the goldfish sing all night with guitars,
and the ****** go down with the stars,
the ****** go down with the stars
I'm sorry, sir, we close at 4:30,
besides yr mother's neck is *****,
and the ****** go down with the etc.,
the whrs. go dn. with the etc.
I'm sorry jack you can't come back,
I've fallen in love with another sap,
3/4 Italian and 1/2 ***,
and the ****** go
the ****** go
etc.
from "All's Normal Here" - 1985

Goodbye you orange *******!

                         (Breezy)

You haven’t fed us recently.
I ate the goldfish,
For some reason it reminded me of my childhood.

I can’t get over that guy with the mask in the corner.
It’s unnerving how he swims up and down all day.

Is this going to be another starving day?
I’m tired of trying to get your attention.
You haven’t fed us recently,
Or cleaned the tank.
That’s okay,
The cleaner-fish loves it.
The goldfish doesn’t like the cleaner-fish much though.

Thanks for the flakes!

I think I’ve finally intimidated the cleaner-fish,
He’s been looking at me weird all day,
He keeps trying to keep me ahead of his gills.
I knew I’d be King soon.

The goldfish,
She’s gone.
What did you do with her?!

Are you going to feed us now?

i went to the fair saw a goldfish in a bowl
not much room to move poor little soul
going round and round in his confined space
to him his goldfish bowl  was just a lonely place

i took him home with me with a teardrop in my eye
he looked very sad it almost made me cry
bought a great big tank that had lots of space
now a goldfish bowl he wouldnt have to face

goldfish he was happy with lots of room to swim
is sadness it had gone and brought a smile to him
happy once again in his brand new home
with lots and lots of space now he can freely roam

If I sung you to sleep,
what would you dream?
of mystery and madness?
of love and revenge?
of spiralling staircases, culminating
swiftly in a pool
of swirling fear?

Starfish –
sleep slowly,
sleep soundly.
Stretch bubbly limbs that
are kissed by the shore,
hugged by the sea.

This cove
of creeping creatures,
they slip and slime
like a plastic bag
of goldfish.

What will you dream?
of memories:
when you were swept
away from the sea
to dry on the sand
like a limpet?

Bubbling, giggling,
blobbing starfish:
sleeping, sliding,
slipping out of place,
slipping out
of starfish dreams.

have you heard about the goldfish,
with the three-second memory?
lost, helpless, forgotten...himself.
they said, "in this unforgiving bubble, give it two days, he'll be dead."
he swam around aimlessly, swallowing their words;
waiting for death.

but he came upon an orange fish, much like himself;
and then another,
and then another.
he stopped and realized, he was not alone in his woes.
they supported each other through the cold waters,
for they knew they could not make it alone.

emerging from the depths not many have been,
they could finally say it with enough certainty -
"PS: did you know?
goldfishes have months-long memories."

break the poem
open like a pomegranate

spill the seeds
squeeze the juice
and
**** the flesh

when we were kids
we played in
mother's garden:
carrots, strawberries,
rhubarb, tomatoes,
plums, raspberries,
cucumbers, pumpkins,
green beans, watermelon,
onions, potatoes
and
a goldfish named Pierre

he died after
my parents
cleaned his tank
and didn't rinse
it properly

done in by soap--
life can be such a
fragile thing sometimes

we buried him
in the garden
and marked his
grave with a
smooth river stone

one summer
we picked a great
big watermelon
from its dirt nap;
heavy as a bowling
ball and green
as a cat's eye

we heaved it onto
the picnic table
and carved it into
smaller
and smaller wedges
until each one
of us was holding
our very own
chunk of melon

everyone dug in
after admiring their
piece for a moment;
eating it with
their eyes
before their
mouths

but as I went
to bite into mine
I noticed a seed
in the way

so I peeled
at it to free it
and as I fingered
the dripping flesh
of the fruit
the 'seed' revealed
itself to be
not a seed at all

but the eye
of a goldfish
staring back at me
lodged in the melon
in its death throws
gasping for
breath in the
open air

its mouth opening
and closing like
it had a secret
to tell

I stood there
in stupefaction
when suddenly
it slipped free of
its womb
and landed in the grass
behind me

but when I
turned around
to retrieve it
I couldn't find it

there was no goldfish
anywhere in that yard
I checked under
my feet
under the picnic table--
under other people's
feet--nothing

"what are you
looking for?" someone
asked

"nothing," I said,
because who
would've believed it
anyway?--I'm not
even sure if I did--
"just thought I dropped
something."

I stood back up
feeling different
about the world--
like the mystery
ran deeper than any
of us realize--
looked at
my hunk of fruit
and discovered
I wasn't hungry
anymore

so I put
it down on
the picnic table
and walked over
to Pierre's grave

there, underneath
that river stone,
was a watermelon seed
just beginning to
sprout

I smiled in
bewilderment
and gently covered
it with fresh soil
moving the stone
a few centimeters
off the sprouting seed

'Pierre, the watermelon
fish,' I thought--
wiping the dirt
from my hands--

'I wonder what
death has in store
for me?'

My water’s luminosity…
whisky and sage.
We breed to feed other fishies,
but I’m on stage.
Performing for some human’s selfish garrison.
This disregard is quite humane in comparison.

