was to the valley of elephants

my precious friend headed

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

65

Sanford Goldstein

you tried, Takuboku,

to keep up the harmony

of the New Year

rarely in my old age

have I resolved on this or that

you asked your lover,

Akiko, if their tanka were

too wordy that night. . .

in this square of thirty-one

I often dallied with the count

how Mokichi bemoaned

the defeat of his precious land

at war’s end

I never danced in the street,

never kissed a stranger’s lips

you scolded your child,

Takuboku, touching her

face as she slept

my long-ago pain remains

over the anger with my kids

the priests Akiko saw,

their heads bowed copying sutras

and avoiding love—

all my life I wanted books

to dissolve the stains in my mind

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

66

Sanford Goldstein

far from your home,

you embraced, Mokichi,

a white birch

this city-boy me sometimes feels

stuck in a village rut

how ambiguous

you were, Takuboku, on man’s

greatest sorrow,

sometimes I have a mind-wave

that Yeshua is my best friend

to the visitor

Akiko could not ask even once

about that special villager

stupid gaijin that I am

all spills in an innocent rush

wordless,

the departure of Akiko

and her two friends

I never said farewell

to the precious dead one

how bright

the night fire of your mother’s

cremation, Mokichi,

I sat silent with my kids

waiting for the dead one’s urn

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

67

Sanford Goldstein

Takuboku’s mother

gave up tea to ask Buddha’s help

for her son’s recovery

I have had my coffee black

these past thirty-six years

how rough

the world remained, Akiko,

on your narcissism

how free I felt to chain

my small apartment door

you rushed, Mokichi,

carrying that prisoner’s blood

to test for syphilis

staring, I remained silent,

my dizziness incurable

gentle you were

at the end, Takuboku,

wanting a dog

the trio of kittens play

on my sliding door corridor

Akiko, precious

those white flowers you arranged

for a wake

where the dead one’s ashes were

not even her photograph

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

68

Sanford Goldstein

you heard, Mokichi,

the erotic songs of men

felling trees,

on my rapid morning walk

I chant words, I count numbers

in your hospital room,

how you pondered your illness,

fearful Takuboku,

my Zen taught me one thing—

said or not, thirty back lashes

__________

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

69

Margaret L. Grace

Scent of the Sea

warm wind off the land

first light of dying night

passing the lighthouse

navigating

my own destiny

on the horizon

white against blue

hovers a yacht

later I glance again

nothing has changed

deep blue water

beneath a dipping bow

sooty terns

under that heaving ocean

the flip side to our world

up the mast

in a boson’s chair . . . to fetch

that mainsheet shackle

above this wash-blue sea

our yacht a scrap of flotsam

I pause

in the last clear light of day

scan the empty sea

ruffled and leaden like me

since our dawn departure

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

70

Margaret L. Grace

esmeralda cove

mutton bird cries fall through

the mesh of stars

warning of a wind change

that blows us from this island

the loom

from an unseen lighthouse

alters our course

I celebrate landfall

with a sense of foreboding

at anchor

folding sails at sun set

on smooth water

minutes ago you were gold

now a shadow on the bow

rowing shorewards

I make little headway

wind against me

two kids zoom past

using an outboard motor

still rowing

in the busy anchorage

facing backwards

I see how far I’ve come

not where I’m going

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

71

Margaret L. Grace

wind flung beads

of glittering glass

sting the sand

blue-bottles abandoned

by a receding tide

radio forecasts

a weather change

up anchor

making for North Arm

in a westerly

sandbanks

of winda woppa —

keen the wind

in a sailor’s wary eye

watching those shallows

new year’s eve

happy hour — laughter

empty bottles

forbidden flares light the sky

kissing strangers at midnight

old year

torn from the calendar —

above mangroves

chitter from a whistling kite

that lives life without numbers

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

72

Margaret L. Grace

slow ebbing tide

now quickens its pace

soon slack water

sleepless in my bunk

I wait for it to turn

__________

a truck accident

high on the monastery road

far flung red poppies

how suddenly

we depart this world

evening rabbit

hops towards the road

I hold my breath

who under this chalky moon

is holding their breath for me?

