(Haiku) - Mizu Yasashii Mizu (Water Sweet Water)

hitotsu kawa
ao to heikatsu yo
shika nomimasu

One river
blue and flat!
A deer drinks

Tanka

Still, immobile
The tree speaks my yard's tale
I still yearn it, still
Listen to the mind
Long to meditate.

Kyrielle to Time


Oh Nostalgia! Am I remiss?
Betraying you, to reminisce?
Do not borrow to repay debt,
Future’s fear, lose the past’s regret.

Sentimental, echoing past!
Get thee behind me, at long last.
My words to those I have not met:
Future’s fear, lose the past’s regret.

So if you for history yearn
Consider, no man can return
Road to wisdom, do not forget:
Future’s fear, lose the past’s regret.

Starting Over

Family, friends, a real social butterfly.
Connections were easy to find.
But, then the bottom falls out,
phones don't ring, none online.
Desperate attempts.
No companion.
A loser?
Alone.
Me.

Tritina on Sloth

Your life’s outcomes are fair and just
In the end, you are what you do
You get out what you put in it

Time: save it, spend it, or waste it
You only get one lifetime, just
Doesn’t change whatever you do

Warriors struggling to do
Never ending wars against it
The battle, hopeless, fair and just

Just Do It!

ICE CREAM

My favorite dessert is called ice cream,
I think about it whenever I dream,
Sweet and cold,
Light or bold,
Among life's joys it reigns supreme.

Acrostic: Top of the Hill

40 years’ time, neither old nor new
3 million memories to explain or review.

To go boldly now, not gallant or wise
He might just lament, fearing his demise.

I instead keep climbing, and will make my mark
Nor do my eyes lack youth’s eternal spark.

Get better and better, you not-yet-old man
So you return to your youth, where you began.

Lightning, spurning thy thunder
Arousing awe, yet casts asunder
Those too close to your destination
While in my mind, powering creation
Mania, supply me blissful joy
Unending hope but seeks to destroy
Were I to harness, complete elation
And if not, a false salvation

Journeys to the Sacred City
begin with a single step

Exist not for the future
nor revel in the past

Walk at dawn,
the sacred city lies obscure

Continue, resolute
Your target Enlightens.

The goal is not the
Sacred city in the distance,

But the sacred city
Under the foot

Of the Next Step.

Ghazal "The Warmth Pulls Me"

The warmth pulls me closer to my dear flame
The yearning makes burning by severe flame.

Brilliant reds and oranges light the void
While your azures cool none, my austere flame.

Scalding heat when excessively deployed
I don’t fathom you, so good bye queer flame.

Threaded true, dishonorably destroyed
The world’s money can’t buy a sincere flame.

Lonely match fuels the candles I’ve enjoyed
First degree burns from a sly unclear flame.

Too attractive for my heart to avoid
And yet I shiver when by the near flame.

At first, enraged and now merely annoyed
Fingers clasp and extinguish, nigh, a mere flame.

ET TU MARITUS (And you, Husband?)

Had we never met, my wife
A loss I'd have never known
Never heartbreak so rife
Never reaping what I'd sown
Are not the fears in my life
Handily seen, yet never shown?

Love bleeds on another's strife
Only when one's heart's not stone
Now that we have met, my knife
Glitters brightly, never shone.

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Explanation: "And you, Husband?" is the title. Obviously reminiscent of Brutus' betrayal of Caesar. In a way, the title is meant to say that I have betrayed her, although the poem is written from my standpoint. The point of the first stanza is that if we had never met (Line 1), I would have missed the only true Love I have ever felt (Line 2), but I would have also avoided so much pain (Line 3), mostly self-caused (Line 4). Line 5 and 6 comedically ask if you can see my fears which I hide so poorly. Line 7 equates love and heart without actually saying heart (as it's overdone), and line 8 names and while presenting us with the sad truth that to love one must allow for pain. The last two lines allude to the harm I have brought using the metaphor of the knife which is often, tragically, hidden from me, if not used unwittingly.

ET TU MARITUS (And you, Husband?)

Had we never met, my wife
A loss I'd have never known
Never heartbreak so rife
Never reaping what I'd sown
Are not the fears in my life
Handily seen, yet never shown?

Love bleeds on another's strife
Only when one's heart's not stone
Now that we have met, my knife
Glitters brightly, never shone.

-----------------------------------
Explanation: "And you, Husband?" is the title. Obviously reminiscent of Brutus' betrayal of Caesar. In a way, the title is meant to say that I have betrayed her, although the poem is written from my standpoint. The point of the first stanza is that if we had never met (Line 1), I would have missed the only true Love I have ever felt (Line 2), but I would have also avoided so much pain (Line 3), mostly self-caused (Line 4). Line 5 and 6 comedically ask if you can see my fears which I hide so poorly. Line 7 equates love and heart without actually saying heart (as it's overdone), and line 8 names and while presenting us with the sad truth that to love one must allow for pain. The last two lines allude to the harm I have brought using the metaphor of the knife which is often, tragically, hidden from me, if not used unwittingly.