The cat, your companion,
He claws at me constantly.
I epitomize a pet.
I am merely your captive;
Only aesthetically attractive.
I long to be the social hippie of the sea,
but this isolation is drowning me.
One day you’ll find me ambivalently
sinking at the top of my bowl,
and you will flush me down yours like the rest of your useless ****

. . . I diluted myself for you
I spoke less and moaned more
I softened my spirit
I offered up yeses that once would've been no's
I held my tongue between *******
And wore pretty pink lace where there once would've been the blackest leather
I put fewer cigarettes between my lips
And instead pressed them together
To keep you from remembering
Why you didn't love me before
I put on an apron
To play my part
I served you smiles on dinner plates
And sipped white wine in place of whiskey
I put hearts in a lunch box
To keep you company through the day
Then mourned who I once was
While you were away

. . . I thought that if I was softer
More feminine
More pure
That you would be kinder
That I would fit better in your arms
That if I didn't talk back
My lips would taste sweeter
That you would listen when I spoke
I thought that if I became weak
We could be strong
That if slaughtered my Independence
And laid it to rest at your feet
That you would want to stroke my hair like you once had
When I stopped standing my ground
In the kitchen where I performed
And let the peanut gallery at the table
Critique my every adjective
Only to curtsey before their taunts
That when doors closed
You would whisper that I had done well
That your heart had space for me again
I thought that maybe if I hid it when I bled
You would leave the whiskey alone and finally come to bed

. . . But instead
I committed a ******
I killed the woman that I loved
I took a spirit and trapped it in a box made of yes dears and I'm sorries
By replacing her combat boots with pointe shoes
And her pride with warm baked cookies
I slit her throat with a knife made of compromises
Chained her ankles to the kitchen table and forced her to dance before lesser beings
I made an arrangement of the wild roses that made up her lips
And left her unprotected without any thorns
Then cut out her tongue and made her watch
in stunned silence
when you trampled through the garden with clumsy careless feet
I murdered the woman that I used to be
Sacrificed everything just to find that you never loved me . . .



. . . But fear not, even the goldfish who lies belly up can swim again . . .

could you ever, with your ears, express a piece of music, as: fluffy? dark soho's piece is fluffy; and by god i was the pretentious one at the beginning of the 20th century critical of the emerging music... but i'm the one merging at the beginning of the 21st century: and it's a T.S. Elliot scenario: the overload of rhythm: industrial core due to the industry being foetal sieg heil! and so many have fallen for the nostalgia trap... it's not coming back: against the thump thump gyroid reproductive muscular we emerge from... for whatever lack of drums in the orchestra: we're paying for it with an excess of techno techno Bob the goldfish cardboard box dance sequence... or as some would suggest: filling in the gap about the joke concerning a triangle being a part of the orchestra and the person educated in it, rather than the harp.

