FIVE HAIKU BASED ON A QUOTE by Paulo Coelho Quote

FIVE HAIKU BASED ON A QUOTE

by Paulo Coelho Quote:

“We have lost contact with reality, the simplicity of life.”  

1

Jackals leave their young

To pursue the scent of birds—

Greedy overkill.

2

Moon, you waste your time

Dreaming the impossible—

Be yourself and shine.

3

Flowers never fight

Color wars; instead they don

Their raiment like kings.

4

Fish and fowl live

Simple lives in sea and sky—

They know their places.

5

Toads on the lilies

Croak tower clocks to silence—

Time flies unnoticed.

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EASY PREY

EASY PREY

This is the simple way most view life,

their notions compartmentalized

either black or white, haunched behind

glass panes, deceptively final,

as if selecting one, negates

the other, a trade-off between

What-you-see-is-what-you-get

and Look-deeply-into-my-eyes.

We think we see the pebbled rain

in the clarity of assumed truth.

Questions abound in the spinning

orbs of niggling uncertainty.

Too often we opt for beauty,

the strains of the joy horns,

something to see and grasp in hand,

the misguided sense we live here

Forever. Or we give ourselves

back to where we began:

Repentant, exchanging black

and white for God’s Light.

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Five 17-SYLLABLE BARE ROOM POEMS

Five 17-SYLLABLE

BARE ROOM POEMS

1

You assured me

I was safe in the dark.

The room was bare.

Now, you’re gone.

2

Why the four walls?

Without them, sorrow

and pain would abscond

with the wind.

3

The photos down

from the wall, a patina

of memories linger.

4

If tears fall in a bare room

and no one sees them,

do they still fall?

5

Life is an exercise in clutter.

We cram bare rooms

we leave behind.                          

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PEACEFUL REFLECTIONS

PEACEFUL REFLECTIONS

Months after your passing, I hid

clandestine notes under a brick

behind a statue of Jesus.

I imagined the words skipping

free, delving beneath the gravesite,

and you, dousing the crimson pyre

Of past pain with my smudging tears.

All quiet here. Peaceful reflections

flutter skyward like summer doves.

In sadder graves imps gnash their teeth

in other-worldly cacophony.

I watch the children kicking

a soccer ball across the green.

I shudder at sneakered feet

walking across my someday grave.

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SHADOW POEM

SHADOW POEM

Pared down to the crucified bone, paired

arms that blessed and never fired arms,

pane slashed with downpour mimics pain.

Herd of listeners never really heard

his message, so distracted by the hiss

bred from Satan against the Living Bread.

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THERE ARE NO BEGGARS IN HEAVEN

THERE ARE NO BEGGARS IN HEAVEN

There are no supplicants in Heaven.

For what might they ask? They have it all.

Only in this life do they wait

on breadlines, make wishes, pray

away disastrous outcomes.

This is the life of worry

and illusion. At every bend

we face, unpreparedly alone,

clever demons whose playthings

we squander, those ecru trinkets

that neither polish nor magic

can whiten to seraphic purity.

Here, we blindly live out our days,

unalarmed by inevitable

endings, tickled by success,

neutral to what happens next

when the open-palmed hand is still.

In Heaven, there are no supplicants,

No need to pray for one’s salvation.

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