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DJ Thomas  May 2010
Gift Wrapped
DJ Thomas May 2010
We each have a voice and life, it is how we use them not how we might!  

Stop glaciers melting
Huge population movements
Death of progeny


The small reductions in carbon emissions being targeted for 2020 or 2050 - are thought to little to late to slow global warming.  The melting polar ice and glaciers together with our changing weather patterns are now fact. The resulting loss of river systems and rising sea levels will mean the desertification or flooding of agricultural lands and famine, then the migration of populations - starting with the skilled and rich seeking safety, to escalate into the terror of armed bands
warring over water, food, women and land.

By 20 20
Lets hope for twenty twenty
A 20 20


There is now the thought that the huge physical change wrought by global warming can be charted by the escalation in earthquake and volcanic activity.  And that this may eventually trigger huge eruptions in the American and Asian continents,
destroying civilisations to create a planetary volcanic winter.

Again fire and cold
The cycle repeats itself
Destroying nature


Was there a civilisation in deep history before the flood, prior to and during the last ice-age?
This has been researched and written about in great detail during the last twenty years
and many now believe it already proven by scientific review of documents and
thousands of archaeological finds, also by scientists having used the exactness
in the astronomical alignments of ancient monuments
to recalculate there greater age.  

Dead sold souls herd us
Lost mindless finger puppets
Vapid witless words


Sadly, the majority put their reliance and faith in
the actions of lawyer-ed politicians, most of whom evidence
a fixation on their own welfare,  selfish self-glorification needs
and an unwillingness to rock-the-boat once in power*

Politicians thwart
Party politics deafen
Propaganda’s herd


Putting off all radical action required until after the next election.  
Many have gifted away the necessary legal control and power to take national radical action
to a political or trade grouping of nations - in effect retaining only national rights
to go to war, put up taxes, borrow and spend monies.

Please no rhetoric
Complete local transition
Forget politics


We each have a voice and life, it is how we use them not how we might!

Living we give voice
So one voice might yet be heard
All being, believe!


We are left holding our eco-inheritance and children’s future in the palm of our hand.
Please let our love and imagination drive us each forward to make change.


Biosphere a greenhouse 
Target the impossible
Please gift some life soon?


So, we each of us have hard personal choices to make, which will encompass both positive and negative
benefits in terms of our time, lifestyle, health and wealth.  I chose to base my choices solely on how it
might benefit the eco-system and the lives of our children.

My choices are grouped under five headings: transport, food, home, lifestyle and further action. They are:
-  

Transport: Rail; Bus; Coach; Bike;
(I pass woods in bud - a Red Kite hunting twisting, unhurried moments).  
To give up ownership of electric / motor vehicles
and to avoid air travel where possible.


Highly vaporous.
Emissions farting -
barrelling vipers
.

Food: To eat meat/fish only once a week at most;
(Slaughteramas greed - industrial carcase-ed meals. Sheep full of cancer)
To study fast methods of vegetarian cooking; buy local organic foodstuffs;
visit local farmers markets and farm shops; grow my own when possible
and help friends establish vegetable/herb gardens.
To not ever feed, cleave and eat!


Fat shopaholics,
a deadly consumerism.
Cancers meat to eat


Home:   A cottage sized for me, friends and neighbours,
overlooking a wooded valley and trout stream.
Like me a little untidy and basic
.

Crossing the shallows
trout fingerling feed at dawn
White dots steep hill path

Dusk - eight painted queue
river paired mare and foal
Foliage lined dark black


Well positioned to capture the morning sun, airy and light.  
Yet insulated to stay cool or warm. With easy access to mountain bike trails
and long distance bus routes, plus several end-of-line train stations
in energetic cycling distance over the mountains


A differing beat
Quickly fading doubled steps -
pulling separate


Life Style:* A thinking poet mountain biker, living organic
not part of the great noisious noxious ribbons of hurtling tired.

Pressured paced life -
impossible  commitments.
Organic living


Further Action: *I intend to give up meat not because of the terrible cruelty involved in ten billion or more animals
being slaughtered every year to feed the human race, but due to
: 1)  animal farming being a major factor in the burning of 50 million year old rainforests at a rate of one and half acres per second to generate huge volumes of greenhouse gases, destroying the richest habitats on Earth and a principal source of oxygen; and 2)  that these billions of farmed animals
are themselves a major source of greenhouse gases
.