ah, the blank, and i have to work on it: let's imagine i was just
cooking a pork stew for my father and you don't
bother to ask why someone's surname is written
Raßer - and you don't know how
to pronounce it: and you end
up with razors - which you end up saying
racer - or how about sharpening
the s into a zed - how's that?
this is surgical activity while you you're
at at the butchers: necromancy aplemty:
when god speaks, the devil whispers -
American divergence of the pronoun
y'all / you all -
                           we the safeguard
and they the paranoia -
                                    take it slow,
imagine yourself living in Alaska:
you're exposed to the elements
and Prometheus isn't handy:
  all you have is west London drool
that later translates into easter in London,
Ld: isn't even an postal code:
given Greenwich, bellybutton on the world
they're bound to abuse / feel special
                 about, it's just a John Bishop
          Scouser type of beating.
                  ya - i say i aye, you frostbite of
culture, ya yarn ball of ****!
    oh 'ere we go: the red-coats are hunting
foxes: sort of scenario -
   the sooner they ******* a killing
the better for me: 'ave that one with a grizzly:
             some say the longer the yawn
the greater the applause -
      yo! Yogi! turntable of Las Vegas
says you better gamble on hibernating in the
effing Hermitage!
  - we say a lot of y'all when we imply the
plural, don't we? terrible, ****** thuggish
'n' all, to say it.
   i have five pages worth of notes,
and even though i'm drunk,
i came across a foundation, i'll never be ask happy
at i am right now,
   i signed a copy of my book (look! i don't
have a publicist, i don't have the ******* swagger,
i have the inferno that says:
  when the writing dries up, get a proper job;
if the writing doesn't dry up?
             you're less than necessary than a
supermarket shelf-stacker...
                 there are succumbing reasons that
explain the affair later) -
      no i'm about to sell my first copy -
  i say to her: when you working this circuit next?
Friday night? i'll tell you how much i'm selling
for, well: i'll never be this happy: ever -
it really doesn't matter how much for how little:
   i'm not exactly a family animal: farmed -
i'm political: through and through -
   by the time i finish this whiskey i'll be
demanding something new...
    i don't think your able limbs do idle chores:
i just think admire that they do them
and hardly complain: i blame it on the workers'
encouraged banter - and that's called solidarity.
still, right now, it's all about
dark soho's: dark moon in stonehenge -
       or why you never take l.s.d.
   question arises with Bach...
and polyphony - again, non-linear polymers:
   back when the Germans were at it
music sliced through the air
                   - or the modernity of lost
string (quartets) and woodwinds -
          only the thing plucked rather than in slicing
stroked kept from the strings:
    it was truly a devolution via brass -
   you can have the iron age,
but this is the brass age -
                   and subsequently the evolution
or filling the void of orchestral percussion,
which began with jazz: how orchestra was stripped
of woodwinds and strings and elevated
the humble triangle and enforced drums
and the rhythmic transcendence of limb and heart
and less ear and mind -
           oh the spontaneity thus involved:
forever the enigma of the composer's ability
to say much more than *A, when saying in A# -
oh hell: music used to be the Mongolian horde
of all things imaginable,
                  the screams, all the entrenching
embodiment of battle: soothed -
  but in our apathetic guises: music is a variant
of the once exfoliated, thus hushed:
music is expressing a war in waiting - or a war
that's not to be - once music music ascribed
wind and tornado toward its elemental composition -
these days there is less wind, and more earthquake:
we are exposed to a trembling -
           an overt percussion methodology:
that's not fire and the storyteller / poet by
the lonesome huddling of nomads by the fire
with oud and recitation of the to come Quran:
we are experiencing a complete reversal of wind:
here we have dark soho's tectonic cardiovascular:
over stating the percussion until the eventual
obliteration of breath, and subsequently
the flatline of the heart's rhythm: to reach the zenith
of a flatline: beehive musicology.
         it's all earth: and the quaking
rather than a waking into.
                  sure: to the alien ear outside the populace
of those that listen to that kind of "****":
but let me assure you:" you can intellectualise
anything beyond the guilty pleasure:
or else - care to disclose your opinions about doggy?
once we were slicing and ******* -
these days? we're hammering, Soviet committee
said: hammer hammer hammer...
            gravitational drilling against the Catholic
lessons of worldly-detachment akin to a Gagarin:
and all the world's problems morphed into
an image of moving away from earth...
    far far away...       well: we're grounded, like it
or not.
              i love that: y'all -
                          it's as if we all need to agree, ~.
and what better way to actually open a poem up
if not to say how prose is a miser and poetry
the mad spender, or compose: he had / another thought
he wished to take / but...
           originally
                    he had
                  another thought he wished to take
                 but...
saving an Amazonian tree, suggesting that: one by one.
i'll sell my first copy on Friday,
i just need to know how much money was put
into printing it -
   and it will be the happiest i'll ever be -
who cares that it's only 1... if i were selling
100,000 copies i'd be thinking of buying a Mercedes
to do away with the capital...
      oh right, the poem (six pages of notes):
the question, what does it all mean?
       i'm thankful that the all means very little,
or at least enough for physicists to take a bother
in answering:
               i'm just thankful to say that at least
bites / bytes / isolated units have more meaning
than the whole... i.e.?
do i care what the universe means, more so
than i known what the word darkened means?
                 pause for thought -
the well established organic search engine that memory
is: and never will be: an algorithm (engine) -
           still the organic variation of accessing it
reveals Rodin's statues -
                        post-Rodin (Rho-dan: ****** iota!
why so naked in the first place?!) -
            the point where it's not so much enigmatic that
you wish to replicate: but entomb, and mould
a statue worthy of the perpetuated cut-short
and mediating the idea that thought has also
the faculty of imagining and memorisation
that hardly translate into being via ergo...
       if that's the case: you're demented via the
ergo of memory... and deluded via the ergo of
imagining -
                      or Frankenstein / Disney respectively:
but never the extinguished cogito, somehow,
oddly enough:
                          and by the way - no one is going
to question my opinions because dialectics was
giving the hemlocks... my opinions
will only become passed around like Bulgarian
Versace copyright thefts, or because they
were never ideas: attachment .pdf
                   will never entertain someone else's thought,
or because they were originally always opinions
will be consecrated on the attachments of .jpeg:
ever wonder why the crucifix always
mobilises so much emotional foundation to
react and protect a torture-filled instrument
worthy of worship? me neither.
                but that's the whole beginning:
we ensured our memory is eroded by an easily
accessed algorithm - we prefer the goggles to
mensa -
                   and if i were a technophobe: e ah e ah oh...
McDonald would turn out to be McTrump:
'cos' i wouldn't be using it.
              then how to synchronise the senses:
you surely can't leave one the prime consumer of
all the things around you:
     i guess that as stated: you can't live out a life
whereby one is polarised, and the others recessively
make your thinking into potato -
   then again: not polarising one of your senses
will leave you thinking that old fantasy that
you live in a hologram "reality": which i mean by saying:
if one of your pentagram limbs isn't polarised
like a blind person, your thought will claim a sixth
sense status - and subsequently you'll experience
either a second chance of allowing one of your senses
to be stressed / polarised, or all your senses will become
overpowering your non-sense: that's thought into submitting
to a polarity / vector: kindred of
the manual worker feeling his trade take
perfect replication -
a composer polarised by "hearing" -
a painter polarised by "seeing" -
a poet polarised by "speaking" -
a chef polarised by "tasting" -
   a perfumer polarised by "scenting" -
and within the sixth sense extension:
a politician polarised by "thinking" -
  the first antonym suggestion comes within the latter's
parameter: mobilising or puppeteering:
would i care to find variations for the latter? no.

     interlude... opening of page 3 of notes on a windowsill...

and how often is soul ascribed a sensual dimension?
i guess as many a time thought isn't ascribed one:
necessarily made into nonsense.
soul? what do i mean by that? the part of you
that isn't indestructible, but, rather,
the part of you that feels that ease: the uninhibited
correlation (verbiage necessary, darling,
if you want the gist of it) -
when at ease you're not really ascribing to yourself
thinking, but a narrative -
  hence your notion of being indestructible,
or young.
      when thinking is easy we're not actually thinking,
we're narrating, hence the majority of us
are clogs in the machine, and once the machine works
we're upbeat about it, because we prefer to narrate
ourselves into life than think ourselves into it:
primarily because (even i included):
we lack a public addressal attache to make
vague concerns over our: inhibitions -
we are entrusted with inhibitory encrusting
for the sole purpose (we should be afraid of
suggesting): let's see who falls off the ferris wheel
first and we can entrust our congeniality toward
the joke: thank **** it wasn't me, later...
          but still:
if were were really intended to think
rather than narrate we'd be given global warming
solutions everyday...
   there's nothing in us that suggests an 'ought',
a moral choice to later say: thought
                      that could fish-hook us out of
kissing the narrative goodbye -
  narration is an undisturbed faking of thought -
as such the 'ought' is never thought of:
because there's a narrative going on
that's more important than anything requiring
even the most basest obligation.
       we are never obliged to be, because we are
never obliged to think: it's strange how the
two are anti-synonymous due to the ergo disparity:
as if one produces the other, or the former
the latter.
              thinking you're good never precipitates
into being good - and vice versa:
   for all i know i know fake rather than falsifiable
saintliness: the power of the scientific
  suggests that i should be Baron von Scorn
when it comes to the ignorance of testifying
         against people who abhor science
and reproduce, nonetheless, with failure to
transcend deformities: because deformities are
glorified and all forms of ability demonised:
so it looks quasi-Vatican-e.
                   preface to a Michelin star:
start with a ******: work your way down:
enjoy your meal, bygones-be-bygones:
you very happy people.
                  but i never understood why
the idea of thought has never the opinionated phrase:
me, exponentially, to no book's avail!
        p.s. as to be ever written!
    thought conscripts man to rubrics -
for example? examinational candélabre -
  some call it i.q., other's call it: for god's sake man,
****** shoot! shoot!
                        and the flying toes and digits:
thumbs away: booh booh Blitz.
                        first thought: that Jersey song:
fifth of November - that Fawkes ****
who almost.... n'ah.
                            in case you're narrative:
thought has its narrative: it's transcendental -
phenomenology comes into play with
narratives and Lady Gaga and how you're an
"individual": thought is acquired trying to transcend
atomic electron orbits that says: electron clouds -
or it's there, but it isn't there, but it's not there,
but it's there: huh?
                         narration conscripted to the rubric
of school exams at school: palpitations, sweat,
nerves... in this scenario thinking is actually
regurgitation -
                          actually we're still doing the Elvis
Costello hope: while narrating we pass from
these shackles of having to think lessons through
when in fact: we're gearing to having no need
in having to learn them primordially, period!

