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~ poems and photos

Monthly Archives: December 2013

Image

summertime

23 Monday Dec 2013

summertime

lost track
of the last time
I changed my mind…

Posted by Tom Clausen | Filed under poems and photos

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Homework- poems of a young family- parenting moments

22 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Tom Clausen in Chapbooks

≈ 4 Comments

Homework by Tom Clausen

Snapshot Press (2000) Liverpool, UK

this quiet morning
even the bar of soap
falls apart

constantly dust and
peeling paint and
molds and cracks-
this house we call home
holding us

cleaning the poop out
his little Superman
underpants

how long he cries
for the little shell lost
on the way home

stumbling
with her proud little bean plant
the break in her face
as she sees me
looking

home from work…
the little one brings me
an empty wine bottle

after speaking importantly
she quickly resumes
sucking her thumb

playing a child’s game
I learn all
his rules

losing control of my son
– and myself

all through
his temper tantrum
her calm

as I sit in thought
she moves briskly
about the room,
stirring the chill
in the air

to the cat:
“that is complete and
utter nonsense”

without consent
my old sneakers
in the trash

we bicker
all through the house
… cleaning

my wife admits
she is not perfect,
but is glad I am

now that I’m over
my bad mood,
she’s in one

to the goldfish
she speaks
more softly

revealed so long
this grain of wood
on our floor-
the distance yet
we have to go

just home from work
back to back
phone solicitations

after her letter
no heart to open
a bill

our son spills his milk,
not an iota
of reaction from him

using her potty
as a step stool
she poops

telling her it’s time
for a diaper change:
“ I did not”

how could I have known
our children, precious
as they are,
would drive us
to such brinks?

in the next room
our children peacefully asleep
– we do nothing

that point
in the evening
where both cats are in place
quietly licking themselves
while I read

she’s waited up…
to have some last words
with me

while brushing my teeth
she tells me again:
“let’s move”

it’s not for any
simple reason
I’ve fallen out
of love
with my life

up in the dark
the toilet
overflows

the plumber
kneeling in our tub
– talking to himself

done-
the repairman tells me
any fool can do it

each day being human
brings its choices, chores
and emotions-
hands in the sink water and
the children calling out for more

ten years now
her non-stacking
dessert dishes

I watch the tv
movie love scene my wife
already in bed

the snow
moves me
window to window

in the empty room
I look around to remember why
I’m here

before sleep
laughing to myself
at myself

 

New Year’s Eve-
the lentil soup
again

in the middle
of my life
an ulcer

New Year’s …
recycling last year’s
resolutions

second day
of the New Year:
taxes arrive

quite by surprise
my daughter asks me
if I’d like to be a woman
the gravity in the moment
I took to answer

sick in bed-
my son pelts the window
with snowballs

in the shower
an economy-size bar of soap
lands on my toe

at the mailbox
the emptiness
of another day

it occurs to me
to retreat
from this world-
as if another world
might exist

no longer me
it proves a mystery who it is
I’ve become
walking around this house
with my family there inside

the confines
of my basement study
call me
as if my life were there
to be resolved

evening star…
she sleeps with the lion’s tail
in her little hand

I sort of knew
my coffee cup
was empty-
so much I look in it
just to see

outside the glass door
our old cat has forgotten
it wanted ‘in’

yard work:
some of the old tire water
on my shoes

the butterfly’s path…
my son swings again
and misses

the children run
so carelessly through
the garden-
my dismay
tempered with memory

in the midst
of the children’s raucous play
I notice my son a moment
staring as if aware
of something fleeting past

I watch my children
joyfully little and innocent
of everything ahead-
too much I know
too much to tell

 

bowed to the ground
the goldenrods
too tall of themselves-
I couldn’t tell her why
the sky is blue

summer dusk-
the neighbors vacuum
the silence

ImageImage

Image

in another season

17 Tuesday Dec 2013

the conversation as the snow falls…

Posted by Tom Clausen | Filed under poems and photos

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a selection of little poems by tom clausen featured at antantantant from 9-30-2011

17 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom poems at other sites

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TOM CLAUSEN ant ant ant ant ant seven
September 30, 2011 § Leave a Comment
After The Pleasant Part
:
:
from the soil
in the shovel
a beetle crawls
:
low cloud cover
early in the morning
her tight dress
:
in the tall stand
of evergreens
my cookie crumbs
:
reflections
under the bridge
a man fishes
:
without her friend
on the bus
her face
:
no one home
on the hard ground
a light snow
:
carried on
the flooded river
a beach ball
:
spring
removing the neighbors
from view
:
while they investigate
the accident outside
I order pizza
:
wild cherries in blossom
their land rough
with junk
:
all I know
she has a blue star
on her left breast
:
gray daybreak
her “to do” list
from yesterday
:
at 70mph
what I saw
wild turkeys
:
keeping quiet
last of the day’s light
on new grass
:
asleep
in the fallen scarecrow’s lap
a cat
:
the War
a woodchuck nibbles
beside the freeway
:
at the next urinal
he studies a tile
higher up
:
garden walk
she checks herself
in the pond
:
the crow
in me
gets a response
:
dentist chair
the sun comes and goes
from the window
:
cemetery
tracks in the snow
lead out to the road
:
the habit of looking
where it used to be
the mirror
:
on her cell phone
going into the building
“I love you too”
:
on time
the daily truck load
of pigs
:
after the pleasant part
of our walk
we hurry
:
warm spring day
a bra
in the bushes
:
the chain link fence
runs into
high water
:
writing him
the second letter
without complaints
:
dinner over
he addresses
some crumbs
:
heavy overcast
between bench slats
a sprout
:

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one leaf by tom clausen

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Tags

art, details, dreams, found, found art, haiku, Ithaca, leaves, lost, nature, New York, oak, oaks, photography, poetry, snow, tanka, time, winter, witness, writing, zen

new snow
on old
and a leaf ,
a blue hue
to the day

 

one leaf

that feeling everywhere I go… a bit lost, a bit found…

Posted by Tom Clausen | Filed under close up details, nature, poems and photos, winter

≈ 1 Comment

Image

snowy night waiting for a friend

15 Sunday Dec 2013

snowy night waiting for a friend

Posted by Tom Clausen | Filed under poems and photos

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Favorite Tanka selected by Tom Clausen

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom selected favorites

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son of mine
what’s done is done…
seed by seed, I’d breathe
back the dandelion clock,
place its stem in your hand
– Claire Everett
 *
*
*
*
thirty years
on the job
I’ve become
something of an expert
on what’s unimportant
    – John Stevenson
 *
*
*
*
all I found
when I Googled my father
was his obituary
    a small wind releases
      the song of the wind chime
   – Margaret Chula
 *
*
*
*
inscribed,
with enduring love
my darling,
the book he found
at a rummage sale
  – John Martell
*
*
*
*
the unknown man
who stared down the tanks-
we love him
and also the one
who pulled him aside
  – John Stevenson
 *
*
*
*
Bee’s, butterflies, birds
swaying meadow flowers
and something more…
just beyond
comprehension
– George Swede
*
*
*
*
how you say
everything
I wanted to hear
now that it’s
too late
– Rose Hunter
 *
*
*
*
so many years ago
the night she left me,
and still it lingers:
on the car radio a song
just right for my blues
– Sanford Goldstein
 *
*
*
*
Noticed
right away among
the smooth pebbles
of the Zen garden
a small, jagged stone
– George Swede
 *
*
*
*
no matter
if I never take
another lover-
I have your imprint
our children and the sea
– Amelia Fielden
*
*
*
*
after I am gone
break my plate
bury my pen
plant flowers
in my cup
– Michael Ketchek
 *
*
*
*
Thunder at dawn
shakes me out of a dream
I didn’t want to leave
that green space in the woods
where wildflowers hide
– Carol Purington
 *
*
*
*
in this season
of falling leaves
how easy
to watch dreams vanish
in wisps of autumn smoke
– Angela Leuck
 *
*
*
*
one’s life
can no more be entrusted
to another
than can the timing
of a perfect soft-boiled egg
– Mariko Kitakubo
 *
*
*
*
my parents and in-laws
moving toward senility
suddenly
there’s  no one
I need to impress
– Margaret Chula
 *
*
*
*
wanting to stay,
I could not,
and leaving,
I wanted
to write ten thousand poems
 – Sanford Goldstein
 *
*
*
*
we drive in silence
and even though I offer
occasional smiles
you know you’ll never reach where
it is that my thoughts wander
  – Jean Jorgensen
 *
*
*
*
Seeing a layer
of dust on the surface
of my bathroom mirror,
I traced a finger through it
to make a Happy face
 – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
 *
*
*
*
she says she
owns two very fine cats,
though probably
unaware that cats do not
have owners, only staff
  – Art Stein
 *
*
*
*
as if she feels
how much I am missing you
already
a girl near me on the plane
begins to weep
  – Laura Maffei
*
*
*
*
Gone all morning
I come home for lunch
and scratch his ears
– my little dog
so happy with so little
  – Pat Shelley
 *
*
*
*
November chill-
tangles of silver caught
in my brush.
Tell me
I’m still yours
  – Pamela Miller Ness
 *
*
*
*
wakeful
in early darkness
I plan
how to fit twenty things
into a ten thing day
   – Kirsty Karkow
 *
*
*
*
maybe we’ll meet again
in the fullness of tomorrow’s moon
alone in my room
I notice how smoothly my jeans
slide off my hips
   – Thelma Mariano
*
*
*
*
if it’s not the headlines
it’s a dead deer by the roadside
or something else
I just keep tripping over
the first noble truth
   – Michael Ketchek


