XVIII:2, June, 2003

SOLO WORKS
 
GHAZAL:  
WORKSHOP GHAZAL by Ruth Holzer

HAIBUN:
CATCHING FIRE
Edward Baranosky

HAIBUN by F. Matthew Blaine,

SEASONS by Allen McGill

THE BUILDER'S ROAD by Gary LeBel

SIJO: 
REQUIEM TO AN ACTIVIST
Victor P. Gendrano

45TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
April 21, 2003
Victor P. Gendrano

THE SIJO by
Gino Peregrini

TANKA: 
TIMBER YARD by
Tony Beyer, 

FIND IT IN YOURSELF by  Owen Bullock,

 LITTLE BITS OF LOVE by Tom Clausen, 

CARELESS LOVE by Ruth Holzer,

MOISTURE by Annie Gustin,  

Momi Kam Holifield,

AMARYLLIS by
Elizabeth Howard,

WILD TURKEYS by Kirsty Karkow,  

Andrew Lansdown, 

GONE? by M.L. Harrison Mackie,

SNATCHES OF BIRDSONG by
Thelma Mariano, 

THE SEA IN WINTER - FUYU NO UMI
Excerpted from Breasts of Snow: Tanka by Fumiko Nakajoo (1922 – 1954) 
Translations by Hatsue Kawamura and Jane Reichhold,

COLORED HOURS by Jane Reichhold,

COPPER ON A MINARET by Werner Reichhold, 

Shirley Cahayom, 

Don Shockey, 

WIND'S BAREFEET by
Aya Yuhki

WITHOUT GENRES:
ORANGE by June Moreau, 

Sheila Murphy

WORKSHOP GHAZAL
Ruth Holzer

This line is trite, and so's your whole ghazal,
you don't know how to write a real ghazal.

In Farsi and Urdu, tongues of the original,
couplets rhyme smoothly - they're forced in your ghazal.

Refrain and repetition are boring after a while;
we've dispensed with them in the modern ghazal.

Don't bother defending it with pride or guile -
we've wasted enough time on your ghazal.

Thank god, Ruth, it's not you taking the fall;
someone else has written that no-good ghazal.

HAIBUN

I guess the expression is "I dodged the bullet." I came home late on monday, 10:30 PM. Parkside Drive was blocked off, so the Queensway 80 bus-driver offered to pull around Roncesvalles south to Queen and Parkside. Walking up Parkside, I counted 16 fire-trucks and police cars. An ambulance rushed by towards St Joe's. I just wanted to relax after work, and thought it was a car accident. Then I thought, "Boy, that's close to my house." Then I saw the fire-ladder, towards the flames pouring through the roof . I thought "Oh, shit! Now what?" I tried to get into my apartment , but was stopped by police and firemen. "but I live there!' - "Not now, you don't." Then they let me have five minutes to get "all" my "valuables." With a fireman-guard holding a flashlight, but my place had the only electricity in the house. I had gotten a hold of Melisa and her friend Yuri, by a cell phone commandeered from another house person. They soon showed up (a fireman told me my daughter was outside asking about me) and asking where my paintings were, as I emerged from the smoke and water spray. I went for the mail, dropped a letter addressed to me, and grabbed another person's phone bill; lost my scarf under a fire-truck's wheel (picked it up the next day). Mae Li insisted I get back in and pull out the paintings, and though we negotiated another run, it really couldn't be done. We did get about six framed drawings, and the turkey I cooked the night before for New Years. Took a cab to her place. The next day (Dec 31) I went somewhat unwillingly to work, left early and went to my "place" to discard the genuinely trampled and smoked. The third floor was gutted. One of the tenants from the second floor was moving his stuff into a van. "Moving out?" I asked. "Unplanned" he said. "Coming back?" I asked. "Would you?" he said. Then, for the tenth time, "Do you have any insurance?"... "No."