half empty

the glass of red wine

my mind also

dreaming , dreaming the delight

in finding a green spring frog

calloused fingers

fumble to set a tea cloth

in his old hands

a bowl of strawberries

a jug of clotted cream

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

73

Sari Grandstaff

clearing

my scratchy throat

I pull your tweed scarf

closer around

my collar

forgotten

anniversary

21 years

on the 21st

my new unlucky number

farmer’s market

I run into

my ex-boyfriend

all my eggs

in one basket

hanging out

with my new boyfriend

on the porch

panties on the clothesline

we shoot the breeze

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

74

Martin Grenfell

black clouds

rain down on our tent

pitter-pattering

the ravenous sandflies

search for a way in

for Stephen

decrepit hut window

crawling with sandflies and—

I hate spiders

but today

I cheer them on

an old friend’s party

we stand and talk about

the old times

I realize are now

all we have in common

that old fear

electrifies my body

gripping tightly

on my first climb

of the night

eying the next hold

I stretch . . . and stretch . . .

finally!

I’ve found a way to reach

new people

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

75

Michele L. Harvey

a Thrasher,

copper colored

at the field gate

the silent rising

of a harvest moon

the subtle stir

of wind

scatters fallen leaves

I too,

must obey memories

freshly made

the body of the bird

the moment I see

my reflection in it’s eye

we are one

the White Out

doesn’t quite match

the paper . . .

all my life this pressure

to blend in with the crowd

alongside hers

his name on the stone

yet

without a date

for when they’ll next meet

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

76

Michele L. Harvey

“bigger this year”

he grins through chipped teeth

just a quick slice

and the neck is cut

of this year’s pumpkin

he’s been gone now

for little over a year

the shack sags

deep inside the sugarbush

under the weight of a tree

the witch

atop the barn

a weathervane

to remind me

how to ride the wind

told

he was swept out to sea

to join friends

that wait on the other side

of the potty

halloween

in the video store

a ghoul wavers

between King Kong

and The Mummy

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

77

Michele L. Harvey

I gave her

a stone heart

fashioned by the sea

without a word, I saw

I had captured hers

on the curve

past where her son died

is her house . . .

in this life

there are no easy answers

rethinking

the color of my own gown . . .

autumn leaves

most brilliant

in their finality

do not

look for me to shrink

from death

my last breath will open

open, to the wideness of the sky

the apron

of the garden scarecrow

has faded

through the seasons

laundered and pressed by the sun

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

78

Michele L. Harvey

the slippers

that Dorothy wore

are on my feet

but no need to click

when you’re already there

after the wake

a single feather found

in his pocket

last summer’s plumage

of a courting bird

the straight line

of a crow’s flight . . .

I try again

and hope this time

that he’ll hear me

as night comes

I watch the mist gather

and swirl

in unseen breezes

a partner to itself

near death

I heard a voice say

“it’s not your time” . . .

since then, I live

breath by breath

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

79

Michele L. Harvey

smoke settles

through endless rows of corn

the first frost

thickly covers green grass

but my heart flies with the geese

a fall cricket

sings alone on the porch

I too, wonder

about being born too late

or too soon

on a stone

the hand points

to heaven . . .