*
*
*
*
I, who
have almost nothing,
want little
beyond freedom from this
freedom from that
  – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
 *
*
*
*
The huge reservoir
beyond the dam
thinking of my wife
I realize the great value
of holding back my words
   – Michael Ketchek
*
*
*
*
semester’s last class
and his twenty-two students
end their stiff questions-
the moment comes like a winged bird
like a Prometheus unbound
  – Sanford Goldstein
 *
*
*
*
barefoot
on warm sand
my toes
inches from the whole
Atlantic Ocean
  – Art Stein
*
*
*
*
wondering for years
what would be
my life’s defining moment
      an egret staring at me
      me staring back
  – Jeanne Emerich
*
*
*
*
brick factory building
abandoned twenty year-
the small town boys
still haven’t broken
every window
  – Michael Ketchek
 *
*
*
*
Clouds gather
and part, gather and part.
So will we.
Even now, it seems,
we’re gathering, parting
  – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
 *
*
*
*
dry seeds scatter
from my hand into the wind-
one clings
as if to say there is in me
something yet to be
  – Jeanne Emerich
 *
*
*
*
I walk fast
as if far is not
far enough
as if these loved fields
were not gift enough
  – Caroline Gourlay
 *
*
*
*
Come quickly- as soon as
these blossoms open
they fall
this world exists
as a sheen of dew on flowers
  – Lady Izumi Shikibu
 *
*
*
*
She waits
in purple- lidded privacy
ignoring the tea
with a sweep of one hand
sends the waitress away
  – Patricia Prime
 *
*
*
*
they say the moon
little by little each day
moves away
I confess to no one
what strangers we have become
 – Marjorie Buettner
 *
*
*
*
How afraid
so many of us are of life-
not wanting
to leave behind the known
not knowing whats ahead
  – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
 *
*
*
*
an old photograph
of my parents
young and happy,
    of all the things I own
    that is the saddest
  – Michael McClintock
*
*
*
*
how will I know you
on the Internet-
in Cyberspace-
without the warmth of your voice
the touch of your hand
   – Pat Shelley
 *
*
*
*
Here in the desert,
spring is over just like that,
Our lives, too, are short.
Who knows whether you and I
will meet in the next world?
  – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
*
*
*
*
writing
on the back of the letter
she wrote to me
      a poem about windows
      and distance
   – Leatrice Lifshitz
 *
*
*
*
Thinking about it,

what else is there but this—
birth, death,
and something in between
of uncertain duration?
   – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
 *
*
*
*
walking
the railroad tracks
alone-
more and more we live
our parallel lives
  – Larry Kimmel
 *
*
*
*
parting with
my telescope
and with it
a certain way
of seeing myself
   – John Stevenson
 *
*
*
*
Department meeting:
while the mouths utter business
the eyes ripple with
someone sailing, someone fishing
someone drowning
    – George Swede
*
*
*
*
long after she’s left
the garden she tended
weeds reclaim the flowerbeds
my heart too
has grown wild
   – Brian Tasker
*
*
*
*
invited at last
to meet his parents
i find myself
wondering which me
i should wear
   – Doris Kasson
*
*
*
*
you climb
a speck on the rockface
of the mountain-
waiting here below it is
I who am exposed
  – Caroline Gourlay
 *
*
*
*
vacation’s end
the highway still unraveling
when I close my eyes
how many parts of myself
have I left homeless behind
  – Marjorie Buettner
 *
*
*
*
he’s traveled
these highways most of his life
yet today
somewhere between anger and tears
old man admits he is lost
  – Jean Jorgensen
 *
*
*
*
I tell my guardian angel
I’ll happily die
in April
alas, each April comes
and I tell her I’m not ready
  – Pat Shelley
 *
*
*
*
I had read
your love poems
and now,
having met you,
read them again
  – John Stevenson
*
*
*
*
far down the valley
she waves and calls to me
I love her more
in the time it takes
her voice to arrive
    – John Sheirer
*
*
*
*
sleeping
on my lap
the cat
becomes a book-rest
for my other world
  – Carolyn Thomas
 *
*
*
*
her plane disappears
into starlight…
and somewhere
in her luggage
my love poem
  – Michael Dylan Welch
 *
*
*
*
watching
the storm tossed trees
through glass
afraid to let myself go
where the wind would take me
  – Alison Williams
 *
*
*
*
in the curve of light
the crash and spray
of the full-moon tide;
   for a moment with arms crossed
   the power of my youth
  – Jeff Witkin
 *
*
*
*
the wind-blown clouds
lighten and darken
lighten and darken
the room
in which we argue
  – Brian Tasker
*
*
*
*
A subway train,
traveling beside ours,
veers up and away.
My feelings for you
go where they go
  – John Stevenson
*
*
*
*
hair clean and long
sun-dried in the wind
my face
searches the blue sky
for its final destination
  – Jane Reichhold
 *
*
*
*
this road
connecting to another
that to another
until reaching the spot
where i will turn cold
  – William Ramsey
 *
*
*
*
Not to disturb
the spider in her web
between two trees
I take
the other path
  – Pat Shelley
 *
*
*
*
Writing a poem
of longing for her
I’m irritated
by the interruption
of her phone call
  – George Swede
 *
*
*
*
dawn
and you open
your deep-green eyes-
blackbirds stir
somewhere in the conifers
  – John Barlow
 *
*
*
*
with a man
who was once
the center of my universe
I discuss
interest rates
  – Fay Aoyagi
 *
*
*
*
not a single star
out of place in the
 milky way-
the garden gate
left ajar all night
  – Pamela Babusci
 *
*
*
*
just five minutes
pressed against a stranger
on a crowded train
so why do I spend my day
dreaming of a life with her?
  – John Barlow
 *
*
*
*
on the night train
through that foreign land
I waver once
glimpsing
a lit farm kitchen
  – Marianne Bluger
 *
*
*
*
Ice in the corners
of my bedroom window
reminds me
how long it’s been
since I saw her last.
   – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
 *
*
*
*
Almost invisible
the zero
I traced
only last week
in the mantle dust…
 – Marianne Bluger
 *
*
*
*
in the dark
a tawny owl calls
unanswered
I pour out my last drop
of whiskey
  – John Barlow
*
*
*
*
late spring hike
the trail still full of snow
on the north slope
we take turns walking
in each other’s footsteps
   – David Rice
 *
*
*
*
weeding in the garden
humming to myself
suddenly a mourning dove
calls from me some sadness
I can’t quite name
     – Mary Lou Bittle-DeLapa
*
*
*
*
*
Several languages
and a thousand theorems
safe in his cranium
how serene my father
looks in death
 – Marianne Bluger
 *
*
*
*
all day at my desk
to glance up
at sunset
the housebricks
a deeper red
   – Brian Tasker
 *
*
*
*
in the ship’s wake
a pair of sea gulls
follow, then tail off
in different directions
the words I meant to say
   – Carlos Colon
 *
*
*
*
*
I’m never happier
than at dawn, walking down
a mountain trail,
the day ahead an empty bowl
waiting to be filled
   – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk  ( for Marian Olson )
 *
*
*
*
thinking of my wife
I accidentally say
I love you
to a stranger’s
answering machine
    – John Sheirer
*
*
*
*
it takes
this thick snowfall
to remind me
how thin and more thin
is my desire
 – Sanford Goldstein
*
*
*
*
overlooking the moor
it came to me here;
a feeling of loneliness
brought by the wind
the warmth of the sun
  – Brian Tasker
*
*
*
*
in morning fog
we ship our oars and drift
between loon calls
all that’s left of this world
the warmth of our bodies
  – Christopher Herold
 *
*
*
*
a sudden loud noise
all the pigeons of Venice
at once fill the sky
that is how it felt when your hand
accidentally touched mine
   – Ruby Spriggs
 *
*
*
*
  the spirit again
as a crab in a shell
   able to walk
sideways into the sea
  and back to you
   – Werner Reichhold
 *
*
*
*
Snow on the peaks
of the far mountains
faintly blue…
packing my few things
for the winter road
 – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
 *
*
*
*
Dressing
for a meal I’ll eat
alone
I decide to let loose
my hair.
    – Pamela Miller Ness
 *
*
*
*
after the long night
near my dying mother’s bed
I turn from her face
to watch the gathering light
in another morning sky
  – Jerry Kilbride
*
*
*
*
one derelict boat
lost in a maze of mudflats
in the setting sun
    automatically I think
    of my life- nothing like that!
   David Steele
 *
*
*
*
a wintry evening
all the way back to the car;
hardly knowing her
yet so intimately
her perfume remains
 – Brian Tasker
*
*
*
*
suddenly
caught:
the emptiness
in that girl’s
yawn
  – Sanford Goldstein
*
*
*
*
when I think
we may never
meet again…
this hillside of aspens
endlessly fluttering
 – Larry Kimmel
 *
*
*
*
listening to you
talk about him, about you,
about them, about me,
and now, here it is, somehow
the dinner I made for us
  – Christopher Herold
 *
*
*
*
like receipts
of a business
gone bankrupt
I keep
these old love letters
  – Kenneth Tanemura
 *
*
*
*
Wind, do not tease me
do not muss my hair
My joy is too large for the house
and I cannot go in
to await his coming
  – Pat Shelley
 *
*
*
*
these hands
slicing onions for dinner…
but my heart has gone
to wherever it is
that you are
  – Christopher Herold
 *
*
*
*
warm in bed-
I wonder
where the birds
are weathering
the storm
  – Kenneth Tanemura
 *
*
*
*
This is a selection of some of my favorite tanka from Takuboku, whose tanka honesty I find refreshing and inspiring. It was his tanka that sparked my interest in tanka after discovering them in his book titled : Poems to Eat.
*
*
the trouble is
every man
keeps a prisoner
groaning
in his heart
 *
*
came to
a mirror shop
what a jolt-
I could’ve been
some bum walking by
 *
*
unforgettable
that face-
man in the street
laughing, police
dragging him off
*
*
having buried
my youth
you keep kissing
the gravestone
you built
 *
*
like a train
through the wilderness
every so often
this torment
travels across my mind
*
*
everybody’s
heading in
the same direction-
I watch
from the sidelines
 *
*
never forget
that man, tears
running down his face
a handful of sand
held out to show me
*
*
wrote GREAT
in the sand
a hundred times
forgot about dying
and went on home
*
*
regrets
live secretly
inside me
these days-
won’t let me laugh
 *
*
feels like
there’s a cliff
in my head
crumbling
day by day
*
*
like a kite
cut from the string
the soul
of my youth
has fluttered away
*
*
always come
to this gloomy bar
the late sunset
reddening, shines
right in my drink
 *
*
guy I saw
on a park bench
once or twice
don’t see
him lately…
 *
*
somehow
tomorrow will
be better-
yeah, sure…
I go to sleep