My computer, perversely, booted smoothly and trouble free. Then I spent New Years as an unexpected guest. First night back "here" last night, the house was empty of men and women, dogs and cats, rats and mice, and ghosts. Only me who represented all of the above. Read a book on Probability and Life in the Universe: Perverse fractals and differential calculus. Better than sleeping pills. Discarded the discardable. Somehow, the things that are lost stay with you forever. (The fire was on the news on TV, but I didn't see it. Too occupied. I got a clipping from the Paper, but they called this a "rooming house." Rooming house?!! The top floor that burned overlooked High Park, and had a view of the Lake Ontario Horizon and went for upwards of $2000/mo. My apartment in the basement still isn't cheap. But I guess "rooming house" caught a certain inner city charm for the journalistas. Ah well, another day, another 63. 25 cents. Thereport of my demise was somewhat premature.

Somebody interviewing Jean Cocteau asked, "In case of fire , what would you take among your treasures?" "I'd take the fire!" he replied

Through the charred
roof beams and broken windows,
a bright, full moon.
Coldest evening of the year,
catching fire, I burn still.

HAIBUN
F. Matthew Blaine

            It is a hot brilliantly sunny afternoon on the Little Choptank River, which is located on the eastern side of the Chesapeake Bay about midway between the mouth and the head in an undeveloped area. I am anchored well up the river on a little side creek just behind a sandy spit of land that is too narrow to allow building. It has a white sand beach and a thin line of trees. There is not another human being in sight as far as the eye can see in any direction. On one side of me the river opens to a wide expanse of five or six miles of open water, but it is very shallow. On my other side the creek winds its way into the distance. It is bordered by marsh, sparse bushes, and trees. The trees look like bonsai trees swept by storms and stunted by the harsh growing conditions.  All morning I had been watching the resident Bald Eagle swoop and hunt then return to the highest perch in the thin line of trees that run behind the beach.

dragonfly
patrolling
no fly zone

The temperature is like an oven and the breeze is non-existent.  Because there is no breeze or boat activity as far as the eye can see the surface of the river is like a mirror. Only an occasional swimming blue crab touches the surface. This touch creates a bull's eye rippling effect on the water surface. I have decided to stay in this protected spot for a day or so and spend my time reading and taking in the sights. There is no use in trying to sail until there is some wind, anyway.

 I sit silently on the deck and gaze at the shoreline. In my peripheral  vision I notice some slight movement just next to the boat about two or three feet from me.

watching
 minnows
 watching
 me

WHAT I KNOW OF VAN GOGH AND HAIKU
Gerard J. Conforti

It’s been over four years since my last hospitalization in a psych ward. Through my hospital stays, I’ve learned how much suffering Van Gogh must have gone through in his life time. Throughout Van Gogh’s stays in psych units, he suffered from convulsive fits which increased and caused great stress and his heightened psychosis. When he was able to paint pictures of what he saw outside the window bars which kept him prisoner of a ward where he saw great suffering among the other inmates, he kept his mind focused on his painting which was the only way he could somewhat cope with all he was going through. Every day was a constant battle to over come some of the suffering he was experiencing. When he painted pictures of the less fortunate, it was his way of showing all the sorrow he witnessed and the love of nature which was a great part of his paintings. As the years passed he also wrote many letters to his brother, Theo, who lived in France, and whom Van Gogh visited a number of times. Van Gogh’s greatest works were painting of his self-portraits which showed much of the emotional turmoil he was going through.

Through my on-and off years in a pysch ward, I experienced the turmoil of emotions the in-patients also suffered from. In Van Gogh’s time there wasn’t too much help for the mentally ill like we have today. At one time, the doctors who treated Van Gogh and the others didn’t have the medication and other help we have in our present day. In Van Gogh’s time, the mentally ill were locked up for life and this still goes on for many pysch patients who can’t function on the outside world because the medication they are on doesn’t work well for them. It was what I had gone through in pysch units over the years that I learned how to express myself in pictures as written words. This was done through writing haiku or tanka which I had learned from the Japanese, American, and other haiku and tanka writers in other countries. It was all the misery I was going through which formed me to put my pen to the paper and write about what I’ve seen and witnessed in the hospitals. This was a release for me, the same way Van Gogh found in his paintings.