I look at my watch

and wonder which way leads home

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

80

C W Hawes

observing

my neighbor who lives

on welfare

there’s always money

for booze and smokes

O moon

hiding behind the clouds

show your face

please drop the veil

of your modesty tonight

misty drizzle

whipped against the window

the air chill

and the soughing of the wind

is your whisper in my ear

whether

I’m happy or sad

these weeds grow

and in each season

there are birds singing

mid-October

rain and snow whisked off

the windshield

slow moving traffic

and thoughts of your kisses

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

81

C W Hawes

twenty-two day moon

floating high in the eastern sky

hurry! hurry!

the horizon’s turning white behind you

the sun is in hot pursuit behind you

my boss’s

deadline panic squeezing

her voice

will the blackberry

retire with her

savoring

the veggie egg roll

at my desk

the report stays closed

for a few minutes

flamed orange

the clouds at sunset

fifth day moon

barely visible

in those days you too

like an old

Japanese ink painting

that pine in the fog

and I am sure of it

my part is with the fog

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

82

C W Hawes

a still life

I am sitting here

with teacup

I ponder the meanings

of “still” and “life”

that vase

on the windowsill

white with grey

looks like a man I know

he too white with grey

at the deli

buying roasted chicken

for supper

standing in the line

all the young mothers

the pencil

poised above these reports

on best practices

in five years time

will anyone care

Sunday morning

these newspaper headlines

the same old stuff

reading these poems they too

are the same old stuff

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

83

C W Hawes

the fog filling

in the valley between

darkening hills

another website

with my poems gone

these thoughts

these words

these little poems

my dreams

together

in the misty moonlight

holding hands

this pine was once

young too

this morning

twenty-sixth day moon

rising

Botticelli’s Venus

from my bed

a DQ mudslide

and two little spoons

in the park

we sit where we sat

last year

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

84

C W Hawes

for four days

the cold August rain

has fallen

the log settles and

you snuggle closer

booming thunder

and rain furiously lashed

against windows

amongst downed trees and limbs

stands the weeping willow

with eyes closed

I extend my arm

make a fist

another blood test

to see what is wrong

sitting by myself

in the downtown McDonald’s

watching the people

there’s a time I realize

that street person is me

slowly slipping

into the city lights

is the moon

towards those same lights

the road is taking me

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

85

C W Hawes

the countryside

is in sumac red

September

pumpkins and squash

litter roadside stands

smoke scented

the latakia

tobacco

many are my thoughts

of that October

aimlessly

walking in the chill rain

of November

your name repeated

over and over

my clothes tattered

and begging bowl empty

this winter day

dream-like reality

reality-like dreams

the greyness

of this November

morning

the stillness touches

that part of my heart

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

86

C W Hawes

so quickly

cold this cup of tea

has become

too many years

just too many years

a lone bird

flying south at last

with no mate

that leafless gnarled tree

alone by the pond

on Sunday morning

we share the Irish soda bread

and keemun tea

serenaded by the geese

and soft breezes in the trees

the distant hills

greening with the rains of spring

and everyday

I notice the many towers

bringing electricity

today I am bored

there is nothing which piques

my interest

thumbing through the papers

piled on my desk

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

87

C W Hawes

what other

alternative does he have

this terrorist

I ask myself

over and over

this desire

to pack our bags and go

someplace far away

thumbing through the atlas

every night

from out of those hills

come the rabbits and the deer

by the hundreds

they circle me round and round

their eyes stare and never blink

the lights shining

from the depths of the city

in the darkest night

I wait and wait

but no moon, no stars

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

88

Roger Jones

they’re long gone now

those days when I thought

I could make time stop

or the past return

by writing poems

what I dreamed of then:

a life of art and leisure

like that of Horace

on his Sabine farm

writing of the good life

each summer day

for this aged traveler,

the sun

the same dusty path

to the evening horizon

a janitor

squeezes filthy water

from a cotton-string mop

as I wait for my late bus

in a big city station

thunder last night

today snow;

a quiet evening now:

distant chainsaws razzing

across the hills

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

89

Roger Jones

summer sunset

and tinkling

ice-cream truck music —

a child runs home clutching

her two-scoop prize

when we die

we don’t take anything

with us in fact

we don’t even

take us

together with you

under Coit Tower at night:

city lights in fog,

sharp scent

of the eucalyptus

don’t ever forget

the loneliness

of that spring and summer —

how joy was rebuilt stone

on stone, across a decade

ragged autumn stands

of windblown bluestem

ripple across pastures;