Favorite Senryu- selected by Tom Clausen

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom selected favorites

≈ Leave a comment

“Great day”   I say,
my neighbor, not to be outdone, says,
“Best one yet”
  – Frank Robinson
**
The laugh’s on me:
   this year’s man
     is last year’s man
        – Ching-An
 **
on the freeway
discussing the chocolate bar
in the trunk
    – Dee Evetts
 **
The last kid picked
running his fastest
 to right field
 – Mike Dillon
 **
       deadline approaches
    my nose drips
faster
    – John Stevenson
 **
 radio interview
the candidate
adjusts her hair
 – Hilary Tann
 **
 even with the mikes on
 the politician
shouts
  – Anita Virgil
 **
She’s running for office-
for the first time
my neighbor waves!
 – Alexis Rotella
 **
neighbor’s children leave…
casually the cat slips out
of the hall closet
– Patricia Neubauer
 **
birdsong
my imaginary lover
alive again
– Yu Chang
**
300 miles away-
my father makes sure
I hear him sigh
  – Alexis Rotella
 **
 remote village
 after the camera’s click
 her smile
 – Ruth Yarrow
 **
Undressed-
today’s role dangles
from a metal hanger
– Alexis Rotella
 **
channel dispute
she aims the clicker
at me
 – Dee Evetts
 **
nothing good on t.v.
every channel
 for about three hours now
 – John Sheirer
 **
three times I’ve said
 “your husband…”
now we can just talk
– John Stevenson
**
safe for a while
around the haiku poets
a fly
– Mykel Board
 **
his dust mask
a hole poked through it
 for the cigarette
– Dee Evetts
**
 bad movie
 I’m only awake
during the explosions
– John Sheirer
**
 table for one
 the waiter doesn’t
 light my candle
– Bruce Detrick
**
in the breakdown lane
I contemplate
my life
  – John Sheirer
 **
new flypaper
she waves her arms
to get them going
 – Dee Evetts
 **
 strap hanging
a top view
of his careful hairdo
– Karen Sohne
 **
first cold night
the fat tomcat hangs from
the window screen
 – Carl Patrick
 **
 road construction
my life
still under construction
– John Sheirer
 **
his “eyeball it”
for the rest of our days
a crooked wall…
– Carol Montgomery
 **
turning down the t.v.
   to hear more
of the neighbors’ argument
               – John Sheirer
 **
 my easy heart
 two drinks
 and it’s love
– Michael Ketchek
 **
 checking the driver
as I pass a car
 just like mine
– John Stevenson
**
 loud applause
for the last speech
 before lunch
 – Dee Evetts
 **
 while I’m gone
 my dog
 takes the driver’s seat
– Christopher Herold
 **
Clear about
everything
the window washer
 – vincent tripi
 **
 20,000 feet
 traces of masking tape
on the jet engine
– Dee Evetts
**
Empty school bus;
smile on the face
of the driver
   – Garry Gay
**
bags
under his eyes-
traveling salesman
– Michael Dylan Welch
 **
Weight lifter
slowly lifting
the tea cup
 – Garry Gay
**
single living
I allow the kettle
a full whistle
 – Carmen Sterba
 Oscar night
adjusting the cuffs
of my pajamas
  – John Stevenson
 **
the men on both sides
have taken
my armrests
       – Karen Sohne
 **
inserting a piece
 in my jigsaw puzzle
 the TV repairman
 – Francine Porad
**
paint by number
the child’s river
escapes its bank
   – Tom Painting
**
 my nephew’s fast ball-
 I hand back the glove
 and keep the sting
– Barry George
 **
morning commute-
recognizing
most of the strangers
 – Dorothy McLaughlin
 half-empty bed
 I try to recall
 his faults
 – Peggy Heinrich
 **
war begins-
my husband and I
stop bickering
   – Margaret Chula
 **
mid morning bus
 no one young enough
 to give up their seat
– Sheila Butterworth
**
game over
men turn to leave
the tv department
– John Stevenson
 **
 on my dying bed
 a neighbor reads out
 the ball scores
– H.F. Noyes
 **
January 3rd
the Weight Watchers meeting
doubles in size
    – Carolyn Hall
 **
store window
the young couple take turns
testing the double bed
  – Dee Evetts
 **
new hammock-
my beer on the other side
of the porch
     – Mark Brooks
 fiftieth birthday
standing a little closer
 to the toilet
 – Mykel Board
 **
the mirror
wiped clean
for a guest
– John Stevenson
 **
long night
 I adjust my breathing
 to his
– Francine Porad
 **
Starbuck’s
a man in cowboy boots
asks for latte
    – Yu Chang
 **
by phone
my sister says
we are in touch
– Hilary Tann
**
word for word
she remembers
our last argument
 – John Sheirer
 **
 Trying to forget him
stabbing
 the potatoes
– Alexis Rotella
 **
 running away,
 Mommy
 helps me pack
 – Adele Kenny
 **
midwest interstate
car ahead signals a turn
for fifty-nine miles
– John Sheirer
**
 girls in bikinis

the man I’m with
trying not to look
– Brenda Gannam
**
on the twelfth floor
a life’s work holds open
the book-reviewer’s door
– Martin Burke
 **
While the guests order,
 the table cloth hides his hands-
counting his money
 – Clement Hoyt
**
new dean
all blackboards
turn white
– Yu Chang
 **
 red light
 I study the face
 of my tailgater
 – Hilary Tann
 **
eye exam
i stop trying
 so hard
  – Hilary Tann
**
circuits lab
his mistakes
in the air
– Yu Chang
 **
A selection of classic senryu from old time senryu anthologies in Japan:
when a man
comes asking for a loan
how honest he looks!
 *
*
*
someone at the door:
the scolding session
stops – for awhile
 *
*
*
when he finally
falls in love with his wife
the end is near
*
*
*
she’s been let go
yet in her mother’s words
“she’s left him”
*
*
*
“Don’t let this worry you”
he says, then tells you something
that has to worry you
 *
*
*
his wife knows
how to scare a collector:
“He’s down with typhoid”
*
*
*
the weapon he uses
for threatening his mother:
a distant land
*
*
*
now that he has a child
he knows all the local dogs
by name
 *
*
*
a son kicked out-
several houses down the street
a wife is divorced
*
*
*
the whole town
knows of it, except
the husband
*
*
*
“Bad for my health”-
when you begin to feel so
you’ve begun to age
*
*
*
    the wife-
so much harder to handle
than the mother
*
*
*
having lash out
too much at his wife
he’s cooking the rice
*
*
*
since their baby was born
telling him what to do
has become her habit
*
*
*
suckling the baby
in bed, she shakes her head
at her husband
*
*
*
convenient
and inconvenient-
having a wife
*
*
*
no nagging on the day
her husband was a winner-
now there’s a woman!
*
*
*
“Just a father-in-law
whose days are numbered”
says the matchmaker
*
*
*
professional smile
of the mortician’s wife:
a look of grief
*
*
*
to put it briefly
courting is tantamount
to begging
*
*
*
“older daughter first”
the parents kept saying, until
the younger eloped
*
*
*
the love letter
from the man she doesn’t care for
she shows it to mother
*
*
*
first eye to eye
then hand to hand
and mouth to mouth
*
*
*
many excuses
he has used before – his wife
remembers them all
*
*
*
her husband’s
becoming a little too kind
weighs on her mind
 *
*
*
united at last
in death, a pair
of happy faces

