Simple Things – Summer Night Storm

This is for Kerry’s prompt at Real Toads – 10 lines or less about uncomplicated things. http://withrealtoads.blogspot.se/2017/08/micro-poetry-uncomplicated-things.html  One of my favorite forms – the haibun – classic of course and none of this modern nonsense – another uncomplicated thing!

Summer Night Storm
Through the trees I can see the lightning flashing – smell the wet rain in the air. Not the smell of petrichor but rather, the rich wetness of long absent rain, the much needed rain, 恵雨 keiu – welcome rain. I hear the rain before it starts as it runs across the leaves of the trees and then the roofs of  houses, the road, and then here. Sudden rushing welcome rain. I stand outside in spite of the lightning and let it drench me.  I hold my arms up to the sky and smile.

still summer air weighs
heavy against the trees and
then the rain begins

rain – shotei 1859

 

My Garden

This is for Bjorn’s Meeting the Bar segment of dVerse – a free verse sonnet.  He gives Neruda as an example.  I told Bjorn I was busy putting up food for the winter…he asked if I was going to do a sonnet on tomatoes.  I don’t know if I did this correctly.  I am not much on Western forms.  so my volta is a senryu.  I hope it works!

My Garden
The rain began in the spring and did not end
until Mother’s Day. My garden was planted late
But then it took off like a rocket.
Tomatoes, corn, butterbeans –
cucumbers and squashes in all the colors
of the rainbow. Fresh and lovely in taste
and soft and strong to the touch.
Now it is getting to the end of summer.
My garden is starting to show its age but
still it gives to me. Days spent canning
and pickling and freezing – just to have
the taste of summer all through the winter.

summer bounty thrives –
animals snack at night – I
work during the day

copyright kanzensakura

 

 

Monsoon

This is for the Mid-week Motif at Poets United – Flood. It is a poem I have been working on for a couple of years. I think I am finally through with it. http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2017/08/poets-united-midweek-motif-flood.html

Monsoon

“I love storms. Primordial. Every bit of civilization gone. Everything true coming out.” Vanessa Ives, Penny Dreadful

Hot. Smoldering hot.
The sky like molten bronze.
It is amazing the stones of the buildings do not explode in the heat
or melt and run in the gutters.
Rain coming. Soon. Soon.
And then the first breath –
The rain begins and
the skies rip and before I can open my umbrella
I am soaked to the skin –
The rain like cold needles drives into my skin,
stabbing into my heart and emptying it of secrets.
Steam rises from the street,
the buildings
my skin.
In the rising steam and driving rain
people move, barely seen, like wandering ghosts.
I have tried to chase away the memories.
In my mind I hear your voice
like a call that crackles from a bad connection
and disconnects before I can interpret your words.
A man bumps into me and for a moment
I think he looks like you.
But he disappears into the mist and rain
…and I accept I will never see you again.
Every time it rains, it reminds me of you.

public domain Utagawa Hiroshige People Sheltering From the Rain 1857

 

dVerse Poetics: Musical Muse

Mish is prompting for the dVerse Poetics today. She asks us to reach inside our musical muse and use lines from a favorite song to craft a poem. This is also being posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads – Bits of Inspiration ~ Keep Dancing
Susie is our host and wants us to write about dancing because everything nowadays is sooooo negative  http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/2017/08/bits-of-inspiration-keep-dancing.html .  I have chosen the haibun form and Hall and Oates song, One on One…because long ago in a galaxy far far away…

One on One
Two a.m. – hot humid summer night. A fine drizzle of rain has coated everything with a fine sheen of wet, including me. I am sitting on my back steps unable to sleep. Sounds of insects, an occasional insomniac bird twittering – the soft whining and clacking sound as the rare car goes over the bridge across the verge of the woods. From a passing car I hear faint and haunting – one on one I want to play that game tonight…My mind blanks and supplies the internal movie: A hot summer day after we had done sword forms and were sitting on our back steps drinking lemonade and listening to the radio. A new song comes on – Hall and Oates, one of our favorites: one on one and the gold satin voice of Darryl Hall soulfully croons:
“Oh oh I can feel the magic of your touch
And when you move in close a little bit means so much”

“I like this song” , you suddenly say. “Teach me to dance to it” and we stand – I smile up at you and say, “I lead”.  I place my hand on your belly, feel you warm through your tee shirt. “Center of balance – here. Up on the balls of your feet.” I put my arm around your waist, my hand nestled in the small of your back. Taking your hand I move against you, pulling you after me; quick quick slow – quick quick slow. You are light and graceful. “Are we fighting or are we dancing?” I laugh into your chest, “Sometimes my love, it is the same thing.” One on one I want to play that game tonight….You bend and laugh softly in my ear. “Rhumba…you are teaching me the rhumba. You are a sneaky ballroom dancer girl.” I pull your hips tight against me and rotate against you. You sigh….”you are a cruel ballroom dancer girl.” The song ends and the radio on our steps blares out some song we care nothing about.  But later, we dance again, to our own music.