Burning rainforests
Feeding to cleave open and eat
Subsistence farming


With ongoing intensive fishing, the world's fisheries already in crisis and climate change,
it could be that we will run out of wild-caught seafood much earlier than 2030!


Conserve energy -
and natural resources
Don’t waste foolishly


Each of us might have a different view of what globalisation is,
for some this word encapsulates the dangers of our global fast food culture, omnipresent brands,
popular culture, changing diets and the growing use of packaged processed foods
.

Freedom to act sought
Globalisation's curses
Octopus suckers!


For many it is the illegal international trade in endangered species of flora and fauna,  
second only in value to the $350 billion a year global drug trafficking trade that now services
perhaps more than 50 million regular users of ******, ******* and synthetic drugs
.

The label 'globalization' can cover the: spread and integration of different cultures;  
industry moving to low per capita income countries; sweatshops supplying this seasons branded goods
to retail outlets worldwide;  complex international interleaved financial trading instruments being developed
by banks and financial institutions to trade worldwide, create profits and pay huge bonuses, without risk to themselves
.

Globalisation -
orchestrated profiteers,
betting our losses


Many see globalisation as being the beneficial spread of free trade, liberty, democracy and capitalism,
involving the efficient allocation of resources and capital through the spread of technology.
Unelected international bodies and institutions such the World Bank actively promulgate globalisation,
a '‘world government’ promoting close economic ties between nations
.

Enculturation
Our sad indoctrination
Globalization
  

The anti-globalisation movements dislike the corporate and political nature of globalisation,
protesting the resultant harm done to the biosphere, a more rapid and extensive deterioration of the environment
and the unintended but very real consequences of globalisation: the erosion of traditional culture
resulting in social disintegration; a breakdown of democracy; the spread of new diseases;
changes in diet; increasing poverty.
.

I view globalisation and it's propagation as leading to the final destruction
of the world's cultures and civilisations by locked us into a
dogmatic world political doctrine secured through
trade and political alliances of states, institutions
and corporations that remain hell bent on
imposing this world governance. Such
that individual countries governments
cannot consider making substantive
radical change to avert the planet
being pushed into a natural cycle
that will end the human race
.

Caged in Fools World
The people hear heroic call  
Each one a hero
!

The peoples and cultures of the world need perhaps just one western country to
break the legal chains of globalisation and adopt a radical economic regeneration program
designed to make the total transition to a dynamic culture of localised
clean communities centred on the individual not competition*  

Only one tool
National taxation for -
economic change.


Here I begin discussing how global, regional and national economies might
be based on the growth of small organic local economies.
not the repeated foolishness involved in chasing lower cost base manufacture -
each time at great cost to the economy it has migrated from!
Then a further culture becoming totally reliant
on the transport of foodstuffs and goods -
I can here you saying
:

"Oh **** this guy is -
talking about change, changing -
the world we live in!"


Yes, I am and do we have a choice?  But such change will be organic and involve business
in the restructuring and regeneration of economies till we share green economies.  
In small part his is already happening slowly!


Unlock taxation,  
survivals powerful tool.  
Needed now for change!


This is why we need to consider doing something that many of today's
plutocrats, economists, bureaucrats and politicians, would dismiss out of hand or
discuss endlessly in terms of perfectly competitive markets, perverse economic incentives etc


Major solution
National taxation change
Human extinction



WORK in HAND

This haiku sequenced eco-haibun is an ongoing project being penned day-by-day by many that care and take action. Your reactions are all welcome, thank you


**Take back control now.  
Cease all squabbling, achieve act - decisively!

Globalisation's, global control cut away.
Diversity sought

Promote well being.  Act with imagination -
for ecology!

Creating employment -
with local utilities, local food and transport

Incentivise tax,  to create local benefits.
Gain prosperity

Income taxation -  value added tax, aged -
dangerous mistake

Local licensing.  Lead don't follow excuses.
Saviour taxation

Imaginative - energy, food and transport -
local licensing

An alternative - energetic strategy,
greening business

Organic foodstuffs - out compete processed food.
Life promoting health

Healthy government - a healthy population. 
Zero income tax!

