October 4, 2017

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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October 3, 2017

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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October 2, 2017

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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October 1, 2017

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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