Senryu

an ant in my bed-
for the two of us
not enough room

the evening woods
filling my mind with quiet
and my hair with gnats

World Haiku Review Senryu contest
honorable mention
work of merit
December 2003

Haibun

FOUR PONDS

 

There are four ponds within a mile of our house, each different.  One, at the bottom of a sweeping lawn, mirrors the stately white colonial house.   Four white Adirondack chairs stand together.  They are always empty.

reflected willows

in this world of opposites

how do I choose? 

Narrowing at one end, the water flows under the road, emerging on the other side, first as a stream, then growing into a pond edged with rough bushes and untamed nature. 

ice sculptures

on the spillway

flowing lights

 
Further down the twisting road is a pond which in a dry summer shrinks to hot tub size.  This year it has swollen to reach beyond several trees and a picnic table. 
 
thunder storm

algae on the pond

regroup

The  largest of the four, perhaps 250 yards long and 60 yards across at its widest point, attracts ducks and geese as they migrate.  The banks, clear of trees and brush, are broad and green and mowed.  The color of sky–blue, gray, black– the pond ripples in the wind and tosses back sequins in sunlight .

slate green pond

shadows above and below

the thin ice

Contemporary Haibun On-line, April 2012

Haibun

                        THE WOMAN IN PINK

 

In a café, a woman with long bleached hair, heavy make-up, dressed in pink:  slacks, shirt, spiky sandals.  She reads aloud her horoscope.

“You will soon meet your dream man.”

Looking at her young son, she says, “Henry, you’re my dream man, aren’t you?”

Henry shrugs, frowns and walks away.
 
                    beading sweat
                    a teacup rattles
                    on its saucer

Gean, Sept. 2010

Haiku

                         first day of spring
                         daffodils flown in
                         from Ireland

                         a sun-gold morning
                         rain soaked dafodils
                         lose their droop

                         a wild daffodil
                         in the ravine-
                         the distance I've come

Simply Haiku, March 2011
Haiku Society of America, Anthology 2011
Acorn, Winter 2010

Senryu

                                  an old cemetery
                                  the town's history
                                  in crumbling stone

                                   Moonset, spring 2009

Tanka Sequence

ABANDONED

the summer sun
fills up the empty house
for no one's pleasure;
each day the same as before
the same as tomorrow

blacks holes for windows
tilting porches and worn paint
the flying dust
spiraling into ghosts
of decades past

it groans and creaks
and settles into dust
the decaying house
its cries ignored
its past forgotten

Modern English Tanka, July 2009

Haiga

Daily Haiga, August 4, 2011