Favorite Haiku-little poems selected by Tom Clausen

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom selected favorites

≈ 3 Comments

losing its name
a river
enters the sea
– John Sandbach
*
children squealing
slowly the oldest gorilla
focuses elsewhere
– Ruth Yarrow
*
 The thief left it behind,
        the moon
              at the window
  – Ryokan
What is really ours?  In the sense of this  haiku ( my personal favorite) what we “own” or possess may be very little… perhaps our memories of who we once were or what we once had… perhaps some understanding and then…
*
                                     The moon
                                broken again and again on the sea
                                      so easily mends
                                                            – Choshu
*
                                           aware
                                           of the heart:
                                           handling glassware
                                                     – Raymond Roseliep
*
                                      A firefly flitted by:
                                      “Look”!  I almost said
                                      but I was alone
                                      – Taigi
*
                                   Simply trust:
                                   do not the petals flutter down,
                                                just like that
                                                               – Issa
*
                                           poppy-
                                           both of us
                                           simply alive
                                          -Issa
*
                                                   The next morning
                                                      rereading the last page
                                                        of the happy ending
                                                      – Tom Tico
 *
free at last, the fly
flew out the window-and then
right back in again
    – James Hackett
*
monastery bell
the curled cat opens its eyes
closes them again
         – Jerry Kilbride
 *
Today it struck me-
the thought of red suns setting
 after I’m gone
– Gunther Klinge
*
vacation over–
hearing the sea
in the traffic’s roar
-Pamela Miller Ness
 *
   the old cat carries off
   a little sunshine
    on his back
     – Anita Virgil
*
 Everyone is asleep
 there is nothing to come between
 the moon and me
                  – Enomoto Siefu-Jo
 –
–
warm evening
an open door
to someone’s living room
        – John Stevenson
 *
This huge ocean-
I could stand here forever
 it would still come to me
– Proxade Davis
 *
when I have sat long enough
the red dragonfly
   comes to the wheatgrass
     – Laurie Stoelting
 *
Resting…
the sagging fence
goes on up the hill
 – Foster Jewell
 *
coming home
      flower
              by
                      flower
   – Jane Reichhold
 *
fence fallen away
    I close the rusted gate
              behind me
       – Yvonne Hardenbrook
 *
in the pollen
on my car
her signature
– John Stevenson
 *
old passport
the tug
of my father’s smile
– Yu Chang
 *
cabin steps
fresh birch seeds
since morning
– Hilary Tann
 *
as the light fails,
still hammering
from the treehouse
– Lee Gurga
 *
noh play-
watching the throat
behind the mask
 – Hilary Tann
 *
waiting for you
another pair of headlights
through the fog
– Yu Chang
*
amber light…
creased in the roadmap
a place we’ve been
 – Peggy Willis Lyles
 *
Across the fields
  a swallow carrying one hair
      from the plow horse
              – vincent tripi
*
migrating geese-
once there was so much
         to say
– Adele Kenny
*
 lone red-winged blackbird
riding a reed in high-tide-
billowing clouds
 – Nick Vigilio
 *
in autumn rain
looking back at the smoke
from my chimney
 – Anita Virgil
*
in the mountains
a roadhouse sign goes out
clouds blow off the stars
 – Cor van den Heuvel
 *
The little breeze
that touched my face
returns
– Alexis Rotella
 *
a deep bruise
I don’t remember getting
autumn evening
-John Stevenson
*
crowded bus through fog
someone singing
 in another language
  – Ruth Yarrow
 *
   In this empty web,
   left by a will to be free
  a pair of small wings
   – James Hackett
 *
Just leaves
where the carnival
was
– Alexis Rotella
 *
winter evening
leaving father’s footprints
I sink into deep snow
 – Nick Virgilio
 *
   stalled car
  foot tracks being filled
   with snow
  – Gary Hotham
 *
the river-
coming to it with nothing
in my hands
– Leatrice Lifshitz
 *
how silently
the wave-tossed log is beached
        and snow-flaked
  – Geraldine C. Little
 *
   At the summit tree,
my exhausted dog lifts his leg
     a dry formality
– James Hackett
 *
 the old man
 blows his nose   then smells
 the daisy
  – John Wills
 *
Moving with
the clock tower’s shadow
   the flower lady
 – Alexis Rotella
 *
as the sun comes out
a sail appears from behind
       the island
 – Cor van den Heuvel
*
summer night
   the tide flows
     from the estuary
 – John Stevenson
 *
On the rabbit’s fur
just enough snow
 to be snow
 – vincent tripi
 *
at the corner
 she finds a wind to spin
the pinwheel faster
   -Gary Hotham
 *
old slippers
the comfort
coming apart
– John Stevenson
*
night of the blizzard:
my snow angel glowing
under a street lamp
 – Adele Kenny
 *
a crow in the snowy pine
inching up a branch,
letting the evening sun through
– Nick Virgilio
 *
no sound to this
spring rain-
but the rocks darken
 – Anita Virgil
 *
dark road
sparks from a cigarette
bounce behind a car
 – Cor van den Heuvel
*
Old Lincoln-
 a deeper lavender
 where the wrench lay
  – Alexis Rotella
 *
       another bend
now    at last     the moon
        and all the stars
   – John Wills
 *
pueblo roof edge
Hopi mother pats the dance
into her baby’s back
 – Ruth Yarrow
                                   An old spider web
                                   low above the forest floor,
                                   sagging full of seeds
                                   – James Hackett
                                                          The day i find,
                                                            the day it finds,
                                                                firefly
                                                           – vincent tripi
                                        Indian summer-
                                        we ride around town
                                        just to be riding
                                          – Lenard D. Moore
Saturday downpour-
    swiveling the stool
      at the soda counter
          – H.F. Noyes
                                                                    A wisp of spring cloud
                                                                    drifting apart from the rest
                                                                            slowly evaporates
                                                                               – Tom Tico
Old pond:
frog jump in
water sound
  – Basho
                          oppossum bones
                        wedged in an upper fork-
                           budding leaves
                         – Lee Gurga
                                                   A Halloween mask
                                                   floating face up in a ditch
                                                   slowly shakes its head
                                                        – Clement Hoyt
Lean-to of tin;
a pintail on the river
in the pelting rain
  – Robert Spiess
                                                                     In a tight skirt
                                                                     a woman sweeping leaves
                                                                              into the wind
                                                                         – Virginia Brady Young
                                                   a poppy…
                                              a field of poppies!
                                          the hills blowing with poppies
                                                  – Michael McClintock
the flick of high beams-
out of the dark roadside ditch
leaps a tall grass clump
       – Paul O. Williams
                                                             fog moves through
                                                             the burned out house:
                                                             gently
                                                              – Jack Cain
                                                Since settling to earth
                                                the high spirit of that kite
                                                has gone completely
                                                         – Kubouta
quietly
we become
audience
– Hilary Tann
                                          a bit of birdsong
                                          before we start
                                          our engines
                                           – John Stevenson
              yesterday’s paper
              in the next seat-
              the train picks up speed
                              – Gary Hotham
The feeling and sense of this wonderful haiku have stuck with me for years. Being in this moment is to be touched by all that is constantly left behind. The newspaper is a token of what was, not what is, and as such presents a potent reminder in concert with the train’s picking up speed that the moment is fleeting and quickly lost. You have a sense of being alone and looking to the empty next seat and there’s a random wonder about whether yesterday’s news is worthy of retrieving. The paper and the train’s motion together fill you with a depth of recognition that captures perfectly the heart of loneliness, of leaving and of transience, creating at once the poignancy of an instant.
From  As Far as the Light Goes, LaCrosse, Wisconsin: Juniper Press, 1990
commentary published in Woodnotes  #25 Summer 1995
           after the garden party         the garden
                                          – Ruth Yarrow   ( Wind Chimes #7, Winter 1983)
Among many haiku I read early on that awakened my interest and inspired my sense of just what a haiku is, I still rank this spare poem by Ruth Yarrow as very influential. The contrast of the garden filled with people and emptied out is at once familiar, vivid and crystal clear. To attend an event with many people and share comraderie, place, and a common memory creates a multilayered response to suddenly be in this same place later, alone. Indelibly the garden is revealed in itself without everyone else there.
      We are left to determine how this now empty garden makes us feel. Are we sad the party is over? Are we glad to be free of the social obligations and noisy commotion? This freedom of determination and variety of readings helped me begin to identify critical qualities of a successful haiku. The magic and charm of this garden after its garden party is found in savoring the beauty and intricacy of each and every thing there that we are open to once the party is over. Without the distraction of others or the self performing itself we come closer to a genuine communion with the gardens of our lives.
( commentary published in Woodnotes #30  Autumn 1996)
Late autumn-
a single chair waiting
for someone yet to come
        – Arima Akito
                                         sand storm
                                         the scorpion’s stinger
                                         aiming at the wind
                                              – William Cullen Jr.
                                       so many boulders
                                in the stream   all of the water
                                         finding its way
                                                             – David Elliot
We are made up of mostly water and constantly it is finding its way through our life. To imagine how much water passes through us in a lifetime is to recognize how truly we are each a fleshy filter experiencing the very river of our existence.
All the water finding its way through so many boulders is a beautiful and reassuring statement about each of us finding our way through the myriad trials and tribulations of life. Each season of our lives is rife with “boulders.” At times we are frustrated, if not terrified or exhausted, by these barricades and the process of negotiating passage past them. The wisdom of time equalling change and the zen of now expresses exactly the deliverance that exists in moving…toward destiny… the way. Destiny is movement, and even when we are seemingly still in ourselves the planet continues to plow space, circling its way through the dark-light spin. People gather and empty out of a space… rooms fill with glee and then silence and wind blows on the peak top.
We are always in motion, as is the essential nature of water. Our form is perpetually the miracle dance that is emptiness defining itself. This simple, brilliant haiku says it all so well… and on the way too.
( published in Brussels Sprout, vol. X:2, 1993 )
low over the railroad
wild geese flying-
a moonlit night
  – Shiki
in the shadow of the cherry blossom
complete strangers
there are none…
