Haibun – Cull

 

Write.  Why is the DVD drive whirring?  Ignore it!  Did I leave a movie in it?  When was the last time I watched a movie?  What would it have been…?  Maybe it’s the last thing I listened to as I wrote.  When was the last time I wrote?  What did I write…?  Wonder how my submissions are coming along.  Are you going to write?  Yeah, give me a minute.  Facebook?  Are you kidding me?  What are you, my muse or my editor?  I just need to get into the right frame of—  Uh huh.  Call me when you’re ready to get serious.  Hey!  Could you bring me some coffee when you come back?

I saw that!

clueless what to write –
one less voice in my head now
muse-less walk in rain

 

* * *

Posted to dVerse Poets Pub where Frank Hubney is hosting Haibun Monday.  The prompt is “silent sound” — whatever that means to each of us.

Haibun: Coyote Bait

 

At the end of my last of three midnight shifts, my forecast published, waiting to brief the morning crew, I took a sticky note and – marker in hand – wrote, “DO NOT REMOVE.”  I affixed it to the forecaster’s briefing counter, off to the side.  Shift over, I bid the Air Force Weather station a three-day’s adieu.  I was proud to serve as a Combat Weatherman (able to tell you it will rain tomorrow, and then kill you).

My personal unit motto – rejected by my superiors – “First to See, Last to Care.”

Refreshed by my break, I entered the station ready for a day shift.  After the morning briefing, I reached over and removed the note I’d left so long ago.  My commander nearly shouted, “It says, ‘DO NOT REMOVE’!”

“I know.  I wrote it.”  Said with a smile.

A confused look.  “Why?”

“I was fishing for a coyote among sheep.”

 

howls keep the moon up
no peace, sleep or reflection
sign of the joker

 

* * *

Posted to dVerse Poets Pub for Poetics: Real Life Humor.

 

 

Redbird with the Rainy Days Blues

Pinterest

 

I watch you press
into a crook; dry
side of an Oak.

Crimson, you flit
into the rain
for morsels to eat.

Back you fly
up into branches,
wet and hanging.

To a nest
well hidden;
mother, chicks
drenched.

Bored by days of rain.

* * *

Posted to dVerse Poets Pub for Quadrille Monday.  The key word is “rain.”

 

Filling the Gap

 

A poet lies,
the narrator misdirects,
historians record
from within their rutted paradigm.

True journalists write
on the bias — the corporate slant,
many professors lecture
from personal conceit sublime.

I watch your eyes drawn
into the world around you, living,
vital and wild.

What do sparrows know
but crumbs and seeds?

What do beasts chase
but after their basest needs?

Listen to me —
I’m telling you the truth.

 

* * *

Posted to dVerse Poets Pub, Open Link Night.

 

 

 

 

Death, Yossarian and Me

 

It was love at first sight…

when I poured that first cup
of molten ebony at early light;
I often wonder why I am up.

Through the kitchen blind

blue vapor above the surface
of the water –
ghosts of the gentlest ilk.
I lift the teaspoon from its place.
Raw sugar first; then milk.

Brown convection, then tan;
a thunderstorm a-brew.
Write a few lines if I can.
Then upstairs with a cup for you.

First the colours.

Then the humans.

That’s how I usually see things.

 

* * *

Posted at dVerse Poets Pub for Meeting the Bar.  Tonight we are asked to crib a line apiece from two separate literary works, making one our starting line and the other our end line.  My start line is the first line from Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.  My end lines are the first three lines of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  The first book explains so much of life that it has been my traveling companion for many years.  The latter book… well, if you haven’t read it….

Growl — a poem

glassgoddessngraving.com

 

You never joined the pack.
Why share the wildness?

The abandon
as you run through the wooded stands of life,
no trails,
random turn-asides –
the main thing is to avoid going
face-first into a tree.

That unbrushed,
uncombed,
unkempt look
is not a façade;
the outcome
of seldom settling,
always approaching
days, life, as a chase –
predator or hunted.

Why settle for less;
to be anything other than a feral friend?

Tell me when you come down off the high of traveling unfamiliar ground,
the territory of the unknown that quickens your pulse and your eye.

Tell me when you are ready to settle again
and we will gather, you and I,
and drink –
not staid liquor to soothe
our nerves, but fire-blended whiskey!

I know you won’t stay
for long.  But for a time
I will join you under a moon.