Stones drink purple light. Snow melts and crawls off downhill. Ducks swim slowly east.
– a pseudo-haiku
Category: My Poetry & Fiction
Caveat: Poem #1284 “Later”
Procrastination's better left to tomorrow. Today I'll watch rain.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1283 “Not the rock we had in mind”
The sea advances, besieges snow-covered rocks, then retreats, dismayed.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1282 “Wintery morning”
Before dawn, stars hung. Now, the sky has turned to pink, and snowflakes flutter.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1281 “Self-skepticism”
My beliefs dwell in a parallel universe where I disagree
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1280 “Setting standards”
Would you ever date a disembodied being? I could see trying.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1279 “That duck is out of its comfort zone”
the drifting ducks push through the water, exploring beyond comfort zones
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1278 “The uselessness of syntax”
these words' strange syntax ununderstandable are distressing be like
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1277 “Theoretical constructs”
bittersweet raindrops drum the roof, the mossy ground present their theories
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1276 “Morning stuff”
My oatmeal is here. My coffee is ready now. I checked my email.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1275 “An occupied territory
an icy snow-patch has occupied the driveway winter's here again
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1274 “설날”
Seollal is New Year's as counted by lunar months. It was yesterday.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1273 “Things that ghosts do”
ghosts emerge from night taste the damp soil, dance on stones, make dark suggestions
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1272 “A migratory reality”
the moment passes... reality reconvenes in another's brain
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1271 “The cormorant”
There's the gray cormorant sitting out there where the cold rain just submits to its stare. Sideways it glances back up at my gaze - startled, it launches and flies off a ways.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1270 “Mere cartography”
Worlds are constructed of lines and of nodes laid out in patterns depicting abodes. Slowly relations take form and appear: complex creations, and nothing is mere.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1269 “Beepity-boop”
water flows through ice making sounds like computers from old TV shows
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1268 “Eleventh stanza (bis)”
"Great," he said - demons will talk in such ways, staking out claims on precarious days. Trust isn't easy with creatures like that. Souls are in question, beliefs are at bat.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1267 “Rain will melt the snow”
the wind picked up speed whitecaps driven from the east and snow turns to rain
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1266 “The clacking sound of the muse”
fingers find the keys a clacking sound emerges and words flower forth
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1265 “Things that are given”
a haiku in which words are quickly surrendered and up is given
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1264 “What to think”
the stars mob the sky they drop dreams on bits of ice think: the moon watches
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1263 “The air”
the night air crunches and pins the snow to the ground and looks for my skin
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1262 “A new sport”
the thing about ice it's really hard to drive on ice-skating by car
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1261 “Through a glass darkly”
Orchards of rain were all clinging to hills. Grids wrought distractions in minds seeking thrills. Aimless distortions wove complex designs, Crafted bold icons with broad, blue-green lines.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1260 “Frost on snow”
the sky cleared, air chilled a thickness fell among trees frost formed on fresh snow
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1259 “Ode to the wood”
Down with all gravel! The weathered wood's fine. Moss on the ground and the trees make a line. Slugs will cavort on the edges of light. Prowling young bears will explore in the night.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1258 “Angst”
Carpeted spaces presented themselves. Books turned their spines out from rickety shelves. Elderly sadnesses lingered and sang. Pains were unbearable. Distant bells rang.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1257 “Just in case”
more snow fell last night just in case more was required in case trees hungered
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1256 “To ground”
Out on a snow-covered roof there are beasts pawing the whiteness and gazing out east. Loves are discarded and laying around: just random snowflakes all swirling to ground.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1255 “Surreality II”
Faces presented angelic desires. Hallways distorted by unburning fires wove eldrich patterns and fell into stairs, vast nameless oceans, their clouds like pink flares.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1254 “Surreality I”
Palaces spread out their structural souls, greenery covering possible holes. Paintings were hanging on external walls. Darkness, semantic, beclouded the halls.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1253 “Within”
Within Where Iron Factories spouted grey, There I dwelt by Mahhalian shores. So Doctor Hubert came with a Word, For plastic Angels of the new Hell City; for mind-slaves of Its hurt. There I became blest--his Apostle. Wind beat a slime to a sandy shore There I began to hear of his word. And from a dead-empty, bloody Hell All the eyes glossy-dull by a hurt The Rats fled; became his Apostles So he promised to remove the grey. Said he: No one can refute my Word There I said: Amen! Ruin this Hell Dr. Hubert! Destroy my deep hurt! He smiled: follow me, my Apostles. Showing us how to survive the grey Leading us to a candy-green shore. Dancing, we were far from any Hell Hoping, we failed to feel any hurt Loving, thus were we his Apostles. Plastic melted; we denied the grey Eyes flickering/reflecting a shore Free, happily alive with his Word. Under a rock, the centipede hurts, And he crawls, to sting an Apostle Leaping, then he dies cadaver-grey He's left to rot on a slimy store. I run; I search for His holy Word, The rats return whispering of Hell For Hope, thus I became an Apostle Then the rat-emperor came in grey, And drove us to a cadavered shore, Erected a cross for harmless Words Removed the candy, revealed a Hell No! Not Dr. Hubert. Not the Hurt! He brought Apostles to the shores, He destroyed hurt with his Words-- But Hell revealed the Grey within.
– this is a “guest poem” – not by another author, but by me, but written 37 years ago, in the fall of 1982. It is a sestina, in form, with an additional constraint revealed in the use (abuse) of the mono-spaced font. The poem was “lost” for most of the intervening years, but turned up in a box that I was sorting through in recent weeks.