the paranoiac "they" are eroding our protective
membrane -
    they begin with memory -
         it's not that we care to remember certain things,
but by educating us in the Pythagorean theorem
they're not necessarily dressing us in bow ties either -
they need to implant an abstract educational
thought to replace our natural assimilation into
a narrative that we ourselves have created -
       they need to create erosion within our
memory to stop us coagulating our sense of memory
within a framework of us imagining backwards
rather than forwards:
      the cinema of the mind means memory utilises
imagination to do cartwheels backwards
rather than forwards: because forwards is always
a Disney pharmacology of the neon hyper colouring.

or how they made us escape the "Alcatraz"
of the couch of cognitive narration into an
iron maiden of thinking -
                    in this realm narrating is disparaging
from thinking: narrative is a comfort zone:
thinking is a discomfort zone -
                       but neither me nor you will
become a Newton in terms of narrating the ideas:
so why the hell would they want us to think?!
       concerning Heidegger:
the problem is not that we're not thinking -
the solution is that we're narrating and have
no urge to write books, and thank god for that!
               or man, as the pentagram of the senses,
reversed into thought as the sixth sense calamity
and reversed back as that sense missing
and the tetra exemplified...
         when learning what is the weakest point,
the audio or the optic-receptive stimulation?
                         i mean, the senses over accuse
thought's complexity as if it were a sense akin
to them, hence the suggestion nonsense;
well of course, thought is actually non-sensory -
     i just suggested that when thinking
i'm not polarising any of the penta -
         i'm suggesting that when thinking i'm
invoking the tetra - as if blind or deaf -
but that means i'm deviating from the superstition
that a sixth correlative mediatory balance exists
between the two dichotomies -
                            the senses will always treat
obscure thinking as if obscure narratives:
even though i know how much a price of bread
costs in the 21st century -
                              what i'm saying is that
the nonsense assertion is also true for the other:
not having had the chance to polarise one
of its senses to point toward the artefact use of
wh

The fish jumped out of it's tank 
this morning. It was a shock to 
see the empty bowl and hear
my gasp as I saw its sticky 
body, wet on the counter.
It was oddly poetic.
that's the second fish I've had 
jump out of its tank.
I don't understand
how it mustered the energy.
Maybe it was a suicidal 
fish, if fish can experience those
emotions?  
I treated it alright though.
Maybe it was sick
of being trapped in a glass
life and wanted freedom even
if the price was death.

Smile, say cheese
Look to camera, teeth wide
hold it there
cheeks burning
But what if she dropped the mask?
Look away and frown.

Fix your hair.
Not big enough, girl.
Thin enough
Good enough
Not enough, don’t you try to
put a fish on land.

You have it.
When the world needs it
more than ever;
Look to the
mirror, can’t you see the great
potential you  hold?

the current theme is: as long as everyone's laughing
we'll be fine from having a thought -
who needs thinking when everyone's
laughing uninhibited or inhibited (by manners)? conformity is
the parlance and the norm is piracy -
so if the only thing worse than fascism is panic
why is panic spreading?
panic attacks fascism, it doesn't attack communism,
if we're experiencing an exercise in panic
we're also experiencing fascism -
isn't Islam making us assured in our former basking
in the Ibiza suntan of conquering something
but at the same time awaking a beast of some sort?
communism kept strong long enough
gave us the Chinese one-child policy -
can the western idiots please process their self-*******
and shut up for a decade until president Reagan
shows up a second time along the resurrection lines
of fascination with the book of revelation?!
the English girls can't cook!
ready meals and Burger King - a wedding
in the fabled Bermuda Delta.
honestly, my **** is more edible than their cooking -
somehow fascism failed in the English insomniac sphere...
it was all about family... well... it still is...
as long as there's two men and a surrogate *****...
and i'm pretty sure that didn't come from
St. John Paul II's brothels.
fascists also come along with the words: you're being too
reactionary... and the reply is... ever work
in a construction site you 9 to 5 goldfish?
oh right... you're the ******* leech ******* up
for inheritance brokering a non-existent inheritance tax:
******* gonna ssssscream oil me up when you
cremate your pa.

Warning:
The seagull flying over the Appalachians
could not possibly be amused by the
puzzles of an illegitimate composer
and the skyscrapers climbed.

1.
The skyscrapers were played by tall
rocks a girl climbed when she couldn't
remember if the cape she wore was
made from steel or newspaper.

11.
The newspaper they all read together
that morning (girl, boy, king, etc)
promised nothing but a fifty percent
chance of dandelions terrorizing the bus stop.

