Cherry Blossom Jisei

Today Anthony Bourdain was found dead, of suicide. Last year, a friend of mine committed suicide. I could write nothing then of Jeff’s death but found my heart opened today. I am saddened by these events.NOTES: A traditional farewell. It was a tradition for the literate Japanese (monks and Samurai for example) to write death poems shortly before their anticipated death, seppuku, or battle. With the changing of the seasons from summer to autumn, from winter to spring, we see changes as the seasons of spring and summer end. All things pass – mono no aware. The images of dying are also symbols of “farewell”. For Hedge’s 55.

Cherry Blossom Jisei
how brief the blossoms
of the cherry tree –
their lives end at sunset –
snow and rain falling at night –
melting flakes gone before sunrise –
bare branches feel them
drift through skeletal fingers –
birds sleep as snow falls,
cherry blossom moon
holds back the night sky –
the night will conquer that moon

Haikai Challenge #24 #2 tanka

For Frank’s Haikai Challenge #24

December night sky –
snow like frozen stars silent
as dust falls to earth –
no wishes on these lost stars –
summer photo fades with time

Frozen Stars: a tanka

Today for Tuesday’s Platform at Real Toads: A tanka.  Tanka are not titled.

nbc news – public domain

 

December night sky –
snow like frozen stars silent
as dust falls to earth –
no wishes on these lost stars –
summer photo fades with time

 

 

I am published in this fine anthology of poetry from contributors to dVerse Poets Pub.  An incredible gathering of most excellent poets available at Amazon US and UK.

dVerse Poets Pub – Open Link #185

Grace is hosting our Open Link Night, #185!!!!   Here is my submission for that.  Enjoy.  and please visit us at dVerse Poets Pub to read and/or submit your own poem.  https://dversepoets.com/2016/12/01/openlinknight-185/

between the cold of
late autumn and the warmth of
early winter = leaves
cling to the branches – a crow
caws and no bird answers

dVerse Poetics – Razzle Dazzle

Today Lillian is giving us our prompt – we are to write spiffy sparkly razzle dazzle poetry – using the words razzle and or dazzle or something sparkling. Here is my tanka for the month of October – a month of meteor showers and huge moons. The 8th we have meteor showers (Draconids) from the constellation Draco and later in the month, the Orionids. The meteors appear to be coming straight out of the mouth of the Dragon! An unpredictable meteor shower.  Last year, over 600 meteors fell…per hour.   So let the night sky dazzle you. I’ll be out at sunset watching the meteor showers originating out of the dragon’s mouth. Come and be dazzled at: http://dversepoets.com/2016/10/04/razzle-dazzle-me/

 

from the mouth of the
dragon stars stream forth – lighting
the night sky – fire plumes
spiral to earth burned to cold
nothingness- a moment’s thrill

public domain photo – Draconids

dVerse Poets Pub – Open Link Night

Thursday is Open Link Night at dVerse Poets Pub.  Any poet can submit any one poem of their choice today.  I have submitted a tanka for my choice.  Come join us and discover your new favorite poet!  The pub opens Thursday at 3:00 pm. https://dversepoets.wordpress.com/2016/09/08/openlinknight-179/?iframe=true&theme_preview=true

 

Indian summer vine –
tiny rust flowers clamber
up to the blue sky
eager to see if autumn
has gotten closer to home

copyright kanzensakura

Poetic Spouses – Kiku

Another entry for dVerse Poet’s Pub where Kim is inspiring us to write of a poetic spouse, preferably of someone dead.  I could not resist doing a tanka for Kiku, the first wife of Kobayashi Issa and mother of his first two children who both died tragically young.  Their deaths inspired Issa to pen:  Tsuyu no yo wa tsuyu no yo nagari sari nagara:
this dewdrop world –
is a dewdrop world
and yet, and yet…

Kiku
I loved you in the
warmth of our love – I will love
you in the coldness –
our children dissolved like dew
on the edge of summer grass

 

 

dVerse Poets Pub – Old and New

Today Victoria is our pubtender and prompt giver. She asks us to take an old poem and rework it and to include both the old and the new poems.  I have taken one written in 1996 and reworked it.  It is now a Bussokusekika – older than tanka which is older than haiku – a couple of thousand years older and more deeply steeped in tradition.  The bussokusekika was discovered on an old stone in front of an ancient Buddhist temple and means – Footprint of Buddha.  It is like the tanka but has an extra seven syllable line added.  The form for this and tanka is strict – 5-7-5-7-7+7.  It is an obscure form and rarely used. For more information on tanka, please go to:  https://dversepoets.com/2015/11/30/japanese-poetic-forms-part-ii-more-twins/  The link to dVerse:  Let’s Kick It Up a NotchLet’s Kick It Up a Notch

New Poem
Age of Incense
The futility
Of burning incense – prayers
Unanswered ignored
Seem to be my fate in this
Time of rainy days –
The smoke cannot reach you and
Sadness remains – ashes fall
Dry tears upon the table….

 

free stock photo

Old Poem
Incense Days
you are gone
my ritual is this:
the burning of incense –
holy and fragrant.
the smoke travels in the wind
and I wish for it to reach you
to reach your mind to reach your heart
to say to you
come back. come back. come back.
the rain beats the smoke back down to earth
and only the wet grass hears.
I weep and light another stick.
more rain.
more sadness.
come back.

 

 

Tanka: Yaekumo

The tanka refers to clouds called by the Japanese – yaekumo – eight fold clouds or, double blooming cherry trees.

many layered clouds –
double blooming cherry tree –
cherry blossoms are
missed but always there are trees
blooming in the summer sky

summer haiku and tanka

I.
the full moon flutters
on the surface of the pond
dancing in time to
the first song of summer sung
by a lonely cicada

II.
the summer moon bursts
from behind the clouds – startled
an owl takes flight

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

IV.
small bell sounds like rain
in the summer dawn – birds sing
to the cobalt sky

dVerse Poetics – Goodbye too soon – harunoshimo

Abhra is the host for todays’s prompt which is saying goodbye too soon or saying goodbye when you didn’t/don’t mean it. Interesting prompt. Last year, I said goodbye to winter too soon and then BAM!!!! Major frost. So here is the tanka I wrote at that time because I said it too soon. Come join us over at dVerse for some what I know will be interesting and different takes on this prompt. Have you ever said goodbye and didn’t mean it?

Tanka for Spring Frost (春の霜 harunoshimo)
warm spring day – cherry
blossoms – clouds of pink and white
under bright blue skies –
in the night frost silently
covers and kills all
winter is not yet gone – too
soon goodbye said to winter

free public domain image frost damage

 

 

dVerse Poetics: Mockingbird #2

Another entry for dVerse Poetics today: Mockingbird is the prompt. I have based this tanka on the battle scene of the Last Samurai.

pink as the spring
sunrise – cherry blossoms bloom
the next morning of
the last battle – forms lie still –
mocking birds sing their goodbye.

 

free image – Last Samurai, last battle