Locally taxed - by distance it travelled -
and category

Products bar coded.  Point of agreed production -
and category

Local added tax, by distance it travelled -
and category

Local energy, initiatives supplant.  
Replacing at risk

User energy, capture and storage.  
Eco-dwelling plan

Local water works,  supplanting initiative.
Replace the at risk

User water need.  Capturing and storing half.
Securing supply

Communications, local initiatives.
Protecting our needs

Local healthy food, life saving initiative.
Planting guaranteed

Sort unemployment, local work available.
Agriculture base

Radical transport - initiatives needed.
Change made possible

Season’s colours blur - in ageing contemplation
chilling warm breezes

Ganges dried mud - dust
Armed hungry thirsty tide
Generations despair,  lost

Our politicians -
squabble condemn progeny.
Flee panic and die

HAIKU SEQUENCE FINISHED

HAIBUN PROSE BEING ADDED
Day by Day
This haiku sequenced eco-haibun needs prose and additional haiku added day by day.  Contributing comment and reactions considered for inclusion...

copyright©DJThomas@inbox.com 2010
vircapio gale Oct 2012
Haiku:

hiking new forests
mountain homes of moss and dew
more roots deepen


berries ripe
dot taiga heath--
alien planet


yellow blazing sun
'packin'rocks'
from maine to georgia


pain born hero
in oven boots of blood and pus--
summit breeze


barefoot hiker
calls herself 'FearNot'--
toes enjoy same mud


snake rises up
fangs gleam at water lair
cold spring quenches all


***** at each view--
water comes in and goes out
like a filter


at waterfalls, swans
alighting air-- noble poise
on the way to sea


gunas intertwine
my sweet mountain hunger paths
bitter taste of bark


sour grass
garnish of an earthen tract
saliva honeyed


strands of spider flight --
i too catch myself making
web after web


"nature loves to hide"
hidden hermit roars of all
strife and fire flux


spider bite at dusk
afterswing of scenting food
shoo the meal away


change becomes the same--
people streams talking pixels
aging static web

symbols set in light
speed of optic living nodes;
clicking finger fibers


websites spin and stick
plastic tropical alphabets
ant waves clean the keys


fueling in process,
living fossils already
drilling seas--on earth


give or take six months,
happy birthday!
two seasons gone


Haibun:*

A mountain poet has come to the city, blisters pushing up his toenails. His smile spans 15 blocks of concrete and rebar. Strangers coo to see his sunshine gait but cough at his aroma. Hospitality is found after all, in parks and in the drunken streams from clubs gregarious for midnight novelties.

poet's apology--
not exactly 'myself' to
license gratitude
when time gifts symbols distance--
terror war towers still fall

Emergencies of all sorts force their way into my mind, as I live, sometimes as I write. Ambiguities serve as fulcrum nooks for meanings incompossible to hide, not being ready to share what can't be shared, obscurity offers the ineffable reprieve to be spoken nonetheless.

peering in the word--
sound signs meta symbol
witty sea of *****

property stings
abstract fights to earth
mixing labor

i found a haiku
on my coworker's desk--
where is the frog pond?

dad drinks alone--
photo recalls sunlit leaf
and beer can stare

opining fire false
freezing hearts with argument--
cold spring, winters warm

It is with the love of a child that I write, wincing harder into that self-given 'Indian-Burn' of cathartic fetish and psychological indulge. Where is maturity, and what use is it when faced with endless ground-zeros? Still open to answers, still unwilling to speak plainly or straight about the blanket crookedness and blissful meander that colors life most vividly. I imagine dacrygelosis understood.

thawing pond
creaks in headstand calm--
autumn air released

night's insight pierce
heralds migraine's ease--
gong of moon or sun

on dead wood, against
live trees, hours of *** by
mycelia blooms--
fragrant rot and sweat collide
skin spotted with forest sun