I smile while contemplating

my own unimportance

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

90

Roger Jones

walking into town for gas

down a backroad

on a starry winter night

I pause on the bridge to hear

the gurgling creek below

cicadas razzing

at dusk late summer —

treetops in my yard

communicate

with my neighbors’ treetops

the busy days arrive

one after another;

soon all this time

starts to pile up in a heap

we call the past

millions of shells

fragments and chips

along the beach

remind me again

of the vast kingdom of death

front door wide open

June night —

screech of insects,

thump of moths

trying to reach the light

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

91

Roger Jones

again my father

driving by his old school

tells the old stories —

chainlink around the lot,

sign on the padlocked door

me at fifty consoling

me at twenty-five

about love —

“be grateful

none of those affairs worked out!”

one week only

along the pathway

to the house

the cold cobalt light

of asters in autumn

right here

in the restaurant parking lot

the warm southern wind

swings to cool in the north

as the season changes

standing barefoot

on cold front porch boards

on a late-autumn night,

hearing the baying hounds,

a trace of skunk in the air

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

92

Kirsty Karkow

mouth watering

the mere memory

of Argentina

and a tree bent low

with ripe apricots

I’d read the words

studied color photographs

and antique etchings . . .

the white chalk cliffs of Moens

out-dazzled every concept

stinging nettles

I’d forgotten how swift

and sharp the pain—

then my careless stumble

at a family reunion

our summer

has been a rough one

news accounts

of grounded fishing boats

and big trucks without fuel

bring me soft

and supple lines . . .

this coarse stuff

abrades my little boat

moored in rising seas

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

93

Kirsty Karkow

in that pause

after she had died

I seemed to sense

a young girl running

and laughter in green fields

new warmth

and softest sunshine

greening leaves

refresh the air with oxygen

let’s breathe deeply while we can

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

94

M. Kei

my sister must have

lilies-of-the-valley

two years after

her mother dead

her son dead

little birds,

red as a hawk’s tail

but small

as a sparrow,

flicker and are gone

a male and

female cardinal

touch beaks

for just a moment

in the drizzling rain

squealing like

she just saw Elvis,

she tells me

she likes

my poems

throwing away

old papers,

I found a love letter —

I vaguely recall

that boy-man . . .

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

95

M. Kei

stepping out my door

into the green evening and

the perfume of wild vines,

a world without shadows

a world without fears

not quite the same,

a beige cardinal and

ivory teapot,

each touched with

a brighter color

the round back

of a sleeping cat

arranges all

the angles to a

comfortable curve

brown thrasher

tilting your head

to study the sky,

what do you see

that I do not?

days

unwinding into

months

unwinding into

death

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

96

M. Kei

another skipjack

headed for the grave —

the Flora A. Price

‘friend ship of Caroline County’

begging for a home

one green finch

blown across

the asphalt

and into

the tree of heaven

I don’t want

to see cathedrals

in France,

not with the Chesapeake Bay

spread out before me

a broken bottle —

many reflections

refracted through

the fractures of

the reflections

there’s poetry

in everything, even

in the fear

at the top of

a swaying mast

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

97

M. Kei

for years

this land has

worked me

until I am about

to disappear

somewhere

in the darkness

inside my heart

the lights of a distant city

are burning

in the end,

something called

‘victory’

bleeding down

the wall

one bagpipe

in a mist-filled dawn . . .

that was the sound

of a lover’s hopes

unfulfilled

peel me

down to the bone,

to the white

bitter

heart of me

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

98

M. Kei

rain needles

piercing

right through

the green roof

of the world

tawny lilies—

there are other flowers,

but none that

give themselves

so freely to me

the landlord

does not see these nail holes

as I do:

hooks on which to hang

doors into other worlds

azure morning,

passing the crab boat

Aaramy

working a line of

black pennants

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

99

Larry Kimmel

the sound of the siren

is as red

as your lips closing over

the blind white

of the hard boiled egg

glimpsed

through the blind sockets

of the skull

that hollow

where the live brain lived

I conjure our river bank

but it morphs,

it jungles

and the Rousseau-animals emerge—

those eyes! our sudden nakedness!