The movie in my mind stops. I open my eyes. Silence now except for the whisper of rain on the leaves of the trees.  The song is past, gone down a road of darkness.

dark music floats in
the summer night – lonely songs
that drench the heart like rain

Crayola Dawn

I am posting this on dVerse Poets Pub for De’s lovely prompt on Quadrille Monday. She requests that we use the word “dream” – dreamer, dreams, dreaming, dreamed – make the noun a verb or the verb a noun – it’s all good! A quadrille is a poetic form that came about a couple of years ago when we were making changes to refresh the Poets Pub. the form has exactly 44 words not counting the title. You must include the prompted word in your poem.  Come read these wonderful humming bird tiny poems. I am also posting this to Real Toads Tuesday Platform.  Here are the links for both:  http://dversepoets.com/2017/08/14/quadrille-38/   and  http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-tuesday-platform_15.html

Crayola Dawn
I see the dawn before the rest
of the world awakens.
I came to this dawn through the moonlight
of my dreams.
I dream of the world in argent shades
and awaken to the Crayola dawn –
It is cool this morning.
I am at peace.

copyright kanzensakura

The Moon at 5 a.m.

At Real Toads we are giving the prompt to use a line from one of our poems – “Out of your own words” and provide a link to the poem. The first line is from a haiku I wrote several years ago https://kanzensakura.wordpress.com/2015/05/25/%e5%8d%8a%e6%9c%88-hantsuki-half-moon-haiku/
here is the link for Real Toads: http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/  I am also linking this to Poets United, Poetry Pantry:  http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/

The Moon at 5 a.m.
summer half moon drifts in a sea of blue –
the moon sits close to the horizon
getting ready to go to sleep.
the coming of day –
the smell of a new morning
just stirring and getting ready to rise.
the moon at 5 a.m. is a mysterious thing.
summer is winding down –
the moon Is a mystery –
at 5 a.m. the world is still asleep.
I sit on my back steps and watch
the world awakening.
the moon at 7 a.m. is a baroque pearl
Misshapen and beautiful.
but I love the mystery of the moon at 5 a.m.
in the cool of grey dusk
when it is just a floating sliver of silver
in the cobalt sky.
the moon is a mysterious thing at 5 a.m.

copyright kanzensakura

The Branch

For dVerse OLN 201 http://dversepoets.com/2017/08/10/openlinknight-201/ – one poem of our choice with any subject and the prompt at Real Toads – we are to write about things unseen.   I chose this picture I took last winter after a tremendous wind and snow storm.  The branch transfixed me then, it still does.  http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/

The Branch
I know this branch.
When last I saw it,
several small wrens were perched
upon it, settled among the
golden autumn leaves.

A drizzle of rain made
some delicate drips
and a light wind caused it
to gently sway.
The wrens rode the branch
like small sea birds drifting
on a peaceful sea of black wood.
Torn from the tulip poplar
the skeletal branch
pokes up through the snow,
carried by wind and snow
it ends up in this place
in my yard.

Now, it lies in my yard
encased in frozen snow.
When the snow melts and
I clean my yard,
I will take this branch and
move it to the verge
of the woods that border my yard.
I will lay it down gently on
the fallen leaves and pine needles.
Through time, ants will traverse its length,
tiny frogs will sit by its hugeness
blending in with brown leaves –
Their eyes round and shiny,
their tongues reaching out to
feast on small bugs moving about
the ground and on the branch.
A small spider will spin a web
catching gnats and no-see-ems.
On his way up from the creek
a small green snake will curve its way
sliding under the branch, going
about its green snake business.
The box turtle that explores my garden
and that small patch of woods
will make its slow sure way
under the branch.
The branch will rise and fall and slide
along the turtle’s back and
settle back onto the ground,
maybe at a slightly different angle.
Dew and rain will fall,
small birds will perch on
its fragile fingers.
Beetles, slugs, worms –
all will burrow beneath
and crawl upon it.
Time will pass and the wood
inside the black bark will begin
to rot and turn to dust.
On the ground, the black bark
of the branch will lie discarded
like the skin of an ancient snake.

I will be old.
I will make my deliberate painful way
across my yard.
There I will see the
remains of the bark.
I will, with effort
bend over and touch the bark
with my finger.
I will remember the day
I put it there.
I will say
to the trees around me,
I know this branch.

copyright kanzensakura