love signs everywhere--
two trunks spiraled
in a yellow wood

vocal awe resung
this is love! this is love!
deep summer fruit

rub of bark                      
vast forest sways across skin
                        naked expanse
Jim Davis Jun 2019
Scrounging local garage sales... near ten years past... I had found a flat, welded iron, rusty seahorse... 3 feet high... with a good seahorse shape and poise... edges welded and cut... after the haggle... twenty-five dollars..... perfectly added to my estate... covered rust in gold sheen... mounted upon a tree... to greet all comers... with a seahorse kiss!    
     Seller said it was made by the same artist... of the turtle lady statue... to be found in Corpus Christi!  Asked if I had seen it... my reply... No, but I liked the seahorse piece! He expounded... the artist... only had one leg... but was a surfer... well known for this trait... in Corpus Christi!  
     After I had mounted the seahorse... upon it's tree...I did an internet search... looking for anything about the one-legged surfer artist of Corpus Christi!  Found... nothing!  
     End of May, 2019... visiting my sister, Donna... we were wandering Corpus Christi!  She guided us to the surf museum... not knowing the story... of the one-legged surfer artist... creator of my mounted seahorse!  
     Girl at the front desk... Kyla... real nice and friendly... told her about the seahorse and questioned her... she didn’t know... she never heard of a surfer with one leg or the turtle lady statue!  Looking at us just a bit strangely... one legged surfer???
      Donna and I... started our stroll through the small museum!  Along the right side... stood a long row of surfboards... I’ve never surfed... but I was imagining trying it with just one leg!  
      Anyhow... I didn’t really stop to read or look in any detail at any of the exhibits until I reached the back... there was a glass case... which had a piece of simple letter paper...  8.5x11... taped to the front of the glass cabinet!  I started in reading the last paragraph...

     “Welch, 53, and his wife, Chelsea Louise, 23, died September 15, 2001, when their car plunged off the edge of South Padre Island’s Queen Isabella Causeway, which partially collapsed after a string of barges crashed into the bridge’s support pilings!

     Thought to myself... Wow... Who is this guy???  I jumped up to the middle paragraph...

     “Welch lost one of his lower legs in an auto accident in the 1970s, but he kept surfing with a prosthesis.  He wore a peg-like prosthesis at first, then got one with a foot.  He won the prosthesis division of the United States Surfing Championships on South Padre Island in 1998.”

     In the glass case was a welded metal sculpture of a beach scene... with waves, palm trees, and all!  The piece did have some resemblance in style to my seahorse sculpture!  Also, there was a picture on top of the case... of Harpoon Barry... striking a muscular, no shirt pose... in his tattoo shop... his torso covered in tattoos!  
    
     “It is said... he was on the verge of suicide after losing his leg. In one interview with the San Antonio Express News in 1992 he said;  "I may not make it to heaven, but you can be sure I made no deals with the devil to get where I'm at now, "  Looking down at his false leg stretched out in front of him, Welch said quietly: "It is a real empty feeling when you put one of these on for the first time, especially if you are an adult on your own. And your mama'a not there and your daddy's not there, and the people in the hospital tell you, 'This is the best it's going to get.  I made my first leg myself, out of Hi-C cans. I couldn't wait for my leg to get finished. I wanted to walk. I guess I got the idea from the Tin Woodsman in 'The Wizard of Oz.' That leg actually worked pretty well!”

     I had found my one-legged surfer artist!  I walked towards Donna... who was already half-way leaving the museum...  I hollered to her... she just had to come see this ... “I think I found the one-legged surfer!”  She had recently had partial knee replacement... and was hobbling!  She said if I was fooling her... she better not walk back all that way for nothing!! She came back to the glass case... we read through the letter in it’s entirety!  
     Then we went... and told Kyla at the front desk... she again looked at us again a bit strange... but then reluctantly left her post to go with us to take a look... she was then astounded!  Said she never knew about the one-legged surfer... although she had worked at the museum for several years!  Said there were also a couple metal sculptures... at the front of the museum... she thought were also done... by Harpoon Barry!  We took pictures of those also!  

In the letter we also read...

     “Welch had numerous tattoos and body piercings.  He wore a tiny 14 carrot gold harpoon through one ******.  That is how he got his nick name according to a friend, Scott Gangel.”  

     "I am a unique, self-made sensation!” he said matter-of-factly... in the interview with the Express News!  
    
     It's been 18 years since eight people died when South Padre Island's Queen Isabella Memorial Causeway collapsed... sending 11 people into the water below... four days after the 9/11 attacks!  A string of tow barges had struck the supporting pilings!  A section of the roadway had collapsed...
     I promised Kyla... I would donate my seahorse piece to the museum upon my death!  I only hope my death... is as grand as Harpoon Barry’s plunge into the Gulf of Mexico with his young wife!  Wonder what they were doing during the plunge... what was Barry doing... yelling Yippee Ki Yay... or Surf’s up... Dude!!!... maybe???  
    