   – Issa
the first dream of the year-
I kept it a secret
and smiled to myself
     – Sho-u
                                               father and son
                                               hunching along together-
                                               the snow banked road
                                                H.F. Noyes
snowy night
sometimes you can’t be
quiet enough
– John Stevenson
                                      Drifting round a bend
                                      – the sliding turtles plash
                                      tells a downstream deer
                                                       – Robert Spiess
 This haiku by Robert Spiess irresistably draws us into the concentric connections that make the haiku way the perfection that is nature. The motion of the canoe ( or water) drifting is like each of us rounding each moment in our lives. Daily by chance or design we encounter myriad meanings in our experiences. Our momentum forward is inextricably linked to everything we come in contact with. We effect and we are affected. This is the setting up a chain of gently reacting images. We, the canoe, cause a turtle to slide, whose sound, so subtle is the reduced plash, in turn causes a deer to perk its ear, which in turn comes back to us as the images expand and complete a circuit at once. The resonance operates simply yet profoundly in infinite fashion throughout our lives. Our part in the cycle of sense awareness from surface to depth and back again seems to be at the core of haiku fascination. The way in which one entity touches another, then another, reverberating in each the other is the precious faith and brilliance of haiku.
( published in Brussels Sprout  v. VI, Issue 3,  1989 )
                                        car piled with luggage
                                straying into the funeral
                                                            procession
                                                                   – Yvonne Hardenbrook
One of the tests of a poem’s strength is how well it holds up over repeated readings. A favorite of mine that continues to intrigue me is this odd and humoristic image that Yvonne captures so aptly. A car loaded down with one’s worldly belongings is an obvious sight. The person/ people moving are in contradictory states of being. Burdened by belongings can create a vulnerable awkwardness that in part is offset by some comfort that comes from having so much of one’s life close at hand.
That this potent load is juxtaposed with a funeral is a priceless peek at mystery itself. A funeral procession often creates a striking image that amidst regular life seems out of place and deserving of notice. To combine someone moving with this procession is to suggest that in death we make our biggest move. The only possession we take along is the procession of family and friends as they make their way to pay respects.
This poem elicits a constant tip of the hat to what’s mysterious in life moving with death. It also alludes to the universal truth that our last move, in death, is always without any luggage.
( published in Brussels Sprout,  v. XI: 1, 1994 )
empty tracks
a stranger and I
looking in the same direction
   – Yu Chang
                                 music two centuries old-
                                 the color flows
                                 out of the teabag
                                                    – Gary Hotham
         This beautiful haiku brings out asubliminal sense of interpenetration where things are most realized when they are in concert with a medium. Music exists in many forms yet is most vital when performed, played and appreciated by listeners. The musical notes on a page are truly music only when combined with each other and the synthesis of instruments, practice, direction, technology and an audience. Similarly tea in a teabag becomes tea ultimately only when it enters the water in a teacup. The magic of this poem is this correspondance, where two disparate events are shown to share an essence of the same fundamental truth. This underlying truth suggests that everything depends upon and is in relation to other things. This association and awareness is where reading and writing haiku begins.
( published in Brussels Sprout, v.XII: 2 , 1995 )
far at sea
a tiny bird
rests on flotsam
          – Margaret Molarsky
                                                         open to the sky
                                                         the upper window
                                                         of the abandoned barn
                                                                    – Bruce Ross
End of autumn-
I leave the gate to the garden
                 ajar
           -Alexis Rotella
                                                                  To hear it,
                                                               not to hear myself
                                                                    waterfall
                                                                          – vincent tripi
up late-
the furnace comes on
by itself
         – Gary Hotham
                                                     he removes his glove
                                                             to point out
                                                                             Orion
                                                                           – Raymond Roseliep
Sunflower
its head now too heavy
to meet the sun
           -Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
                                                                    watching the sun disappear
                                                                     then standing, to watch it
                                                                           disappear again
                                                                                  – Hilary Tann
autumn twilight:
the wreath on the door
lifts in the wind
            -Nick Virgilio
                                                                         in the bucket
                                                                             bait fish
                                                                                schooling
                                                                                   – Lea Lifshitz
rolling a cigarette
the canoe drifts
just where I want to go
                 – Michael Ketchek
                                                                     my hand moves out
                                                                        touches the sun
                                                                            on a log
                                                                                  – John Wills
After I step
through the moonbeam-
    I do it again
              – George Swede
                                                                   up from the sea wall
                                                                   a plume of spray
                                                                   filled with dusk light
                                                                              -Geraldine C. Little
warm rain before dawn:
my milk flows into her
       unseen
               – Ruth Yarrow
                                                                      leaving us
                                                                      to find our own light
                                                                      last of the sun
                                                                               – Marian Olson
on a mountain trail
alone-
but never alone
              – Margaret Molarsky
                                                                          alone…
                                                                          a downdraft
                                                                          stirs the ashes
                                                                                    – R.A. Stefanac
lonely night
the faces painted on the windows
of a toy bus
         – Cor van den Heuvel
                                      Summer night:
                                      we turn out all the lights
                                       to hear the rain
                                        -Peggy Willis Lyles
                                                                        phone call
                                                                        from a faraway friend
                                                                        the cat starts purring
                                                                                – Penny Harter
warm kitchen
the rise and fall
of friend’s laughter
              – Barry George
                                                                        beneath the stars
                                                                        hand in hand
                                                                        with my son
                                                                                 – Michael Ketchek
an ocean away-
I try to draw her closer
with pad and pencil
           – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
                                                                Nightfall-
                                                                the rose lets go
                                                                its red
                                                                           – Alexis Rotella
hand to hand-
the unframed photos
      of her life
          – Gary Hotham
                                                                             beach walk
                                                                             the stick I tossed
                                                                             yesterday
                                                                                   – Tom Painting
freight train
moving all
the caterpillar’s hair
         – vincent tripi
                                                                       station by moonlight-
                                                                       one traveler gets out
                                                                       and one gets on
                                                                             – Cor Langedij
May morning
the door opens
before I knock
             – John Stevenson
                                                                       the geese have gone-
                                                                       in the chilly twilight
                                                                       empty milkweed pods
                                                                            – Cor van den Heuvel
Now and again
a birdsong gives rest
to the monk’s silence
              – vincent tripi
                                                                     Not a ginkgo on the block
                                                                                yet this leaf
                                                                             on my front step
                                                                                    – Alexis Rotella
falling on a face
in the small seaport window-
evening sunlight
           – Gunther Klinge
                                                                         The resthome van–
                                                                         toothless old faces smile
                                                                         as a firetruck races past
                                                                                – David LeCount
waves crash
against the pier – the bottle
slips from my hand
         – Michael Ketchek
                                                          hot night
                                                          turning the pillow
                                                          to the cool side
                                                               – Cor van den Heuvel
The waves now fall short
of the stranded jelly fish…
In it shines the sky
    – O. Mabson Southard
                                                    snow patches
                                                    thicket along the stream
                                                    snags the fog
                                                   – Ruth Yarrow
fountain spray
and the blindman’s upturned face
finding each other
   H.F. Noyes
                                                                     no longer dripping
                                                                     the icicle holds
                                                                     the sunset
                                                                       – Ruth Yarrow
                                                                freshly fallen snow-
                                                                opening a new package
                                                                of typing paper