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

100

Joseph V. Kleponis

if this silent night

were to cry out my name

what would it ask for ––

my ceaseless speculation

or mere appreciation?

exchanging glances

parsing words carefully phrased

we sit at the table

knowing negotiations

mean giving up to make gain

the hum of the fridge

the creaking of the floorboards

the dripping faucet

these sounds that break night’s silence

do not cause this troubled sleep

summer afternoon

of still heavy humid air

and gathering clouds

what kind of storm approaches ––

what will shelter me from you?

glinting sunlight falls

on the rapturous cellist

in the painting

circumscribed by a gilt frame ––

is that joyous song for us?

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

101

Joseph V. Kleponis

on the fire escape

smothering in night’s dead air

we whispered our dreams

in dried voices falling downward

while indifferent stars looked on

the afternoon light

falls across the living room

onto the club chair

fading the floral pattern

you worked so hard to create

a single crow’s call

rises from the tops of trees

through the afternoon ––

is that an echoed answer

or just the rustling of leaves?

after the thunder

after the burst of lightning

after the hail stones

after the rain and the rainbow ––

where does the glistening lead?

just who are you

that so many years later

I still think of you

and am compelled to believe

that we loved wisely and well

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

102

Jean LeBlanc

lilies so tall

I think they will topple

and take me

gladly

with them

The garden

is too much to see

all at once.

I zoom in on

a monarch’s wing.

A summer

of good intentions.

A fine layer of dust

on every

untouched book.

up before dawn

to arrange and rearrange

words on paper —

tunnels of small creatures

beneath the snow

so many small joys

small griefs—

salt crystals

melting circles

in the snow

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

103

Bob Lucky

almost sunrise

I close the blinds

and go back to bed ––

to hell with David Hume;

I know what happens next

in the corridor

angry accents and tones fly

in argument ––

nothing makes sense

but the slamming of doors

in the evening

we walk beneath the stars

together

a pair of bats

dissecting the dark

the geography

of good and bad luck ––

superstition

this year no better or worse

for not eating black-eyed peas

no one knows

the name of the flower

outside my door

we stand and marvel

at our ignorance

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

104

Bob Lucky

hard travel’s taught me

to appreciate five things:

toilet paper,

AC, bottled water,

ATMs and home

on the crowded boat

I look down into cleavage ––

scenic views

pagodas in the hills

around West Lake

homework argument

in the heat of the moment

confessing

I can’t help with higher math

but can subtract allowance

perhaps too late

I’ve come to a conclusion ––

the end of the road

is not the destination,

there is no road

I spend the morning

reading obituaries

hoping

the names I recognize

don’t match the faces

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

105

Bob Lucky

Trees, Pond, Path, Trees, Pond, Path

More into mist than mysticism, more familiar with sweat than tears, more

lost than found, I walk slowly around Walden Pond hoping to see

something I can turn into a sign. I go around again just in case.