Sitting on a bench
facing the falling white buds
the pain in his eyes

This is what I experienced one late spring day outside the locked pysch ward. In the above haiku, I tried to express in my own words the beauty of nature and the suffering it entails. It is the sorrow I feel every day, along with the emotional pain which has caused me to write what of pysch wards or people trying to mend their own lives the best way they knew how.

The heat of the day:
alone to bear the emotions
of rejection

I often felt very alone in those hospitals.

Tonight,
I’ll stare at the white ceiling;
not the galaxy

One of Van Gogh’s most famous paintings was "Starry Night." He, too, wanted to be out under the stars when he was locked up.

In the spring winds
outside the locked ward
the swirl of dandelions

When I could finally roam the meadows outdoors I was sure Van Gogh felt the same when he painted various kinds of fields and orchards.

Autumn chill:
even in the locked ward
the coldness

And finally, the last haiku describes how far to go and how much Van Gogh wanted to achieve in his lifetime when he killed himself in Arles, France:

This road
is long enough -
please

SEASONS
Allen McGill

Yellow crocuses popped open during the early spring morning, to join the purples and whites already bordering the garden of our upstate New York home. They illuminated the bleakness left by winter's freezing, the first sign that our heavy coats would soon be spirited away - to wherever children's padding goes when warmth infuses the air.

My little brother Jackie and I peered closely to ooh and aah at the new arrivals, and to congratulate each other on how clever we were. We had planted the bulbs the previous autumn and the results of our superb labor were now obvious.

thin leaflets of green
thrust upward into light
a squirrel darts past

The garden hose was a delight during the heat of summer, so much more fun than any pool. Dad would stand on the sidelines, to follow Jack, me, and groups of our friends with the water spray as we ran squealing across the lawn, not trying very hard to escape. The antics were always followed by a communal picnic lunch on the long redwood table: pitchers of fruit drinks, all imaginable sandwiches, including peanut butter and jelly, potato and macaroni salads, and enormous slices of watermelon.

a stone nymph
smiles beneath mom's roses
the hammock sways

A grand maple tree stood sentry at the corner of our garden nearest the street, providing us with shade when desired and beauty always. It was especially striking when the veined green of the tri-corner leaves began to ease into autumn shades of reds and yellows, coppers, rusts and golds. On windy days Jackie and I would stand on the porch and watch the confetti-like shower of leaves fall to blanket the lawn, swirling and tumbling as the breeze played with them.

We would watch eagerly as Dad raked the leaves into piles and then retreat into the house. Diving beneath the mounds, we'd wait until he came back with the leaf bags, then jump out with a loud "SURPRISE!" Year after year he was startled.

aster blooms
abundant in the chill
smell of chimney smoke

Appearing forlorn, with plastic-wrapped fruit trees, pruned bushes and bare limbs, the winter garden would soon take on the guise of a magic place for Jackie and me. Daily, we'd watch the skies for snowflakes to fall, eager for the fun that millions of them would bring. But somehow the first snowfall never came during the day, always at night, like Santa Claus, to leave the most wondrous of gifts. Where the garden had seemed barren and dull, it now afforded abundant material for building forts and packing battle snowballs.

maple and nymph
standing guard in the cold
children's laughter

                        green buds appear
                        on brittle branches
                        a crocus stirs

THE BUILDER'S ROAD
Gary LeBel

    Arriving at twilight and anxious to smell the spring air four states from home, I find here are little ponds behind the motel to explore.  Swimming side by side, silent white ducks forage without fear as I approach, accustomed as they must be to many strangers.  In the places where we do our fieldwork, motels often form that last line of development beyond which lie the nameless tracts of woodlands between towns.