                                                                           – Nick Avis
      lulling me to sleep
            the rain
   then waking me
        – Michael Dudley
                                                               the frustrated fly
                                                               drops to the window sill
                                                                and throws a buzzing fit
                                                                         – James Hackett
   If I go alone,
I’ll lie in the wildflowers
                 and dream of you
             – Rod Willmot
                                                                              Summer night:
                                                                              in my eyes starlight
                                                                              hundreds of years old
                                                                                   – George Swede
That breeze brought it-
a moment of moonlight
to the hidden fern.
             – Foster Jewell
fireworks
I close my eyes
for a second look
     – John Stevenson
                                                             birdsong
                                                             through open windows
                                                             he lifts the veil
                                                              – Peggy W. Lyles
distant glimmer
of a beach fire-
autumn moonrise
  – Marje Dyck
two crabs
grappling with locked claws
taken by a wave
  – Robert Zukowski
                                                               long sermon-
                                                               in the roof beams
                                                               cobwebs flutter
                                                                 – Dean Summers
leaves budding
a little girl
spinning in her dress
       -John Stevenson
                                             Dusk over the lake
                                           a turtle’s head emerges
                                             then silently sinks
                                               – Virgil  Hutton
                                                  lily:
                                                out of the water…
                                                out of itself
                                                  – Nick Virgilio
in this warm spring rain
tiny leaves are sprouting
from the eggplant seed
      – Basho
west- bound train
the winter sunset
lasts awhile
   – Donna Claire Gallagher
November evening-
the wind from a passing truck
ripples a roadside puddle
 – Cor van den Heuvel
                                                       geese overhead
                                                       the dog stops licking
                                                       to listen
                                                         – Joann Klontz
                                                        The hills
                                                          release the summer clouds
                                                          one…by one…by one
                                                            – John Wills
birthcry!
   the stars
   are all in place
      – Raymond Roseliep
                                            Shooting the rapids!
                                                  – a glimpse of a meadow
                                                 gold with buttercups
                                                      – Robert Spiess
shooting the rapids-
even the back of his head
looks surprised
       H.F. Noyes
                                                                     low tide-
                                                                     stones that have dried
                                                                     among those that haven’t
                                                                            – John Stevenson
sitting
where I sat as a child
I wait out the storm
       – Hilary Tann
                                                               not seeing
                                                               the room is white
                                                               until that red apple
                                                                – Anita Virgil
I am one
who eats his breakfast
gazing at the morning glories
      – Basho
                                                          breakfasting
                                                          with the morning glories-
                                                          painted on my cup
                                                               – H.F. Noyes
On the gray church wall,
the shadow of a candle
… shadow of its smoke
         – L.A. Davidson
Morning:
catching that tail-end
of a dream
 – Michael McClintock
 late afternoon:
cattle lie
in the billboard shade
  – Randy Brooks
                                  The fog has settled
                                  around us. A faint redness
                                  where the maple was.
                                   – Claire Pratt
                                                                     twisting inland,
                                                                  the sea fog takes awhile
                                                                      in the apple trees
                                                                    – Michael McClintock
I look up
from writing
to daylight.
– William Higginson
                                                                             evening star
                                                                             almost within
                                                                             the moon’s half-curve
                                                                            – William Higginson
the evening star
just above the snow the tip
of an alder bush
  – Nick Avis
                                           Winter moon;
                                              a beaver lodge in the marsh,
                                                 mounded with snow
                                             – Robert Spiess
                                                                   i catch
                                                                   the maple leaf     then let
                                                                   it go
                                                                   – John Wills
                                                                  after Beethoven
                                                                  he gets the furnace
                                                                  roaring
                                                                   – Raymond Roseliep
feeling foolish love
for the water in the stream
just passing by
   – H.F. Noyes
                                                                     overtaken
                                                                         by a single cloud,
                                                                            and letting it pass
                                                                       – Michael McClintock
summer sunrise
a man on a ladder
changing the price of gas
    – John Stevenson
                                                             the hidden path
                                                           through the woods
                                                              plain with snow
                                                              – Jim Kacian
I read
she reads
winter evening
   – Lee Gurga
                                                                   I sink a little bridge
                                                                   to the aquarium floor-
                                                                   first day of summer
                                                                      – Emiko Miyashita
Winter morning-
the sound of a board
hitting the pile
       – Barry George
                                                               old garden shed
                                                                  the insecticide can
                                                                      full of spiders
                                                                         – Ernest Berry
                                                still ahead of us
                                                the storm
                                                we’ve been driving toward
                                                   – John Stevenson
legs pawing
the summer wind-monarch
in the wiper blade
   – Lee Gurga
                                                                  Hiking by full moon-
                                                             the rockslide a spill of light
                                                          down the mountain
                                                                 – David Elliott
The fire-fly
   gives light
     to its pursuer
         – Oemaru
                                      quietly
                                         the fireworks
                                                     far away
                                                        – Gary Hotham
                                                                 After gazing at stars…
                                                                    now, I adjust to the rocks
                                                                       under my sleeping bag
                                                                         – Tom Tico
The distant mountains
are reflected in the eye
of the dragonfly
    – Issa
                                       hiking
                                       into the clouds
                                       the view within
                                       – Garry Gay
                                                                  migrating birds-
                                                                  the weight
                                                                  of my first voters’ guide
                                                                   – Fay Aoyagi
crab
washed ashore
each feeler intact
  – Francine Porad
                                       First Christmas-
                                       my daughter plays
                                       with a cardboard box
                                         – Kathy Cobb
                                                                        lighting the woodstove
                                                                        he kneels absorbed
                                                                        in last year’s newspaper
                                                                          – Dee Evetts
snow now rain
   your picture
      by mine
       – Gary Hotham
                                   picking the last pears
                                       yellow windows hang
                                          in the dusk
                                            – Ruth Yarrow
                                  old Indian trail
                                      we too,
                                   pause for the view
                                   – Margaret Molarsky
rainswept parking lot
headlights of a locked car
grow dim
  – Charles Dickson
                                                     everytime
                                                 the bushes dip   the bees
                                                     change places
                                                     – John Wills
                                                                family album-
                                                                the black and white
                                                                of my youth
                                                                 – Jim Kacian
morning twilight…
horse asleep in the pasture
covered with frost
  – Lee Gurga
                                          november evening
                                       the faintest tick of snow
                                           upon the cornstalks
                                               – John Wills
                                                                        change of kimono:
                                                                        showing only her back
                                                                        to the blossom’s fragrance
                                                                       – Chiyo-ni
                                            glancing back
                                            the woman I passed
                                            grows lovelier
                                            – Jeffrey Winke
spring twilight…
the hanging fern
      turns
  – Anita Virgil
                                           over and over