from this shore

I cannot see the other

and can but wonder

if on that side there stands

another puzzled lover

__________

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

106

Jeanne Lupton

he calls

I buy scarlet satin

lingerie

ready for love

after all these years

rare email

from my younger sister

long lost to me

in her dream last night

I wore roses in my hair

space music

at the cafe

suddenly

I’m writing

science fiction

when I go

play Bobby Darin’s

“Beyond the Sea”

for my soul, always sixteen,

looking forward to love

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

107

Terra Martin

out of the husk

of a cocoon

the butterfly

of wispy clouds

rises

the burgundy

maple leaves

layered

the filtered light

of a darker desire

the peonies droop

after the shower

and petals fall

over and over I read

the poem you wrote

as if from

a far shore

I watch

my heart navigate

the swift current

delicious twilight’s

sweet fragrance

is tangled

in the vines

of white jasmine

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

108

Terra Martin

sweeter

than a wooden lute

or lullaby

this echoing melody

of love

longing

for the unreachable

the luminous train

of a falling star

expires

it isn’t the moon

that wakes me tonight

but rather loneliness

that illuminates this

late hour

in lieu of

a single

kiss

the iciness

of silk sheets

mauve

charcoal smudges

the night

spreads its wings

and drifts into dawn

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

109

Terra Martin

muddy

beach stones

like your words

all the edges round

and smooth

by the water’s edge

lingering

the sparrow sips . . .

I savor your

thank you note

if I were

a stream of light

and you a dewdrop

how enlightened our

love would be

in primary

colours I realize

the canvas

of dreams I’ve yet

to paint

flaring

like a peacock’s tail

sultry desire

parades in front

of my eyes

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

110

Terra Martin

Long Legs

the long

lean day lilies

capture the sun

envious I’m tempted

to remove my hat

leisurely

the daddy long legs

climbs the wall

I watch wishing

deadlines were as easy

flowering garlic

it’s purple globe

towers over the rose

this sudden urge

to buy high heels

statuesque

the blue heron’s

hunting pose

at the street side cafe

her legs artfully crossed

rocket-like

the frog soars

with one giant leap

impulsively I agree

to a blind date

__________

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

111

Terra Martin

Somersaults

steeply

the bluff

twists and turns

the things I do

to please you

suspended

at the needle’s edge

a raindrop

about to fall

into thorny silence

highlighting

our oldest emails

the child-like

innocence

of our first photo

over one pink leg

then the other

a flamingo’s pose

we weigh the idea of

getting back together

debris

from the shooting star

trails and fades

our anger dwindles

as we kiss and make up

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

112

Terra Martin

dark clouds

defying the sun

a sudden rainbow

in a velvet box

the rose gold ring

this night

as the wind caresses

the clover

in your warmth

tenderly wrap me

__________

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

113

Terra Martin

Gypsy

I hesitate at the fork in the path before me. One branch veers left in a

twisting turn; the other shoots straight ahead to a gentle hill and to the

house. The highlights of the terrain are cream-coloured and flicker here

and there—through two slender trees, the chimney, the edges of the

eaves.

In the foreground of this rustic spring landscape lies the disquieting house

with its cracked walls. The red and black mosaic beyond is made of the

roofs of a nearby village.

leaving the porch

light on

a childish notion

that someday you will

return to me

the ornamental pear

is shimmering but

unable to bear fruit

that is what I tell

my niece when she asks

Once more, I follow my eye and am drawn down this road that leads

somewhere, this road that leads anywhere, away from this house of

foreboding.

tapping my foot

to the tambourine

in the gypsy song

I seek my sanctuary

in a place I’ve yet to see

__________

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

114

Francis Masat

a new town —

my tires coated in dust

from the old

new faces

are old here too

the sound of wind

in the pines — the sound

of wind in the pines

a keening sound

from high above

two far hills

covered with a flowered meadow

edged with a lace filigree

of distant trees ––

nature’s peasant blouse

Lover’s Leap –-

a bouquet of bright balloons

tied to the railing

a bouquet of withered flowers

lying far below

end of summer

the heat still remains

from our first kiss

spring’s kitten

no longer a kitten

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

115

Francis Masat

first day of school

I spill sand

from children’s swim fins

the lifeguard off

to college

nameless headstones rise

above the open prairie

ahead of snow

the smell of over-ripeness

in the chill breeze

family reunion—

an old tune

beyond a new face

the shade of Grandpa’s tree

on his empty chair

winter storm ––

the snow shovel

holding up the bird feeder

presents a choice

the in-laws are coming

pine grove —

ice glistens

in a biting wind

the first snow and I

turn blue

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

116

Francis Masat

“Regulus, Arcturus, Spica, . . . ”