Surfed waves on one leg
Young wife... crazy life... grand death
Harpooned by Barry

©  2019 Jim Davis
I doubt I could ever match his life!  !  Though...  someday... I might get a tattoo... or two... or a harpoon piercing... perhaps in a ******! Also... still looking for the turtle lady statue!
PrttyBrd Dec 2010
Blue eyes watching. Blushing at the sight at the very thought.  Flushed with emotion. Hearts beating so fast and hard.  Deafening rhythmic beating.  Quivering at the thought of what may be next.  Hoping it will be so, yet afraid of what is to come.  Self-conscious and embarrassed, time stretches on.  Not wanting the moment to pass.  Holding on hard to the idea.  A soft, almost accidental, brush of the lips.  A light, absentminded gliding of the finger on the skin.  Systems heightened, mind swimming, emotions running rampant, temperature rising.  Taken by surprise the lips plant firmly yet gently.  A breathy moan leaves no doubt.  

Sighs tell a story
Opening the door to play
And so it begins

Tentatively, lips touch.  So sweet and delicate the dance.  Welcoming, beckoning to be entered.  Warm and wet they go exploring, tasting, breathing in the essence of desire.  Doubt gives way to fire, and passion wins out.  Piece by piece the offering is made and accepted.  The game continues.  Silently daring to be outdone.  First one button, then another.  Heat rises.  Smooth skin under rough hands. Electricity.  Fingers trace a line that the tongue follows.  Closer, closer, closer.  Involuntary movement brings skin against skin, breath against breath, body against body.

Minds lost to passion
Floods come to drown the desert
Drink til thirst is quenched

The hand once afraid to touch, briefly runs the length of its desire.  Like a volcano letting off steam.  Embers turn into an inferno consuming all it comes near.  Floodgates opened, beckoning.  Waters tested.  There is no denial, no second thoughts, no rewind.  Short gasps of need, punctuated by the sounds of the flesh.  Glistening in the moonlight, two outlines become one.  

No more wondering
The question has been answered
Hearts have been traded

There are no thoughts left to ponder.  In this moment there is only those eyes.  Those blue eyes that pierce the soul, that see right through the words.  Lips removed from lips.  Watching the moment.  Waiting for its impending arrival.  Fingers grasp tightly as they pull against the skin.  Trying to melt into each other.  They dig in a little too hard, the sounds are a little too loud. Inhibitions lost on the wind.  No longer able to hold back.

And in that moment
There is only perfection
Nothing else matters
copyright©PrttyBrd 24/12/2010
PrttyBrd Oct 2011
Never have I been the best at hiding how I feel.  There is no peaceful game.  My face reveals the truth.  Never to be doubted.  Nothing left to wonder.  Still, I reign it in.  I stifle my reality in an attempt to keep you close.  So tender-hearted beneath that thickening shell.  The shell I penetrated somehow.  Once you found me in your heart, you pushed with all your might.  Trying to get me out.  I cannot be budged. Yet, I am not free to love you.  You refuse to let me be yours in theory or practice.  You love me, but not by choice.  Fear of the possibility of pain keeps you at bay.  Yet saving yourself from pain has deemed my own inconsequential.  For running from me pulls out my heart.  

Pushing me away
What's best, or just what's easy
Burns holes in my soul


Not one to take the easy way out.  Suffering to love you.  There is no expectation of love requited.  There is nothing but a dream, part memory part wishful thinking.  Hot needles still poke at me, slowly breaking me down.  Weakening my very being with the sharp jabs of stinging words or careless action, or worse...absolute inaction.  I have learned to stop expecting the "Morning Sunshine" or "'Night Darlin'" that used to brighten each day.  Those thoughtless things, the tiny nothing things that let me know I was on your mind.  So far from nothing those nothings were.  Days and nights seem incomplete in their absence.  Weaning to make your days bearable makes mine unendurable, empty, and melancholy has come to underlie all things.  

Joy of love melts ice
Heat smothered by a tear cloud
Threadbare soul survives


Challenges faced sideways leave blind spots. Choices made by indecision.  Letting mistakes be made, watching as they choose wrong. I see the truth and know what I know.  Everything is aligned for my own misfortune.  For as a bystander, I lay no claims.  Anything I do will hasten the inevitable.  So I let the weaning drip down to nothing.  Reluctantly I watch as you disappear with my heart in hand.  I stood firm as you ran away in place.  You turned to me, you needed me, you loved me.  As the clouds dissipate and the sun creeps over the horizon, With the blue sky I turn to mist. Slowly fading to the past.  A ghost of could've been, used to be, and never was

**Surrender takes time
                        Reluctantly relinquished
                                               I will fight no more
copyright©PrttyBrd 7/10/2010
PrttyBrd May 2010
It's in the blood and taking over, this feeling undefined.  Moving through veins like lightning.  Taking sanity in burning bits and pieces. Trading hope for function.  Stagnant and murky still seeking the sun.  Time stands still as it rushes passed.  The view eternally slightly askew seeing through those eyes.  Tainted and etched with salted tears.