    The builder's temporary road ends abruptly at a place where the night has already fallen.  Town lights shine in the rain-filled tracks of dozers.  In the soothing dark of several acres of brush and pine beyond, no neon glows.

                    twilight fades...
                    there is one for each star,
                    the cries of spring peepers

she left a life of comfort
and other youth's obsessions

but instead joined pacifists
who abhor war and oppression

in a picket line abroad
she died, martyr to her cause

45TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
April 21, 2003
Victor P. Gendrano

the gnarled trunk betrays its age
battered by blasts of wind and rain

but the tree remains stronger
providing sustenance and shade

like our forty-fifth years' marriage
often shaken yet prevails

TANKA

TIMBER YARD
Tony Beyer

the thousand colours
of plain wood
sun faded
from the gate
to the back of the yard

either side
of the forklift
floorboards
not yet a floor
clap together

strakes lumber
nogging joists lath
cord and board
names to do
with wood

careful measure
sighting along
the shaft for flaws
dowelling
to make a kite frame

rough stuff
just for boxing
or smooth
joining grain
the saw sings

stockpiled
window frames
against the fence
the sky in them
supplied free

after lunch
the yard men
returning to work
always find something
to pick their teeth

flat pencil
behind the ear
marks the cut
stirs the tin mug
of tea

under a lean-to
out the back
the boss's
dream boat
growing slowly

split grain
dry sawdust
curled shavings
smells Christ knew
as a boy

FIND IT IN YOURSELF
Owen Bullock

unable to concentrate
on Victorian literature
lecturers on strike chant:
"what do we want?
eight per cent!"

a young man
harangues the M.P.
I can’t help thinking
of the phrase
"find it in yourself"

city street
two young women
embrace in greeting
an old lady smiles
and I at her

a Chinese boy
with pigeon feather
and flax leaf
directs traffic
near the fountain

late afternoon
the mirror’s
reflected sunlight
shines on my list of
things to do

LITTLE BITS OF LOVE
Tom Clausen

once it took so long
for the season's change
but now everything faster -
how strange the way I want
time to just stand still

last day of classes
gathering on the slope
to party let go and dance
to the music -
there’s wind in the trees

the river must make
so many curves
to pass through the lowlands
   the way nature always
   says something to us

nothing in the clouds
to suggest that the morning
is not good enough
yet here we are, in our house
whining our complaints

the spring just begun
and already I sit a bit lost
knowing full well
I can't keep up
with too many things

planes lift off,
roads go most everywhere
and still inside
the marvel
of even little bits of love

sad too
this lack of tears
or a feeling to dance
or sing;
her death too young

the trick of a decade,
how perspective changes,
humbles even my passion
to be for you
your very everything

I walk in front
with too many thoughts,
apart from my family -
sunlight broken through
on the forest floor

so many signs to find
this warm spring day
buds and blossoms galore
and there, left in the bushes,
some woman's navy blue bra

CARELESS LOVE
Ruth Holzer

Mother's Day card
I picked at random -
roses and robins
never suspecting
it was the last

after the funeral
her son walked along the shore
white pelicans
motionless
on separate rocks

fascinating book -
Animal Life of the World
I enjoy dipping
into this intruder's gift
and learning from it

evening walk
across the town green
from the courthouse
to the gas house
not a word spoken

all night listening
for the sound of your key
jiggling in the lock
releasing the raw joy
of your return, careless love

MOISTURE
Annie Gustin

march melts into green
damp earth giving way, stems stir
scents of sudden spring
your words emerge, tiny buds
disclosing mixed hues of awe

breeze bearing perfume -
hyacinth lost in our hair
lavender drizzle -
fragrant with questions, we stroll
blushing between sentences

tiptoeing on stones
ankles submerged, we submerge
thighs, waist, smooth shoulders
through endless curves and currents
we search, fingertips trembling

cascading sunlight
between rocks unraveling
breathless down our backs
cool splash sliding, bodies arch
hands clutching fistfuls of foam

dawn perspiring dew
time conspiring against us,
from the start we knew.
fingers and souls interlaced
daybreak. salt wells in our eyes

in a soft white fog
our lips parting, we parted
running back three times
i watched you melt into mist,
vapor curling from puddles

i listened closely
as april covered the earth,
rivulets streaming
across my face and window
signing your name in the pane

tasting a segment
of a pomegranate berry
tart juiciness surrounds
a hundred seeds
more future servings

Momi Kam Holifield

AMARYLLIS
Elizabeth Howard

               where we floated the creek
               an inner tube
               stuck on a dry boulder -
               a stalemate, too,
               our relationship

               ice-coated sticks -
               I recall a mass of bushes
               burning scarlet
               a myriad of songbirds
               plucking red berries

               fairy parasols
               in a tiny circle
               striped wintergreen
               bending to look, I wonder
               how do you call a fairy?