                                           on the railway embankment
                                            the same scrawny tree
                                             – Doris Heitmeyer
                                                                  end of the line
                                                              the conductor starts turning
                                                                   the seats around
                                                                  – Cor van den Heuvel
in one room
everything she has
and a window
   – Lea Lifshitz
                                         rainstorm on the pond;
                                         beaver pushing a poplar limb
                                         to plug the dam
                                         – Charles Dickson
                                         the swan’s head
                                         turns away from sunset
                                             to his dark side
                                               – Anita Virgil
                                                                        The Beloved-
                                                                           how simple
                                                                       the bear sniffs the air
                                                                        -vincent tripi
                                               A cloud of bugs
                                                 busy going nowhere
                                                        in a ray of sun
                                                    – James Hackett
casting stones
in a quiet pool
for company
– Jim Normington
                                                     deepening autumn-
                                                     soundless drift of leaves
                                                     against the boathouse
                                                      – H.F. Noyes
                                                                       sixteenth autumn since
                                                                       barely visible grease marks
                                                                       where he parked his car
                                                                        – Nick Virgilio
the evening paper
on the darkening lawn
first star
– Cor van den Heuvel
                                                 figure drawing class-
                                             in the models deepest shadows
                                                 a stark white string
                                                      – Lee Gurga
A long wedge of geese
straw gold needles of the larch
    on the flowing stream
        – Robert Spiess
                                            slowly too
                                          grass where we loved
                                             realigning
                                          – vincent tripi
                                                                       Slow mountain descent
                                                                    the turbulent river gentles
                                                                          into a lake
                                                                            – Jean Jorgensen
the geese fly off…
and it comes to me
that I am still here
    – H.F. Noyes
                                                                        walking the snow-crust
                                                                              not sinking
                                                                                 sinking
                                                                        – Anita Virgil
Two flies, so small
it’s a wonder they ever met,
  are mating on this rose
  – James Hackett
                                                     calm evening
                                                   alone on the porch I rouse
                                                     the windchimes
                                                    – Yvonne Hardenbrook
bursting free
from a box-shaped pruning
                          forsythia branches
   – Francine Porad
                                                      up late with old friends…
                                                      my daughter and her blankie
                                                      out of the dark
                                                       – Randy Brooks
     reading a mystery
a cool breeze comes through
     the beach roses
  – Cor van den Heuvel
Compassion-
the taste of the pear
bruised by other pears
     – vincent tripi
                                                                       dispute at second base
                                                                       the catcher lets some dirt
                                                                       run through his fingers
                                                                       – Cor van den Heuvel
                                            field of wild iris-
                                            the pinto pony
                                            kicks up his heels
                                            – Elizabeth Searle Lamb
schools out-
a boy follows his dog
into the woods
  – Randy Brooks
                                                 a dusting of snow
                                                 tire tracks grow visible
                                                 in the road’s soft edge
                                                 – Dee Evetts
                                                                       in the pack rat’s nest
                                                                       bits of an old calendar,
                                                                       a tarnished spoon
                                                                        – Elizabeth S. Lamb
autumn twilight-
in the closed barbershop
  the mirrors darken
  – Cor van den Heuvel
                                                              a deep gorge…
                                                                some of the silence
                                                                      is me
                                                                – John Stevenson
long meeting
I study the pattern
embossed on the napkin
    – Miriam Borne
                                                            why does the mandarin duck
                                                            float alone-
                                                            first winter rain
                                                            – Chiyo-ni
a warm gust…
back through the gate it comes
the whole pile of leaves
       – Christopher Herold
                                                       all those haiku
                                                       about the moon in the trees
                                                       the moon in the trees
                                                       – John Stevenson
my high wire act
for you
and this moon
 – Fay Aoyagi
                                              fog…
                                              just the tree and I
                                              at the bus stop
                                             – Jerry Kilbride
                                                                       winter beach
                                                                       a piece of driftwood
                                                                       charred at one end
                                                                      – John Stevenson
nudged by her boot tip
to the sidewalk’s edge
a dead sparrow
  – Pamela Miller Ness
                                                 between cities
                                                 on the interstate
                                                 so many stars
                                                – Karen Sohne
                                                darkening road
                                                wind parts the fur
                                                of the dead cat
                                                – Dee Evetts
                                               two lines in the water…
                                               not a word between
                                               father and son
                                               – Randy Brooks
                                             heat lightning
                                             the cow’s udder
                                             shivers
                                            – John Stevenson
cloud shadow
long enough to close
the poppies
 – Christopher Herold
                                        monastery cell-
                                        a blue window opens
                                        to sea and sky
                                       – Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
Aging willow leafs out
   its image unsteady
     in the flowing stream
          – Robert Spiess
                                                     fluttering madly-
                                                         butterfly in the slipstream
                                                              of a passing freight
                                                          – Lee Gurga
                                              Takeoff:
                                              in the runway crack
                                              a single weed
                                               – Ross Kremer
letting go
 leaves pass leaves
    holding on
  – Robert Henry Poulin
     a bike in the grass
one wheel slowly turning-
    summer afternoon
   – Lee Gurga
after all these years
ankle deep
in the other ocean
– Pamela Miller Ness
wind in the pampas grass
                       the rowboat strains
          against its mooring
– Ce Rosenow
dragonflies mating-
the outboard motor
coughs into life
– Charlie Trumbull
the farther into it,
the farther it moves away-
spring mist
– Wally Swist
rows of corn
stretch to the horizon-
sun on the thunderhead
– Lee Gurga
night journey-
entering town
I lose the stars
-Hilary Tann
Milky Way-
carefully she spreads
the quilt
– Yu Chang
new snow
the arc
the door makes
– John Stevenson
candlelight dinner-
his finger slowly circles
the rim of his glass
– Lee Gurga
one broken pane
remaining in the shed
full moon
– Wally Swist
at rest
on the hospice wall
a mayfly
– Charlie Trumbull
beads of water
on the manzanita leaf
         none touch
– Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
winter sun
a stranger makes room
without looking
– John Stevenson
blinding snow
there is no need
to understand everything
– Yu Chang
January thaw
easing the log
into the current
– Hilary Tann
for my birthday
another trip
around the sun
– Jim Kacian
each hole in turn…
a wasp checks out
where the bolts pulled loose
– Charlie Trumbull
exploring the cave…
my son’s flashlight beam
disappears ahead
– Lee Gurga
in the dark she whispers to me
      “the deer have eaten
                   my tulips”
   – Ronald Baatz
steady summer rain…
an old swayback farmhouse
by the road
– Bruce Ross
missing you-
windows rattle
with the wind
– Ce Rosenow
deep twilight-
the abandoned horse pasture
thick with buttercups
– Wally Swist
   a squirrel leaping
 from a tree in the rain
loves the soft earth of april
– Ronald Baatz
last bale of hay-
we sit down on it
and watch the moon
– Lee Gurga
curling tighter
a leaf
ctaches fire
– John Stevenson
a stone
i saved
casting stones
– Stanford M. Forrester
autumn morning-
repainting our bedroom
the color it was
– Mike Spikes
hot afternoon
the squeak of my hands
on my daughter’s coffin
– Leonard Moore
River stones
worn smooth
I have no regrets
– Garry Gay
autumn wind
the leaves are going
where I’m going
– John Stevenson
   going out the door
  i pass a grape that had
rolled away from breakfast
– Ronald Baatz
dawn mists rise…
the river bottom covered
with mud-ckaed stones
– Wally Swist
from one end
of the plane to the other
winter fly
– Charlie Trumbull
I finish my tea
the cup still full
of warmth
   – Philomene Kocher
starry night-
biting into a melon
   full of seeds
   – Yu Chang
as if
it had split the boulder
pine seedling
   – paul m.
Cabin fever-
  spinning the child’s globe
     until it blurs blue
  – Carol Purington
   first frost
a homeless man appears
in the new development
  – Yu Chang
old railway bed
the ties
remain
  – Hilary Tann
mountain moonrise
the sound I didn’t know
I had in me
   – Peter Yovu
cycling with my son-
this is the autumn
I fall behind
  Curtis Dunlap
longing for something-
an unknown seabird
soars out of sight
– Ce Rosenow
milky way-
even the know-it-all
speechless
   – Hank Dunlap
autumn downpour
a tow truck pulling
another
  Carlos Colon
pull of the moon
I am not myself
tonight
  – Yu Chang
the broken harp string
curving
into sunlight
  -Elizabeth Searle Lamb

