Tanka Sequence

                                                   MEMORIES II

                                                he  came poor
                                                with needles and thimble
                                                to a far land
                                                     his vision and life
                                                     pass on through me

                                               a walnut brown face
                                               from hours in the sun
                                               tending his garden
                                                    on a cold, wet morning
                                                    he is lowered into the earth
Modern English Tanka
March 2005

Haiga

Daily Haiga, October 2013

Haibun

 

                                                 A CITY CORNER 

 

A hot day in June.  New York City.  Lower East Side.  People-watching from a corner café.  The tourist busses rumble down 5^th Avenue, holding at the corner light.  Sun-drenched double-deckers.  The tourists squinting.  A guide, standing before one group, microphone in hand, lips moving.  “And here we have…and there…and there…”  No need for me to hear his words. 

 

This is a casual area of the City.  No high fashion, society or career women, no Brooks Brothers.  executive suits walking around.  Every-day New Yorkers, shopping the small markets and delis, the dollar stores.  Dog walkers, three and four canines marching like obedient foot-soldiers.  Mommies with strollers, delivery vans, loading, unloading.  The occasional vagrant or bag-lady shuffling through the corner trash-cans, wary and abandoned expressions on their faces.

 

                                                    shielding my eyes

                                                    from the sun glare

                                                    Walk.  Don’t Walk.

 Contemporary Haibun On-line, Sept. 2009

 

Haiku

                                                       
                                                    tree viewing
                                                    a thinner crowd
                                                    on the steep trail

                                                    the rain over–
                                                    strong winds continue
                                                    to shake leaves dry

                                                    autumn dampness
                                                    the midnight train
                                                    late again

Daily Haiga, January 2010
Bottle Rockets, February 2009
Modern Haiku, spring 2014