dusk—

the first stars shine

through a far tree

brightening overhead

as the drive-in lights dim

high overhead

in the middle of the night

between two stars

red and green lights blink

silently from view

skimming a rock

the frog chorus grows silent

the stars return again

in silence circling the lake

the stars return

beach highway

starlight on the curves

of a thigh

the tang of salt on a cheek

a neck, a . . . starry night

starlit beach

along the sound of water

an abandoned home

its floor littered

with tiny silver stars

__________

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

117

Michael McClintock

the clouds of fall —

where they come from,

where they go —

these are the mysteries

floating in our tea

where snails

have been playing chase

on the garden walk

it looks like scripture

written in the dew

did I imagine them?

in that far country?

hyacinths like these

gliding with the current

past bathers in the Ganges

a turtle’s eggs

at the very edge

of the tide —

a toe’s nudge

buries them

the spray

on my face

tastes bitter —

a beach in October

strewn with ship parts

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

118

Michael McClintock

the Point Fermin light

casts a thin, sharp beam

outward like a whip

upon the closing chaos:

mute as an oyster, my friend

your arguments with the world

are small arguments

therefore also may be

the more noble — I do not know

that the world much cares

a man might take

his own bad dreams

and join the fish

leaping into the glimmer below

the Palos Verdes cliffs

autumn afternoons

the ocean is a comfort

burnished and warm;

cold and vast the ways

that still obtain the heart

the man

doing all

the talking

darkness

fills his mouth

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

119

Michael McClintock

if these roses

did not wither

or fall —

who could love

a thornbush?

beguiled by the season

you wish for things forgotten

when the leaves drop —

I say keep the courage

of the bold, brown leaf

unwinding

an old cocoon

an hour

given to love

of emptiness

somewhere

inside the bluff house

someone

has opened a window

and let in the waves

new boots

pulled on —

the rain bounces,

it seems to me,

twice as high

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

120

Michael McClintock

not to forget the world,

when morning with its sword

climbs the hill,

part of me, deaf and blind,

wants the darkness back

making a blanket

on the grass

a birch tree’s shade

for the convicts in the work crew

at rest by the road

the red-horned monsters

on the walls of Moab —

it was so long ago,

do you suppose these

were their enemies?

we now live

in their house, the one admired

more than any,

and are comfortable though

the furniture has changed

when tonight

the season’s stars and planets

swarm the Pacific swell

I’ll plunge them all

into my eyes

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

121

Michael McClintock

we meet again

on the path at dusk,

the crow and I —

I will give him a name

he may keep for the night

coming in

from the cold

the cat

gives me a paw

and licks my hand

I lived and slept

for twenty-five years

in this crummy room;

now my fortunes have changed

and everything surprises me

a desert bird

hurtles past me

toward the thunder;