               after showers
               the first hint of green
               gulls swirl over the lake
               like snowflakes -
               the cusp of seasons

               April forest
               mushrooms concealed
               in the leaf litter -
               gourmet morels
               or counterfeits?

              clouded over
               woodpecker’s bobbing red head
               brightens the morning
               my spirits brighter too
               the amaryllis you sent

               a blush sweeping the sky
               cardinal’s prelude entwines
               whippoorwill¹s finale -
               can the music of the spheres
               surpass this? 

               unable to visit
               the wildlife refuge
               sandhill cranes visit me -
               mating dances
               in the meadow

WILD TURKEYS
kirsty karkow

three turkeys
across the back lawn
noisy gobbling
black heads lift and swivel
like feathered periscopes

turkeys move
with the northing sun
field to field
a peck here and there
sustains the journey

dressed in mist
these new arrivals
are enormous -
their gleaming feathers
iridescent black

sharing corn
with doves and sparrows
how out of place
the elegant slow steps
of turkeys from the wild

acceptance
long time companions
crowd together
chipmunks doves and squirrels
ignore turkey shadows

Unable to leave
my computer, I pick up
my binoculars -
and the violets by the fence
come into the room with me

I stop to ask if
he's hurt, the young man lying
on the damp grass at
midnight. He says he's thinking
about how his life's gone wrong.

A young black woman
standing sobbing with her child
in the street. "My boy
friend took of with my money."
I puzzle what to do. What?

        Andrew Lansdown

GONE?
M.L. Harrison Mackie

adults
always children
called to
her bedside
watering

one root
of this family’s
tree under
the umbrella
of her love

memories
generating
laughter
awake before
the wake

her breath
the last one
as thin as
the air keeping
us alive

her letting go
beyond our grasp
the peace
the surrender
of her repose

her take off
for who knows
where
a mystery
clouding eyes

but not
those opened
by the
radiance
of her spirit

SNATCHES OF BIRDSONG
Thelma Mariano

a March wind
whistles round the corner
where I stand
even in the numbing cold
I listen for birdsong

at the river
some waves ripple towards me
others away
as if they too have trouble
deciding which way to go

something pulls me
out in the driving rain
this dark night
hoping to find answers
in the words of a stranger

so much sadness of late
I throw out pieces of bread
to hordes of ducks
hoping their hunger for life
will somehow feed my own

I search
the frozen shoreline
for signs of spring
my grief mirrored
in a brittle sheaf of ice

snatches of birdsong
and the familiar sound
of my own footsteps
there’s comfort in little things
as I face the really big

THE SEA IN WINTER - FUYU NO UMI
Excerpted from Breasts of Snow: Tanka by Fumiko Nakajoo (1922 – 1954) 
Translations by Hatsue Kawamura and Jane Reichhold: 

By January of 1954, Fumiko’s cancer had spread to the lymph nodes so it was decided she should have radiation treatments. These had to be given in Sapporo, so she moved in with her married sister, Michiko who lived in Otaru, a seaside town about ten miles northeast of Sapporo, on the Sea of Japan. From there she could take a train to the hospital for her treatments.

toodai mo
kamome mo ware yori
toonokite
kokoro itamanu
yuugure wa kuru

a lighthouse
and the gulls too recede
from me
to an untroubled heart
twilight comes

Seeing such a terrible sea in the evening twilight, she imagines she can feel the sea's pain. Yet, in the cold evening twilight she felt so alone and drained that nothing could bother her anymore.

kuroki shooru
tatamite sunahama ni
ware wa suwaru
umi yo sono hanashi no
tsuzuki kikaseyo

folding
a black shawl I sit
on the sandy beach
oh ocean let me hear
the rest of the story

Facing death and yet not know how her life will end, she can only ask the wisdom of the sea for an answer.

