To date, I’ve written around 2,000 English-language tanka. Tanka, itself, is a Japanese form. In Japanese, the poem consists of 5 “lines” of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. There is a vigorous debate over whether or not English-language tanka should be written as a fixed form or as free verse.

Below are the tanka that were collected in the book AHA, The Anthology: Collected Works of AHA Forum Members; published 2012 by AHA Books. Poems previously published are noted. Enjoy!

a page ripped in two
a story torn asunder
nothing left but parts
a world of swirling fragments
searching for the other half

(Notes from the Gean Vol. 1, No. 2)

the words are finished
the sound of the oboe fades
into nothingness
all things cross the lighted stage
disappear into the wings

(Lynx Vol. 24, No. 3)

sitting together
on the couch watching a movie
eating popcorn
it arrived while we weren’t looking
this thing folks call old age

(Modern English Tanka Vol. 3, No. 3)

flowing into
and flowing out of my skull
is this sweet wind
if I’m brave enough I watch
myself blow away to nothing

(Lynx Vol. 23, No. 2)

if they ask
he is in his study
reading
the tea has gone cold
the pipe has gone out

The three poems below are a short rhyming and repeating form called the triolet. I very much like the form and the three below are perhaps my best of the dozens I’ve written. I hope you enjoy!

The Leaf Parts Softly

The leaf parts softly from the tree
And I part softly from you —
To ride now on the wind we’re free.
The leaf parts softly from the tree,
A sign nothing’s left for you, me;
Yet those few days I do not rue.
The leaf parts softly from the tree
And I part softly from you.

Published in the May 2006 issue of Autumn Leaves.

Forever, My Love

Forever, my love, is a long, long time;
Are you sure you mean what you say?
Because idle words are a lover’s crime.
Forever, my love, is a long, long time
And, rather than words, an eternal mime
Would speak more loudly when I’m old and gray.
Forever, my love, is a long, long time;
Are you sure you mean what you say?

Published in the 1 March 2009 issue of Autumn Leaves.

Secret Love

Forever, that is what we said;
But you are there and I am here
And someone else is in the bed,
Though forever is what we said.
My longings I have quieted
And my face has a look of cheer:
Forever, that is what we said —
But you are there and I am here.

Published in the December 2005 issue of Makata.

The poem below was the first of many which appeared in the now defunct Poetic Voices and which began my  poetry “career”.

Uncle Henry’s Picture

Uncle Henry’s picture still
Hangs upon the wall. The house
Is no longer occupied, except
For his ghost which still walks
The abandoned halls and sits alone
In abandoned rooms.

The old gray picture broods
Ominously over the darkened
Living room where no one
Lives anymore. The picture hangs
Amidst peeling wallpaper
Over the cold fireplace.

Years ago a child’s laughter
Died in the big, old house,
Stilled into silence by an old man’s
Need for a world which fit the box
Of his understanding, a world empty
Of rainbows and talking animals.

Uncle Henry’s ghost walks
From room to room making sure
Nothing has changed since the day
He stopped breathing; just as he did
When his lungs could fill with air
And his voice could control lives.

Across town, his niece, whom he raised
As a daughter in the old, decaying place,
Lives with her husband and children.
Now she has everything new,
Except the picture of Uncle Henry
Hanging over the mantle of her mind.

First published in the February 2001 edition of Poetic Voices.

“Lilacs” is one of my experiments with the “Whitman” line.

Lilacs

“Still grows the vivacious lilac a generation after the door and lintel and the sill are gone…”     –Henry David Thoreau, in Walden

The vivacious lilac still grows a generation after the child’s small hands planted the puny slip,
Standing beside the door and lintel and sill which are no more,
The fragrant clusters of purple flowers beckon to travellers who have strayed from the road,
Beckon to strangers to come and relieve the loneliness with their admiration.

Little did the child know he planted and watered his own cenotaph,
A silent monument to his own namelessness,
The fragrant floral heads, a living memorial to the child who once went in and out the door which is no more,
Who filled the house with laughter and gaiety.

But the forest returns encroaching upon this last memorial of those who tilled the soil,
Those who sought to eke out their living from the land,
Sought to raise a family,
Sought to civilize this part of earth,
And one day these lilacs will wave their fragrant clusters no more,
Will beckon to strangers no longer,
Will stand as a nameless child’s cenotaph no more.

First published in The Sidewalk’s End for December 2003.

The poem below is another experiment with the “Whitman” line.

The Trees

Who says the trees don’t remember?

That their roots don’t reach into the ancient memory to draw it forth and reveal it in the leaves for any who care to read?

And who says the trees don’t talk and sing to each other in a tongue indecipherable by man?

And that they speak and sing and dance of a time when there were no men but only the great forest stretching as far as the wind could blow and the rain could fall?

And that when the first men came they were at home on the forest floor?

Again I ask, who says the trees don’t weep for every axe and saw and bulldozer that cuts down five hundred years of history in fifteen minutes?

Or that they don’t grieve when a hillside clan is made to drink of acid rain and sickens and dies?

I want to know who’s the one who says the trees don’t remember and patiently wait?

First published in Poetic Voices for November 2003.

The next two poems are pantoums. The form originated in Malaysia and was originally sung improvisationally, hence the repeats to help the singer come up with new lines. Not unlike jazz. The English version is derived from the French form. I love the pantoum because it winds about in a way that truly defies “plotting”. It is a pantser’s delight!

Trickling Sand

Grains of sand trickling through the hour-glass
One globe empties and the other fills
Moment by moment the seasons pass
The rains slowly melt away the hills

One globe empties and the other fills
A turn and the end is the beginning
The rains slowly melt away the hills
Yet the earth just keeps on spinning

A turn and the end is the beginning
Ouroboros swallows his tail
Yet the earth keeps on spinning
There is peace and there is travail

Ouroboros swallows his tail
A circle has no beginning and no end
There is peace and there is travail
Some things we cannot comprehend

A circle has no beginning and no end
Winter is surely followed by the spring
Some things we cannot comprehend
There is only room for marveling

Winter is surely followed by the spring
Moment by moment the seasons pass
There is only room for marveling
Grains of sand trickling through the hour-glass

First published in Carnelian for July 2005.

Listen to me reading the poem!