2.
The bus stop had since become a
dealer corner and the sunset behind
the mountains was blocked by the
flipping hair of a lost boy.

7.
The boy bought a toy for cheap -- it had
a built-in laser, so she stole it to blast a
whole hole in that guilt-ridden quilt hung
over the four dollar love seat.

6.
The love seat, she bought the day he went
to maple -- the soap dispenser was broken,
but she couldn't find anything new (that she
knew) to wash her hands with.

5.
The hands that handed her a hammer were covered
in promotions, so she stole the motorcycle when
they were watching the scarecrow going
through electric-shock, disco therapy.

8.
The therapy that she received from the
parrot-king and his troupe of square roots
was enough to make her not forget not regret
the boy with feathers in his ears.

10.
The ears she woke up with one morning
were different in shape than before
and the black fur she knew
was growing before her eyes.

3.
The eyes of the boy were wider than
the nightly news station promised, and
there wasn't really a difference
between caves and boxes in a town that small.

4.  
The town she arrived in didn't have
a carpool lane or derby, so
she had to take her pet goldfish
to the river for his depressive state.

9.
The river wasn't as flooded after a couple
weeks of changing the tune on the jukebox
she found way before the departure
of her white gold pearls.

12.
The pearls she wore for her
coming-of-age were buried beneath
a dirt mound when she promised herself
to always insist on herself.

Sticky fingers,
***** toes,
Smelly *****,
Beads up their nose,
          
          PRECIOUS

Snot stained blouse,
Sick stained shoulders,
Work gets harder,
As they get older,

        WONDERFUL

Midnight screaming,
*** in your bed,
Barbie in your coffe ***,
Poor goldfish overfed,

        GOOD TIMES

Money problems,
Teenage tantrums,
Nose rings, blue hair,
Football anthems,

        PARENTHOOD ROCKS!!!!

What if  only you have
Those memories
Moments of happiness
That were
Yet, could have never been

What if that's all you are
Goldfish of Time
Goldfish of Memories
Goldfish of existence
Once lost, once passed
Never to return,
Never to be remembered
Never to have existed.

Come in and enjoy the Night-Light Hotel
Where Pillows and Perfumes meet and relax
And Therapy takes either Bond or Belle
And Goldfish blow this Friday's Bubbly Sax
Here upon registry your Token awaits
The Flannel up-hook which you strip and wear
Then wait for your turn as your Number rebates
A little whilst knowing your Musk reeks there
I for one made this Malicious Decide
And tempt my ****** to swallow this Treat:
Upper-Lower Left; Upper-Lower Right
Then descend into Base - Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh!
Stud or Salome, let Conscience give choose
But trust me to say I am a Man too.

Bilang na ang aking maliligayang araw.
dalawa na lang. Kung isasama yung pangakong panlilibre ng lomi
ng mga kasamahan sa pabrika sa unang restday matapos ang endo-
tatlo. At ganito pala ang feeling ng may taning.
Para kang nasa nilulumot na aquarium na walang oxygen
at goldfish kang kasama ng dalawang golden arowana.
Hindi ka makahinga.
Sa a kinse, matuloy man o hindi ang balitang super-bagyo
Tapos na ang limang buwang kontrata.

Matatapos na rin ba ang hindi naumpisahang pagsinta?
Tulad ng paghahanap ng mga skater sa kanilang skate park,
matatagpuan ko rin ba ang lakas loob at habambuhay na hindi na?

Kaya naman kaninang tanghalian, wala akong kwentong maihain sa iyo.
Parang habambuhay ko ngang uubusin yung inorder kong BBQ
kanin at RC.
Paano ko ba sasabihing baka isa na ito sa huling dalawang tanghalian na sabay tayong kakain?
Paano ko ba sasabihin na sa maraming pagkakataon na sabay tayong kumakain,
nagtitipid ako at hindi naman talaga ako nagugutom.
Gusto lang kita makasama kasi parang gusto na kita.
Pero tulad ng inililihim kong pagtatapos ng aking kontrata

Hindi mo alam.

Hindi mo alam na ikaw ang dahilan kung bakit masarap ang simoy ng hangin sa loob ng pabrika
kahit wala naman talagang bintana at inuubong industrial fan lang ang meron tayo.
Hindi mo alam kung anong kapanatagang nararamdaman ko
tuwing sinasabihan mo akong mag-iingat ako
tuwing uwian kahit ang totoo, hindi natin kakilala ang kaligtasan
at kapanatagan sa pabrikang walang fire exit
at benefits.

Yun talaga yun, hindi mo alam.
Pero alam mo naman sigurong salot talaga ang kontraktwalisasyon?

At maramot talaga sa mga lovestory nating mga below-minimum-wage-earners
at contractual workers ang sistema ng paggawa sa Pilipinas.
Sa mga susunod na bukas, ikaw naman ang mag-e-endo.
Baka mapunta ka sa Savemore na tadtad din ng kontraktwal.
At masnatch ang numero mo at hindi na kita matatawagan.
At ako, baka sa hirap humanap ng trabaho maisangla ko ang aking telepono.
At isang monumentong singlaki ng Mall of Asia ang itatayo sa pagitan nating dalawa.

Kasalanan ito ni Ernesto Hererra.