While looking at the sea, she has a hallucinatory image that she might be becoming a fish. She imagines that the terrible pain she feels is due to a fin emerging from her smooth and breast-less chest.

hire ouru
itami fuan na
waga mae ni
umi wa haiiro no
suisoo to naru

a fin comes up
uneasy with pain
in front of me
the sea becomes
a gray water tank

The phrase "hire, a fin, ouru, comes out," also suggests her fear of the cancer's reappearance in another part of her body as well as this part of a shark protrudes from the water.

yorokobi no
ushinawaretaru
umi fukaku
ashi tojite tako no
rui wa kooran

its joy
having been lost
deep in the sea
the octopus will freeze
with its toes curled

The phrase yorokobi no ushinawaretaru umi, the sea which has lost its pleasure, is a beautiful way of describing the sea in winter also equates with Nakajoo's mind. The octopus is a metaphor of herself who cannot move freely due to her fatal disease. She is a poet who explains herself by using an apt metaphor and does not express herself realistically or directly. The image "curled toes" is a sexually stimulating description of pleasure. This, again, is one of her well-known tanka.

Between Otaru and Sapporo, the railroad runs right along the edge of the sea. On her trips to Sapporo for the many radiation treatments that winter, she sat in the train watching the cold sea, with high waves whipped up by the wind. At this time she was thirty-two years old.

fuyu no shiwa
yoseiru umi yo
ima sukoshi
ikite onore no
muzan wo minka

wrinkles of winter
develop even on the sea
if I live longer
will I see this atrocity
happen to me?

This is another of her famous tanka and the big stone monument inscribed with this poem was installed in her home town on the 3rd of August in 1960, as her seventh anniversary after her death. Beside the monument a grove of cherry trees were planted, so that people can enjoy walking around in it, especially in spring.

COLORED HOURS
Jane Reichhold

12:00 a.m.

the black purr
of no engine, voice
or cry
a wave climbs the cliff
to fall back on itself

1:00 a.m.

from the dark
inside a deer’s belly
grasses are pulled
with a green-giving sound
the seaside meadow grows

2:00 a.m.

the tide turns
the wind from the sea brings
the buoy bell’s
iron clang of the monastery
urges one to rise to kneel

3:00 a.m.

splayed sleepers
before the jagged edge
of the world
the color of blindness
illuminates unreality

4:00 a.m.

sinking deeper
into the deflating balloon
of dreams
a comforter loses
its calico name

5:00 a.m.

first light
the earth separates
from the sky
renewal blazes as a pale
glimmer in the east

6:00 a.m.

newborn colors
pink and blue shared
by the sea sky
floating above as clouds
the day’s rain takes shape

7:00 a.m.

swirling
the smell of coffee colors
the rooms
warm and friendly awakes
a golden sun on an oak table

8:00 a.m.

lines on
yellow tablet paper widened
by a pencil
the mousetrap of an idea
snaps on a clipboard

9:00 a.m.

time fades
numbers on the clock
slide to the floor
in the pattern of wood grain
sun writes of its other life

10:00 a.m.

the silver
of Alzheimer’s
on track
with single-mindedness
will I get this done today?

11:00 a.m.

piling up
of orange and cream
at its zenith
the word weaving
begins to unravel

12:00

watching my hands
carrots prepare for their
reincarnation
with the losing of their roots
they pass from plant to animal

1:00 p.m.

joy & release
the just-out-of-school
color spins
a clay pot into the air
wet and glistening it stands

2:00 p.m.

did you know
birds take afternoon naps?
fatigue rules
until an idea rears up
loud as a sleepless child

3:00 p.m.

the water color
of cleaning up the shine
a certain coolness
in the loss of inspiration
the reality of dusty clay

4:00 p.m.

no thanks
no walk for me today
yet the feet
find the road and its hill
spangled with delight

5:00 p.m.

a black pot
glassed on a black stove
always the same
yet sunset rays Midas-gild
even the left-over turkey

6:00 p.m.

reversing
the water of dishes
a soap bubble
turns itself inside out
in a stainless steel sink

7:00 p.m.

changing nightly
the colors of cotton dollies
sewn
a wakeful needle guides
a pliant tiredness of thread

8:00 p.m.

oblation
of the monks’ chanting swings
the crystal rosary
a jaguar-spotted cat finds
merely another of my toys

