And the second of the two haiku posted today. During winter, dew that settled during the night here in Ukiah will sometimes evaporate at sunrise into heavy mists that carpet neighborhood lawns and garden plots. This phenomenon lasts for a very short time—an hour tops—so I count myself lucky when I get to see it.
iris mist
hints of pastel blue
sift through silent folds of gray
swaying in the void
Two haiku today, posted separately. They were written on the fly to demonstrate the way a haiku should say nothing but show everything. Here’s the first of the two.
electric willow
long leaf branches flail
howling twisted shadows stark
against the door frame
Treatises are better suited to poetic forms that grant space for explication. Of course, there are the rare haiku maxims that lodge within mind and recycle there almost indefinitely. But still, even those are usually in image form, avoiding overt exposition. And those maxim haiku are probably not really haiku anyway, but successful aphorisms.
Is it showing that I have a fever? Day three. I’m getting a bit tired of the dizzy delirium.
I found myself enjoying a cloud mural painted in the skies above Ukiah’s western ridges this evening. I felt it deserved a tanka.
valley dusk
A wee haiku. I Love these things. This was inspired by the island mountains that rise from the desert floor in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico.
wane
sundial mountains
stretch their giant shapes across
the lessening days
In this poem, my 13th trisect, segment one depicts steel. Segment two depicts the skyscraper, in which steel is the most essential component. And segment three depicts the effects of modern industry upon earth and humanity, which includes mining for and smelting steel and the development and movement of all those resources that lead to the creation and maintenance of the skyscraper.
Alchemy
Ore
Forged by myriad million years of light,
cast against eternities of night,
elemental embers collect amid the void,
pooled in glowing clouds of dust and rock.
Particles accrete through time and motion,
condensed to monumental orbs of molten
crystal moods, amassing alloys mid the darkness,
cooled to form a rind of raw potential.
Fertile soils rise from ancient stone,
animating shapes of wood and bone.
Nimble hands evolve and grope the ground for clues,
scratching for a means to reach the sky.
Fires smelt a future from deposits
quarried from a realm of veins and pockets,
charged into converters from out the depths of reason,
hatching alloys cast as new potential.
Corpse
They rise as if from out the earth, a maze
of beams and columns stretched against the haze,
looming like the relic frames of ancient beasts,
massive specters moaning on the wind.
Reflections slowly seal each giant carcass,
body bags of alloys mined from darkness
closed around the ribs of tall decaying monsters,
ghastly shadows cast across the landscape.
They cantilever labyrinths of gloom
hard against an ever present brume,
where wander human wraiths yet bound to living breath,
faces filled to silence with dismay.
Like mausoleums raised to mark the open
graves where hopes lie wasting in corrosion,
great facades reflect with every sunset whisper
traces of the hollowness within them.
Course
Canyons wrought from concrete steel and glass
soar above an ever seething mass,
heads and fenders tossed within a frantic flood
swelled from centuries of strong desire.
Arteries of lava, veins of phosphor
circulate through fields of psychic squalor,
where great malignant tumors feed upon the current,
welled from out the heart of mass confusion.
Discolored patches stretch and fade from view—
membranes taking on a sickly hue—
an ever growing quilt expanding abstract themes
flung beyond the grasp of human thought.
Filaments of culture weave a madness
shimmered from the dark side of a canvas
suspended deep in silence against abysmal backdrops
clung forever to the soul’s awareness.
The prosody is pretty complex. If you’re curious about it let me know and I’ll respond with an explanation.