I pick up my bundle

and hope to follow it

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

122

Jo McInerney

your birthday …

was it really

only yesterday

this wonder

came among us

remembering

our childhood paperchase …

you and I

leaving a trail

no one could follow

tree stumps

across the back paddock

footsteps

where just a dream ago

there were giants

dark water

murmuring through willow roots

above a currawong cries…

the boy has not come

to the creek to fish

a fledgling owl

stranded in the headlights …

those empty eyes

full of moon

and the high dark sky

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

123

Jo McInerney

the colt

pressing its nose into

your palm

no other reference

necessary

I watch

you sleeping

perhaps

the greatest privilege

of love

lying

beside you

breathing

close and familiar

as my own

my daughter

curled beside me

still my child …

in twenty years so much

so little has changed

your hand

enclosing mine …

on the air

the faint clear scent

of snow

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

124

Jo McInerney

bruised

like a peach …

stains

on your soft dark skin

and beneath your eyes

but

nothing’s finished …

how

she wondered

can death come now

winter lavender

the soft fragrance silent …

no echo

in my heart

the hive is still

my hands

deep in sweet earth ––

the garden

you made for me

those last slow years

I stand above

the place where you

were buried

wishing I could

hear the sea

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125

Annette Mineo

star-lights

in his Irish blue eyes

this dark morning

send me higher than thunderheads

gathered over the bay

all this hoopla

over her dying too soon

even while forsythia

burns its yellow river

down the hillside into the sea

gone to bed

with my three grown children

in the house

all through the night

the steady strumming of glorious rain

so we pass through yet

another autumn

unmarried

like two cozy birds

tucked high in the yellow trees

for my soul

overwhelmed

heavy rains in the night

pounding all these wild weeds

to a sweet clean pulp

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

126

Annette Mineo

after

his random phone call

from the ninth green

I smile at my evolved idea

of what romantic is

like a squeaky spring

in our lovemaking

one tiny bird

all on its own

cranking up the October sun

how I mourn

those two great chestnuts

as if my own two legs

cut heinously to the quick

when I wasn’t looking

all day I am

like the parched Kapiti Plain

in Africa

when you and I go long

without

even as beauty fades

I cling to grace

my every chosen word

soft as the peony bloom

solid like stone

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

127

Amy Nawrocki

thickly painted,

the cypresses sway across

the starry night,

dizzy into cobalt spirals

and blaze through azure resplendence

marigold sun

tiptoes behind plump mountains,

selects lace clouds,

and lays pinafore shadows

over summering weeds

by wetlands

dotted with swallows swooping

over marshy grass

the glossy ibis steps

stilt legs into its echo

midnight silt collects

between dunes in the grassy marsh;

the ancient tail

of a horseshoe crab draws

the map of time through the mire

with sunlit backs

two boys dig for clams

afternoon crests

and shallow waters brim

with Quahog promises

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

128

Amy Nawrocki

lily pads dangle

and pale pink clusters burst

over ebony glass;

wading on green cradles

pollywogs search for frog legs

long past the solstice,

summer brews with black curses

stretched by the wind

over the peeking eyes

of rain-hungry sunflowers

I transport your heart

to green kingdoms far away

and comfortably near;

the fare, of course, is clear blue:

chauffeur my heart into yours

As willows sag,

capacity for no sound

opens a window

for rain’s nun-like stillness,

the boom of introspection

coffee shop closes

its door at odd intervals,

leaving caffeine ducks

to wade into the traffic

of Wednesday afternoon ennui

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

129

Peter Newton

high above the heart’s landscape

we open all the windows

let the house breathe in

this late summer day

filling our lungs for the long fall

it’s the perfect gift

for my control-freak sister

a book on how to force things

to bloom the right way

narcissus, for one

box-cars clack past

in knots of spray paint

the hieroglyphs of our time

the one-word poets

I see have been hard at work

young and in love

we were learning to levitate

bend metal with our minds

we floated off to sleep

woke to a world we curved

the face of the barn’s peeling

maybe this year I’ll scrape

but then there’s the priming

and what color could replace

a face like that

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

130

Peter Newton

swearing at the steps

cursing the snow

I yell at it for falling--

I don’t care if you’re pretty

just get off my back

the car alarms itself

the house motion-detects

still, my untrainable heart

up on blocks

stripped in the street

sealed in a sandwich bag

buried in a breast pocket

a note--

the man who leapt from the bridge

took care of everything

the May suicides--

that sudden dose of summer

stunned by the sunlight

that hung in the air that day

triggering such permanence

spiders trailing silk

drift, glinting in the meadow

little dare-devils

beautiful parachutists

on their way to re-enlist

Modern English Tanka — Autumn 2008

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Peter Newton

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