The kid next door
was in his garden
digging with a little *****
like he was burying something

"What you doing, kid?"
I asked earnest little Jerry
"You look like you're burying something"

"Yeah...." replied the boy
"I'm burying my goldfish"

"Oh," I said, with a condescending grin.
"Mighty big grave
for a little goldfish, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Jerry replied.*"That's because
my goldfish is inside your cat"

.english black humour is peppered with sarcasm,
english humour is sarcasm...
watching the gaelic version
is like watchings the irish try to be subtle by being rude,
doesn’t work... normas proved it defeating the saxons...
and subsequently the celtic brides roared in encore!
it really doesn’t work... the polish fraction of me still intact
to remind me of the biology that still works served
the reminder: polish history is still orientated
on the european continent, eastern europe
is not a segregated "continent" that might contend
with england and france being ante-antarctica...
never engage a celt with british humour for guy fawkes or anyone
else in the missing ditto;
celtish or cultish... i never quiet know...
enter the celtish brides... encouraging the advent of copulation
and the excesses of tax to build linear ceramic imprints
of broken bricks, that made it into ratio of
the chiseled brick worth a heavyweight contention with
heated mortar dough; oh right, pooh bear you're offended...
deal with it! unless your uncle is denoted as
adolf ****** and you want him resurrected!
shakespeare never wrote the play: the merchant of mecca,
did he? poor shylock... i was almost caught in admiration
of what english students at 16 thought of that national pride...
known as the *****-bride to **** for an A at a-level.

they still sound out of breath,
out of anything,
esp. words...
they all sound to totem no animal
rather than an ****
which in ceramic wilderness
sounds like wild ****...
where’s the monochromatic monotone
of the drunken sailor going by the name
of st. peter?
fisherman turned sailor... that’s a first...
why didn’t jesus pick barabbas rather than judas?
was it cain that got in the way?
i bet it was. well nox awaits both thief and murderer...
those engaged with rabbanic arts
tend to treat dreams less seriously...
and those that don’t tend to treat dreams more seriously...
those that treat dreams seriously endear the sole
escapism of reality quite seriously...
and for those that don’t... well... there’s the zodiac algebra
and that’s right for a mummified expression
that was bandaged into a circumcised *******.

p.s.
rhyming poetry has spawned the most pointless
ibhibitions of rhythm poetics,
all the current poets sound
    verärgert... exasperated...
    is everyone seriously a ******* goldfish
catching their breath a second time?!
you want to know the most fun thing
i've ever did, today?
i started to tickle my maine ****'s
inner ear with a chicken's egg...
he raised his paw,
he tried to scratch himself...
"something" there was a schizophrenic
violing playing in his cranium,
rather: the temple of his ear...
i was lucky in having to: kitzteln (titillate)
him with an egg...
a chicken abortion i'd probably
consume come tomorrow's breakfast
hour...

             he felt it, the giggles...
the giggles from annoyance being rubbed
the "wrong way"...
so much to say about a woman
whom i attempted to pick a nose
in earning affection of seeing:
the "green fairy" take a ****,
take to farting, breaking the magic of
the feminine persona of "unfathomable" /
unfailable...

            genius: an egg inserted
into a cat's ear to tickle... eating an abortion
the next morn...
                                    all the woes
of the world seem so insignificant when
you buy into feline idiosyncracies...
after all... there's no leash...
no kaganiec...
             there is no stipend associated
with the timing of walkies...
cats are perfectly disorientated by
their own selves: or rather,
their senses...

              you learn atheism from people,
but?! you learn solipsism from cats!
you learn atheism to sound
intellectually superior, sound,
"sensible"...
solispsism you learn from cats...
god or no god...
you are first, you are the last,
while god? "someone" in the middle...
can god be associated to pronouns?
or is god a pure noun: excavation
machina pro grata?
well... if god was ever a person,
being, anti-tool...
wouldn't "he" be a persona non grata?!
well then!
  machina pro grata:
                the noun spin "mr."...

man was never in search of god:
the objective reality remained true as
it always remained...
man was forver bound to the search
of god: via the subjective
personification of said "object"...

      how do you think the muslims
deal with this conundrum?!
they think they are gratifying everyone
else with an objective reality
of god, while they themselves,
with the polytheistic splinter of the gods,
are themselves searching for
the subjective reality of their god...
a person, a personality...
to the muslims their god speaks
the same objective truth as the sort
of truth a pagan might adhere to...
they want to know: a person to speak to,
rather than an object they can throw...

modern poetry when performed is ****,
it all sounds the same...
that overtone of exasperation...
me? i'm not speaking...
itchy finger-tips: idle hands:
the devil's due...
      i'm not speaking among these
youths... it's like that h'american beauty
quote...

ricky fitts: but it helps me remember...
i need to remember...
sometimes there's so much beauty in the world,
i feel like i can't take it,
     and my heart is just going to cave in.

lester burnham - whatever he said
about the balloon not being filled with helium...
but with all the bureucratic custody
via custard like some zeno paradox
of a tortoise outrunning achilles...
               the beauty can remain...
to enchant the easily impressionable...
after all: you "only live once"!
the beauty will always remain...
hence the seasons...
               but there's only one
impressionable aspect of this reality...
the thought you leave with...
the thought, implying:
the lost aspect of a moral (th)ought
to be envisioned in it not being
sentenced to a maxim
    or a proverb...
                       or a lesson...
after all... once man grows old:
he's no longer fond of learning,
but overtly eager to teach...
         i'm neither... 33...
who am i to learn from or teach for?
teaching by mistakes?
       no one really teaches by example...
unless on a pure technical canvas
associated with a trade or a tool...
which life is neither!

what is the west selling as their... "capitalism"...
their next ponzi scheme of "made in... chi'nah?!"
this, this is capitalism?!
i remember days when gap shirt
lifted the words: made in canada....
quality... would last you 20 years...
the wool wouldn't thin, the colours
wouldn't fade...
                    capitalism my ***, these days!
i came to the promised land,
i remained: with broken bones
            and ****** make-up tutorials....

for all the belief in man,
and this, non-existent fear of god,
savvy,
      upon the sacred altar of
the debauchery of prometheus,
upon the sacrifices of a.i. atlas...
upon: will electricirty ever replace fire...
who stole the rod of zeus
beside promothian thief who came
back with the eternal fire of Odin?
who?!
my kindred: alas!
                     and to what end?!
to the end without any surprise...
for the cosmopolitan cul de sac:
screaming at a brick wall pretending
to talk to one one but brick!
    