Broken down and cracked
There's no shelter to be had
Time and space collide


Nothing left.  No hiding places.  Exposed to the universe, alone just the same.  Shoulders soaked through and soggy, gone to dry in the sun.  Far away, the sun shines brightly for them.  For those who think they are whole.  For those who feel the fire, yet are not burned.

Sulfur in the air
A storm of brimstone ensues
Hell is found on Earth


Feared by all. Belonging to no one.  Falling to the depths in isolation.  Longing to be enveloped without fear.  To feel warmth without heat.  To be wooed without woe.  To be naked, exposed, and free, no longer tethered by a past that was never meant to be.  Scars should fade but are still found bleeding.  The heart lies bare in exsanguination. The soul struggles to clutch the tiniest speck of heaven.

**Like a broken wing
Mended hearts may not fly, but
Love can make it soar
52510
DJ Thomas Apr 2010
The play is written to be staged in a pub or a large cave like yurt in Cardiff.  Its action and dialogue provides characterisation, with sound and lighting being used to establish context.  The setting a darkened pub corner that is  modelled on The Bunch of Grapes in Pontypridd.   There are only 6 characters, five speak in haiku-ed verse with the exception of the Drunk who acts as my 'Greek Chorus'.

- Hand-in-hand she enters to **** her thumb in a corner

- Chocolate ice cream soda demanded from Daddy

- Joking banter ceased slowly as the regulars all begin to quaff their brown pints

“Balll uut eass swept -
Chimrrrrr, Chiirriica,
war is never won”

- Church quiet, the village pub listened lips clamped tears swelling

“ ***** cut swapped with eyes -
Chimerica, Chimerica,
war is never won”

- The cornered hero of two Afghanistan tours is seen regressing into childhood*

The set darkens slowly then after 30 seconds a spotlit conversation in lines and stanzas begins.

Haiku and tanka that inspired the coming play include:

******* -
thoughts sought, taught and wrought,
testosterones
Fighting aggressive games,
Afghanistan camouflage


Globalism and War -
cloned greedy conspiracy,
that third tower
Titled selfish-self-grandiose,
deliver warring terror


Springs cut Irises -
dripping vital red not purple,
far from my window*

.
copyright©DJThomas@inbox.com 2010
Prabhu Iyer Oct 2012
A roaring event rips lives apart. Like a river that parts land into two banks. Sometimes brothers are rent apart by life, never to be joined again. Nations arise out of land that was once one.

Born of the same soil, yet separated by the rapid gusts of flowing water. At the culmination though, love breaks barriers. At the ocean, the roar of the river is drowned in the peace of the wave.

Sometimes, we must let go and let life mend itself.

When the river meets
the ocean, sands from two banks
mingle, become one
Maggie Emmett Sep 2014
I catch the rapido train from Milano and edge slowly westward through the stops and starts of frozen points and village stations. The heating fails and an offer of warmer seats in another compartment. I decide to stay here. I put on my coat, scarf, hat and gloves and sit alone. In my grieving time, I feel closer to the cold world outside as it moves past me, intermittently. Falling snow in window-framed landscapes.            

Sky gun metal grey
shot through
with sunset ribbons.
                                                                                                          
Dusk eases into black-cornered night. After Maghera, the train seems to race to the sea. It rumbles onto the Ponte della Ferrovia, stretching out across the Laguna Veneta. Suddenly, a jonquil circle moon pulls the winter clouds back and shines a lemony silver torch across the inky waters. Crazed and cracked sheets of ice lie across the depthless lagoon. The train slows again and slides into Santa Lucia. I walk into the night.                                                                                               
Bleak midwinter      
sea-iced night wind
bites bitter.
                                                                                                      