9:00 p.m.

for moonlight
the white book pages
of a day
comes down in blue ink
separated into memory

10:00 p.m.

unfocussed
as in the hour seeking
a lover
of stairs, the toothbrush
and a puddle of clothes

11:00 p.m.

a dog barks
from his teeth the flash
chips the night
each particle of sleep
broken again by barking

COPPER ON A MINARET
Werner Reichhold

              her dusty dress
              soft obliterating
              yellow (if not orange

probably)    in its own entourage
                   split
English tongues    they realize
imploding breath by
                       Shock and Awe

              ultra sound
              widening a crater
     black of burned bushes

spiraled prayer
home of a mosque
                        underneath
the oil floating        the oil
the woods of ancient roots

                      I shall offer you
                        a slice of the summer moon
                        to be the light of your life
                        but if that won’t suffice
                        I shall give you the rising sun

                         our sandcastles
                         built upon the pebbled shore
                         are totally gone
                         promise of undying love
                         fades with the summer wind

                         you could even hear
                         the drop of a single pin
                          it is the silence that kills
                          how long will this last…how long
                          this loneliness without you?

                                                     Shirley Cahayom

Snow knits green sage brush
with red mesas the same way
your hands touched
mine on our last night in Taos,
cool before the spring thaw comes.

Frosted tumbleweeds hang
from a high plains barb wire fence
on a cold sunny day,
sparkling like her lips wet
with a desire she’d forgotten.

Winter snow fell short
this year. Sun dried cedar.
Fire coming over
Taos mountain for sure in spring
coffeehouse Indian says.

WIND'S BAREFEET
Aya Yuhki

I cherish
the wind -
moving swiftly
on transparent barefeet
filling the thin air

without revealing
its appearance like a spirit
the wind shakes trees,
waves the waters
wind's metamorphosis

the moon lights
the tiny pieces of white hagi's*              
fallen flowers,
I feel lonely calling them
as "universe's dusts"

over
the dark sea of the universe
drifts
Earth,
emerald green ship

no difference
between the endless macro
and the limitless micro,
we're travelers only while
drops of dew remain

even in dreams
my husband hasn't appeared
fireflies, please
drift in front of my eyes
trailing your blue lights

*the Japanese bush clover

WITHOUT GENRE

ORANGE
June Moreau

If you want to enter
the color orange
you need to wear
a broad-brimmed hat,
whistle a tune
from the deep south,
whirl with the dancing cat
named marmalade,
to the rising moon
sing a serenade.
Orangy things can be
tangy or tango
reddish yellow
and occasionally mellow.
Remember to be thankful
for the color orange.

~!~

a sure sewn levity
scented, focused,
and so blue

the shingles gather opulence
As sifting of the sea blue sky
replete with sun's opposing camisole
forecast to match
a season's worth of gemtones

as the light procures a gesture in return
wings lift to transcend
one ceiling then another

Sheila Murphy

_

I like the day's having a little give in it
the same as walking in the breezeway
sweet as listless rain

some wings are poised to life their way
out of the symptoms
practiced in curved rain's impending
sport of saturation
promised and with facts

Sheila Murphy

Long flowers river their way
Forward standing flute-lipped
Normal in the window
Sated with sacrifice
As plum silver gives up what it gives off

Hypotheses craft populations
Level with the faculty of hope
Left to imagined stipulation
Cornered by default positioning

Unless time fastened to encryption
Surfaces the letter carried to the law
That drifts down openly forgotten

Sheila Murphy

rain light softens
dayside rapture

of the window stains

and matching chimes

the rain birds trilling
each to each

Sheila Murphy

Who We Are

Deadline for next issue is 
September  1, 2003.

Find out more about Renga, Sijo, Tanka, Ghazal.

Check out the previous issues of:

LYNX XVIII:1 February, 2003
LYNX XVII:3 October, 2002
LYNX XVII:2 June, 2002
LYNX XVII:1 February, 2002
LYNX XVI-3 October, 2001
LYNX XVI:2 June, 2001
LYNX XVI:1 February, 2001
LYNX XV:3 October, 2000
LYNX XV:2 June, 2000