  i too visited: Krzyżtopór, in the village of Ujazd,
   Iwaniska commune, Opatów County...
how... the categories congregated
with implosions to make a ground:
specific...
  what would be the categorical imperative
for the congregative consumate
orientation of said narrative?

     even my grandfather remembers
the famous debackle concerning
Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach...
i do come from a family
of metallurgy... or coal-mining...
  both as true as these coal-riddle hands
supposing ink in pixel...
  
come on... the Schwerer Gustav?
the gun of all guns?! the one with the sort
of recoil that demanded train lines
to incubate the impact?!

modern, spoken, poetry, bores, me...
it's simply exasperated...
  exasperated by rhyme,
exasperated with rhyme,
exasperated outside of rhyme...
i'm listening to clones...
i don't won't to write modern poetry,
simply because:
i will not recoil with a take
on modern poetry...
  i don't do exasperated...
as much as i adore olivia gatwood's:
manic pixie dream girl...
yes, a ref. to the garden state movie...
the shins: new slang...
yeah... i did that **** in edinburgh...
climbing the scaffold...
erected around new college...
dancing on the roof with myself at night...
watching the *****-bank fluoride
white above the firth of forth one night...

but that's what i find really evil...
you know how in the movies,
the actors and actresses brush their teeth...
but never rinse?!
instead? keep that toothpaste in their mouths?!
******* never rinse!
that's evil... i'll tell you:
brush witha  pea-sized dollop, then rinse...
all the movies you see will never show you
a person rinse their teeth after brushing...
you should look into rinsing...
and? you'll never lose weight by going
to the gym...
you'll get stretch-marks, for sure...
there are only two ways to lose weight:
bicycle or swim...
swim or bicycle... better... both!

going to the gym will not help you...
you'll need plastic surgery!
but hollywood movies are evil this way...
they portray people washing their teeth
without spitting out the excess toothpaste
and not rinsing their mouths...
with water...

            who does that?!
hollywood is the next dentistry monopoly?!
pea sized amount of paste,
at the end of the day will do,
and then please spit,
then rinse with water...
don't just do what hollywood bad teeth
brigade do...
keep that paste in your mouth
like car battery acid / fluoride!

   pea sized brush once a day,
spit, rinse... slide your tongue over
your teeth to feel the sheen of
           ivory mingling with glass.

i hate modern poetry, why is everyone pretending
to be asthamtic, exasperated, out-of-breath?
with the same punctuation "all of a sudden"?
**** if i'm going to speak,
i'm not speaking...
             not in this climate...
edinburgh 2006...
  that's when i wanted to speak...
but then my eyes stole my tongue and told me
to listen.
i've been listening every since...
and...
i haven't even registered one hearing
of an echo since then.

My sisters and I once had a goldfish
whom we, appropriately, named Bubbles.
We would watch him swim around in his little bowl
Ever circling back and forth and back and forth
Until one morning
Bubbles went belly up.
Now, at the mature age of nine,
Death was the Schroedinger’s monster under my bed
With the potential to destroy everyone I loved,
Accompanied by an uncertain actual existence.
My six year old sister, however,
had not quite yet achieved my understanding of mortality.
A quick family meeting ended
once we came to an apt solution;
The mature, responsible, reasonable thing to do
was, of course,
to cover the bowl with a towel,
tell my sister that Bubbles had a "migraine"
and buy an identical looking goldfish as soon as possible.
I wanted to give Bubbles a proper funeral and a casket
But my mother had already flushed him down the drain by morning.
I once heard that the smallest coffins are the heaviest.
I didn't understand.
I was 8 the morning my grandfather passed in his sleep
For years death smelled like bacon burning
and looked like the pain on my father’s face as he tried not to cry in front of us
How could the tiny casket I wanted for my childhood pet possibly compare?
My grandmother followed when I was 10
Death tasted like the cheap borscht at the reception
And felt like my sobbing mother pulling away from my comforting touch
How could the shoe box my best friend and I buried her hamster in make a dent in that kind of grief?
One morning at school they told us our drama teacher
wouldn't be coming back to class
not tomorrow, not ever
Death felt like the crack in my voice as I sang at his funeral
No, the smallest coffins couldn't possibly be the heaviest, I thought.
Until one morning I heard that a baby fell out of the window of an SUV
Onto cold black concrete and was crushed on impact,
My neighbor’s five year old daughter died of brain cancer,
A sleeping seven year old girl was shot by a police officer in Detroit
A three year old boy froze to death in Etobicoke
Until I sat down on a toilet shocks of pain reverberating through my pelvis
and the unborn child I didn’t know was there slipped out
My father once told me that happiness
is when the grandfather dies
then the father
then the son
Tell us again and again that God must’ve needed another angel
But sympathy falls flat when faced with putting your six year old six feet underground
We all want to believe we were not made like this.
In spite of everything we want to believe there is goodness in the world
That even a force as cruel as death would spare a child.
Now, death sounds like my friends calling me every morning for weeks
to make sure I was still breathing,
Feels like some days being smothered
and others not even crossing my mind,
Realizing that there are some ghosts who won’t disappear with dawn.
They told me it could've fit in the palm of my hand.
Looked like a newborn gerbil chewed up by its mother.
Take my hand.
Walk with me through water waist deep,
steel toed boots on our feet and these small coffins on our backs.
We will never feel anything heavier.