Selected Haibun by Tom Clausen

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Tom Clausen in Tom selected favorites

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                                   Going to Grandma’s
                   When we were young my mother would pack our old ’52 Plymouth in the chill of morning for our journey from Ithaca to East Berkshire, Vermont, to see Grandma. The trip was always a long, full day of driving with wonderful sights yet  much squirmy energy to contain. Year after year we made this trip so that images along the way became indelibly etched in my memory.
                                      out to pasture
                                      a Ford Fairlane
                                      with it’s hood up
              The road rising and falling, stretching straight at times, and always moving ahead built up a whole set of anticipations and images to look for. I would keenly watch for picture perfect farms, cows in their pastures, majestic willows following a stream, dream houses with lovely porches, horizons near and far, bridges big and small. Roadkills, particularly skunks, as well as railroad crossings with their twin bumps, would always heighten the passage. It was fascinating to glimpse abandoned houses, burned down barns, junkyards, factories, cemeteries, billboards, freight cars next to warehouses and to pass through little towns with their five and dime hearts gave me plenty to fuel my childhood imagination. The road, even in stretches of emptiness, would captivate my curiosity and pique my early sense of space all flowing together.
                               freight train going our way…
                               silently saying the names
                               on the box car walls
                     Despite the external flowing landscape the most passionate activity on these trips was the inevitable teasing and squabbles that broke out between my sister, Heidi and me. Since she was two years younger it was hard to reconcile her being both bigger and stronger! The back seat was a universe unto us, and the typical trip would at some point develop the drawing of a battle line. Although the line was imaginary, it was nonetheless important in formalizing our taunts and tussels. It created a boundary of tension and a chance to tempt fate. We were a brother and sister occupying a small space and had over 325 miles to engage in combat.
                                     the little hairs
                                     on my sisters arms;
                                     how similar to mine
                   The verbal bickering usually escalated to fake nonchalant hand placements over the line, reprisals, poundings on shoulders and arms, glares of defiance, allegations of blame, sneers, and appeals to the front seat for justice. Violations of decency required a referee. After a few shrill exchanges, a few appeals, the car would stop. Our mother, no longer able to tolerate us would pull over and order me to get out and run… yes, run, and run along the side of the road far enough to be tired enough hopefully to get back in the car tired out and able to sit peacefully still and quiet for awhile.
                                     our new used car
                                     several old cigarette butts
                                     in the ash tray
                  One of these times on a stretch of road in a remote area as I ran along I noticed the Plymouth getting smaller and smaller until I got completely out of sight. The forest on either side of the road invited glances and the powerful thought that I could just veer off and disappear in those deep woods forever. Wouldn’t she be sorry, I smugly imagined, but just enough of that early childhood self-survival instinct vetoed the getting- lost -in-the-woods detour! I kept running as fast as I could, fully aware of a certain triumph that could be obtained by the sheer distance ahead I could go.
                                    a sparkplug
                                    in the roadside gravel;
                                    pocketing it
                The road began to curve and I realized that I was way out of sight and well beyond the distance that my mother usually let me get.. What a feeling: to be a kid, alone, running in a strange unexpected place; lungs, heart, arms and legs all churning and pulling onwards, ahead with some mysterious charm to the moment. Suddenly a pick-up truck came up from behind and pulled along side of me. A man at the wheel leaned over and yelled out the window: “Kid, do you want a lift?”  I hesitated, amazed, tempted, but then said, “No, I guess not, I’ll be getting a ride with someone soon.” I said this half looking back and half wishing I could see the Plymouth, but it was not in sight. A slight shiver passed through me. I could have gotten in that truck, I could have run away with help. That would have been a pivotal moment heading me into a completely different life.
                                   a long way
                                   from home               my pillow
                                                                  in the car
               As it was the Plymouth soon did reappear and leap frogged ahead of me. I ran some more, now really tired and ready to get in. I was breathing heavily and without any words didn’t even give my sister a look. For quite some time I sat peacefully and quietly, looking out the window, full of private thoughts and considerations of my young little life. The run had done just what my mother had wanted. I was able to sit awhile very nicely. It would take dozens of years for me to realize that it is moments like these that help keep a family together, What I felt that day, long ago, was in a brilliant little bundle of moments what being young is all about.
                              mother driving…
                              the passing tractor trailer
                              buffets our car
                             In the Woods
In 1962 when I was eleven I fancied myself to be a Last of the Mohican, Huckleberry Finn, outback wilderness child, and had chosen the name “Wonapsa” to inspire and fulfill the fantasies I played out in the woods and gorges behind our house. The woods contained the world I loved, both real and imaginary. I would spy on rabbits, chipmunks, and woodpeckers. Sometimes I would sit as still as I could to see what being a ghost was all about. I laid on the ground, smelling the dirt and embracing a patch of earth just my size. I would climb trees listening to the wind sigh in the boughs and learn the creak that comes from deep in trees. The woods were filled with secrets I wanted to know.
                                          sun after rain-
                                          the garter snake fresh
                                          from its skin
In the spring it was momentous to find mayapples and hepaticas and know new life arises from the litter and wreckage of winters’ leaving. One day while scampering up and down steep slopes in random search for tiny skulls, feathers, fossils or a special perch to sit awhile, I peeked over a ridge top to see a man and a woman lying out on a ledge a way below me. What they were doing I had roughly heard about but never seen. The trees between me and them were few but a bit of guilt kept me from a steady stare. I became aware of the unlikliness of what I was witnessing and felt an exhileration of discovery. To see their flesh while they kept some clothes on filled me with curiosity. I do not remember a distinct conclusion, my memory choosing to focus on the unison of their movements.
That night my heart and mind recreated it all over and over. What images I had seen. How purely animal and natural they were. How unexpected and free a view I had.
Years go by and that ledge is still there. My walks in the woods these days sometimes pass that place. I always look a little and remember. I’ve never seen anyone else there.
                                               barren woods-
                                               a clump of wild onion
                                               scents the air
( published in Wedge of Light, 1999, Press Here, Foster City, California)
                                     Graduation 
The iffy weather holds and the whole ceremony occurs magnificently without rain. Extended families in their finest. Toddlers swagger about the edge of the overflow seating. The speeches are both grand and generic, and appropriately inventory many inspired concepts to send this group into the next life. Balloons are released, cameras are reloaded, video runs, and cheers of jubilation arise here and there from the mass as subsets of the group are specified. Just as the processional marched in it is not long before everyone slowly files out. Six thousand students, thirty thousand relatives, friends, ushers, speakers, dignitaries, professors, staff, emergency personnel, and myself caught up in this sea of spectacle. I work near here and pass this site nearly every day. This is the one hundred twenty-eighth graduation to be held at this place.
                            in the rain
                            outside the empty stadium
                            a penny
                                                 New Life
It begins at the beginning; baby things, a cradle, diapers, wipes, sleepers, onesies, rattles, cuddly bears and before you know it there is a high chair, crayons, markers, glitter, legos, duplos, playmobile, comics, books, socks, mittens, hats and how quickly things are outgrown.
When you don’t pay enough attention to young ones things happen to insure you do pay enough attention. Days become a mess here, a spill there and soon it becomes a plunder all around until finally after countless episodes of distress , a whole day of monitoring, pick-up and attention is done. Readiness for the next day cavalcade must be made. Zombie-like puzzling over how draining and challenging parenthood is, I remark to my wife how exhausting it is to be at home with the children. She says the secret is to keep things moving and to get out of the house.
                                              frantic
                                              she tells me she never loses
                                              her keys
                                   In the Middle
You can sit on a lawn or in a field, or forest or by a stream; almost anyplace and just sit there sensing whatever. The longer you sit the better for settling out the business of the mind and becoming open to the myriad senses of sound, sight, smell and the way all manner of life is right there to discover…
                                     page by page
                                     she knows on each one
                                     where Waldo is
                                       New Sneakers
When our  5 and 1/2 year old son, Casey, began a campaign for new sneakers it awakened in me the memories of my own childhood love affair with the nearly annual new pair. For a child there is an extr-sensory exhileration that comes from having one’s feet laced into a springy new pair of sneakers.
Casey had been pleading for weeks for a new pair of Nikes. At first I was mildly disturbed that he was brand and style conscious at only 5. After all, my childhood sneakers had been plain canvas skippy’s bought at Five-and-Dime stores, and had been absolutely captivating to me. Furthermore, as an adult I’ve never warmed up to the large, clumpy, light-up-glaring barges that so many kids adore today. Oh well, my doubts were soon replaced by vicarious enjoyment of his pleasure with his new Nikes. He had me hold them, inspect their tread and note every feature of their design.
Watching Casey run, jump, skip and thoroughly exalt about in his new sneakers made it perfectly clear he was proud, enthused and inspired by the collaboration of his dream come true in the form of two pieces of rubber life attached to his feet. I was instructed to look closely at the first grass stains and the first mud in the tread. In general much focus that first day was placed firmly on his embellished feet! I knew they would get old like many prized toys past their peak of charm, yet I’ll never forget that night when still brand new these sneakers were the magic of a young heart and mind.
                                               five year old snuggles
                                                   his new sneakers
                                                          in bed
                                                     Fruittree
Our son has named him Fruittree although Luna was the name we gave him when we brought him home from the SPCA. Fruittree quickly established himself as a destructive presence, clawing furniture, shredding curtains, getting up on our mantle, different dressers and knocking off breakable things. He demands attention with an effective caterwaul that he keeps up until he gets his way, which is usually to get out or be let back in. Besides the caterwaul when he wants”in” he resorts to leaping up onto window or door screens and hanging on issueing loud meows until he is let in. All the screens are in poor shape as a result of his heftiness. Fruittree sheds his white fur ferociously everywhere. He’s been known to grab bites out of food on the table if not watched closely and he views our garden as his personal over-sized kitty litter. Our fish aquarium he treats as his ready made fish soup for lapping at any time of day.
                                            fallen asleep
                                            beneath the feeder
                                            our deaf cat
                                                 Sustained Time
         In my ten years of married life the lack of time to be totally alone has been a chronic issue of discontent in me. When my wife and children boarded the Lake Shore Limited in Syracuse heading out to California for a month visit with the kids grandparents I felt genuine anxiety. It was to be my second significant time alone in ten years.
         My first day on my own I became aware of unrealistic expectations I had placed on this time. I had envisioned this being alone for so long as a fantasy that the reality was bound to suffer some in comparison. Always my fantasy was that when alone I could and would write more and better poems, I’d read abundantly, attend movies, plays, go out to hear music, get together with friends and generally feel happier, free, relaxed, inspired, productive, decisive and more like my old self; eclectic and bohemian. I always imagined confidently that once alone I’d be able to accomplish all the myriad things I fail to accomplish when surrounded by the needs and demands of family life.
                                        sleeping in…
                                        that big white cloud
                                        out the window
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