No. 2 Diretto winding down the Canal Grande.  The foggy night muffles the guttural throb of the engine and turns mundane sounds into mysteries. Through the window of the vaporetto stop, the lights of Piazza San Marco are an empty auditorium of an opera house. Walking to Corte Barozzi, I hear the doleful tolling of midnight bells; the slapping of water and the *****-***** of the gondolas’ mooring chains. Faraway a busker sings Orfeo lamenting his lost Eurydice, left in Hades.
I wake to La Serenissima, bejewelled.                                                                                                                           
Weak winter sunshine
Istrian stone walls
flushed rosy.
                                                                                                          
Rooftops glowing. Sun streaming golden between the neck and wings of the masted Lion. Mist has lifted, the sky cloudless; I look across the sparkling Guidecca canal and beyond to the shimmering horizon.          
Molten mud
bittersweetness demi-tasse
Florian’s hot chocolate                    

I walk the maze of streets, squares and bridges; passing marble well-heads and fountains, places of assignation. I walk on stones sculpted by hands, feet and the breath of the sea. Secrets and melancholy are cast in these stones.                                                                  

At Fondamente Nuove, I take Vaporetto no.41 to Cimitero. We chug across the laguna, arriving at  the western wall of San Michele.  I thread through the dead, along pathways and between gravestones. At the furthest end of the Cemetery island, Vera and Igor Stravinsky lie in parallel graves like two single beds in an hotel room. Names at the head, a simple cross at the foot of the white stone slab. Nearby, his flamboyant mentor Serge Diaghalev. His grave, a gothic birdbath for ravens, has a Russian inscription; straggly pink carnations, a red votive candle and a pair of ragged ballet shoes with flounces of black and aquamarine tulle tied to their the ribbons. So many dead in mausoleums; demure plots; curious walled filing cabinets, marble drawer ossuaries.
                                                                                                      
Bare, whispering Poplars
swaying swirling shadows
graves rest beneath          

I walk to the other end of the island and frame Venezia in the central arch of the Byzantine gateway.  I see that sketchy horizontal strip of rusty brick, with strong verticals of campaniles and domes. It is here, before 4 o’clock closing time, I throw your ashes to the sea and run to catch the last boat.                                                                                          

Beacon light orange
glittering ripples
on the dove grey lagoon.

© M.L.Emmett
First published in New Poets 14: Snatching Time, 2007, Wakefield Press, Kent Town SA.
To view with Images: Poems for Poodles https://magicpoet01.wordpress.com
I wanted to write a Haibun (seasonal journey poem interspersed with haiku). I love Venezia but only in Winter.
DJ Thomas May 2010
Hi, below I copy a humorous hiabun, which I shared as an exercise to mentor enquiring and inspired poets to learn, so they might adopt and try different techniques and then give critique together with awesome comments... Yes, I used the words ***, ****** and **** for context the rest was left to an individual imagination as in good poetry!

It included reflective commentary encompasses innocent classification terminology used in the critique, reading, examining, appreciating, understanding and writing of poetry for example: POETIC DEVICES (enjambement, duality, keriji, images, collocation, semantic, oxymoron, repetition, listing etc.), STORY (personification, characterisation, subject, context, voice etc.), IMAGERY (synaesthesia), STRUCTURE ( lineation, breaks, syntactic etc.), SOUNDS (syllables, rhyme, alliteration, pace, musicality, phrasing, beat, assonance, onomatopoeia, mouthed rhythms, patterned) and WORDS (preposition, determiner, verbs, adverbs, lexical, nouns, adjectives) used by poets, critics and academics...

And here it is :

****** tongue-in-cheek haibun - a reflective commentary on writing a popular tanka

Eye lashes flicker
a shared urgent interest
parting - dancing smile


My first inspiration was ***, passionate life squeezing screaming ***, the thumping wall musicality of ***, exhaustingly inventive sweaty and wet.

I wanted to make it a senryu but for duality the female characterisation demanded two more lines each extending to seven syllables.  

Arousing images captured her moaning splashing loneliness in unusual collocation.

I was first excited by the placement of a hovering extended enjambement to give life to my final line, whilst also considering the satisfaction in using noisy mouthed rhythms.  

I believe I easily hid the wet aroused context with a watery semantic field, that suggested she would choke and drown.

So in my last line I had ‘pleasures’ as a cutting keriji to make clear the dominating ****** context, having previously used a preposition and determiner to maintain duality!


Exhausted shivers
in windowed naked currents
unfolding sinking
then surfing vital wavelets
drowning screams - pleasures wet bite




copyright©DJThomas@inbox.com 2010

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