Joy Haiku

trio of flying 

seahorses splashing color

across dreaming sky

    Gaza

Thin children, brown eyes

having lost their shine,

hopscotch stumbling 

In dust across concrete shards

On what was once

An avenue that thrived.

Watered-down soup and stale bread

Their only meal

If not shot

At the feeding station. 

What’s that constant buzzing

Overhead?  Where is

The elusive deluded world? 

That “Good trouble”

They talk so much about?

   Cliffbound 

He resides most nights

In a puddle of parables.

Some sun, some sea,

Occasionally luminous,

Others Plutonian if not

Downright numinous.

He rolls over

Remembering cliffs

Along the Adriatic~Jadransko Mare~

The Croats call it

And how his mate

Had hope to sail

One day to Venice.

She never did

But hopped a midnight train

For Istanbul instead. 

Now she sleeps along the Bosporus 

Where huge freighters

Have their way

With her, how they keep

Plunging through her dreams,

Foghorns rippling

Across black sea 

Where Asia wrestles Europe,

Uncertain if they’ll ever marry. 

And the man she left?

Well, he’s 

Still sitting, waiting

High up and

Bleary-eyed

On those lofty cliffs

Wondering from his perch

If Venice

Is underwater yet

As it lurches

Towards the future. 

 Autumn

a leaf suffused

yellow

trembles through thin

air

like a solo spark

from father sun

and in a gratuitous 

gust 

wafts

to the stone~cold stream

cascading below.

Carl

 My pal Carl

has a pencil~size hole

near his left cheekbone

underneath an attentive eye,

a portal through which light

wrapped in humor and

a life~long

longing for truth

flows out to us

lucky enough

to be present

and willing

to see, to listen.

Oceans spindrifting

Shimmer. Carl

May not always

Know it~

Yet like a sea

Blooming mystery

And love

He often

Glistens and glimmers

With his astonishing

Heart, maverick mind and

Generous pencil,

Gifting us fortunate ones

Time after time

With those writings,

These drawings,

Himself.

Oregon, August

 blackberry thickets

guarding cows lazing beyond

purplish lips glisten

 

Keep Dipping

this stream underneath

never ceases

its flowing. We

simply forget

to dip deep

our buckets rusted

and gleaming

beyond the limits

of rock, occasional

drought,

misguided mistrust

of these unbreakable

links to the waters

below

where forever are teeming

images and stories

that feed and replenish

our writing, moistening

these days and nights

of imaginal work

cultivating the beautiful

mundane, tending

with care

our maverick muse,

her unpredictably

creative thriving,

her astonishing

mischievous

conniving

coaxing us

to swim on

plunge 

down 

into this,

our wholehearted

curious

diving.