A drive-by piercing with a lemon going haywire
Some day-old sushi seen floating in a milk shake
Biplanes soaring on a river made of goldfish
Hamsters running like a maggot being stepped on
T-Birds flying on a highway made of spike strips
A sleeper hold keeping pleasure from the culprit
High-speed boats with Bond at the Olympics
A Cheshire cat that is famous for his slow wit
A hands-free call using carrots as a pitchfork
Motel 6 giving buckets full of sunshine
A loser shakes when he’s calling for a train wreck
Two horned-toad dogs seek pleasure from a princess
Pineapples dance on a table made of tall grass
Swimming pools run like the nostrils of a cokehead
Lawnmowers chase televisions made of chocolate
A headrest pops like a package full of mayonnaise
Full moon falling like a stock that’s made of pennies
Some ring-toss games using members as a target
Horse-drawn buggies have turtles for a driver
Captain Crunch cracks three teeth with his product
Unicorn strippers charge nothing for a snow cone
A fig tree shoots his rifle like a marksman
Time-lapse photos lend credence to a journey
A night jog leading to the starting of a win streak
Cotton ***** fighting like the heart of a palm tree
Rabbit holes filled with a rocket made of red glare
Alien red giants just as sure as I am breathing
A high-speed rail system travels without leaving
Lamborghinis resting on a bed of melting ice cream
Then there’s a cuckoo clock riding on a white mink
I saw a cowboy yesterday atop a pile of hay
Leaches lurking everywhere really like to play
Red newspaper taxis burn at the pole in June
Hearts of gold at harvest time, hear my drum in tune
Playing in the band was my only decent goal
Rake, a shovel, and a pick dig working with a ***        
Prince without a pauper will rise from down below
Hot tamales drop like hail the radar never showed
Squids sign a new record deal using their own ink
Octomom wants it all; such ***** I’ve never seen

i saw a little goldfish swimming in a bowl
at the local fairground the poor little soul
he swam round round with very little room
going up and down in his little tomb.

coming to the top to try and get his air
in his bowl so small it really wasnt fair
i took him home with me he looked very sad
i put in my pond this it made him glad.

he could move around now he had the space
a proper goldfish home in a proper goldfish place

there was a little goldfish he lived in a bowl
swimming round in circles poor little soul
goldfish he decided he had. had enough
living in a bowl his life was rather tough.

he jumped in to the sink a slithered down the drain
landed in the gutter and washed away by rain
washed in to a river now the fish was free
no longer in a bowl happy now was he.

there were lots of fish to keep him company
he was free at last just like he longed to be
goldfish he his free to this very day
happy and content and glad he runaway

i hate him because he's always
swimming around and thinking things
but he never says any of them.

The Original Sin: Rhyming Haiku!

Haiku
should never rhyme:
it’s a crime!
―Michael R. Burch

The herons stand,
sentry-like, at attention ...
rigid observers of some unknown command.
―Michael R. Burch

Late
fall;
all
the golden leaves turn black underfoot:
soot
―Michael R. Burch

Dry leaf flung awry:
bright butterfly,
goodbye!
―Michael R. Burch

A snake in the grass
lies, hissing
"Trespass!"
―Michael R. Burch

Honeysuckle
blesses my knuckle
with affectionate dew
―Michael R. Burch

My nose nuzzles
honeysuckle’s
sweet nothings
―Michael R. Burch

The day’s eyes were blue
until you appeared
and they wept at your beauty.
―Michael R. Burch

The moon in decline
like my lover’s heart
lies far beyond mine
―Michael R. Burch

My mother’s eyes
acknowledging my imperfection:
dejection
―Michael R. Burch

The sun sets
the moon fails to rise
we avoid each other’s eyes
―Michael R. Burch

brief leaf flung awry ~
bright butterfly, goodbye!
―Michael R. Burch

leaf flutters in flight ~
bright, O and endeavoring butterfly,
goodbye!
―Michael R. Burch

The girl with the pallid lips
lipsticks
into something more comfortable
―Michael R. Burch

I am a traveler
going nowhere,
but my how the gawking bystanders stare!
―Michael R. Burch



Here's a poem that's composed of haiku-like stanzas:

Haiku Sequence: The Seasons
by Michael R. Burch

Lift up your head
dandelion,
hear spring roar!

How will you tidy your hair
this near
summer?

Leave to each still night
your lightest affliction,
dandruff.

Soon you will free yourself:
one shake
of your white mane.

Now there are worlds
into which you appear
and disappear

seemingly at will
but invariably blown
wildly, then still.

Gasp at the bright chill
glower
of winter.

Icicles splinter;
sleep still an hour,
till, resurrected in power,

you lift up your head,
dandelion.
Hear spring roar!



Unrhymed Original Haiku and Tanka
by Michael R. Burch

These are original haiku and tanka written by Michael R. Burch, along with haiku-like and tanka-like poems inspired by the forms but not necessarily abiding by all the rules.

Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder ...
the water breaks
―Michael R. Burch

one pillow ...
our dreams
merge
―Michael R. Burch



Iffy Coronavirus Haiku

yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #1
by Michael R. Burch

plagued by the Plague
i plague the goldfish
with my verse

yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #2
by Michael R. Burch

sunflowers
hang their heads
embarrassed by their coronas

I wrote this poem after having a sunflower arrangement delivered to my mother, who is in an assisted living center and can’t have visitors due to the coronavirus pandemic. I have been informed the poem breaks haiku rules about personification, etc.

Homework (yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #3)
by Michael R. Burch

Dim bulb overhead,
my silent companion:
still imitating the noonday sun?

New World Order (last in a series and perhaps a species)
by Michael R. Burch

The days of the dandelions dawn ...
soon man will be gone:
fertilizer.



Variations on Fall

Farewells like
falling
leaves,
so many sad goodbyes.
―Michael R. Burch

Falling leaves
brittle hearts
whisper farewells
―Michael R. Burch

Autumn leaves
soft farewells
falling ...
falling ...
falling ...
―Michael R. Burch

Autumn leaves
Fall’s farewells
Whispered goodbyes
―Michael R. Burch



Variations on the Seasons
by Michael R. Burch

Mother earth
prepares her nurseries:
spring greening

The trees become
modest,
coy behind fans



Wobbly fawns
have become the fleetest athletes:
summer



Dry leaves
scuttle like *****:
autumn

*

The sky
shivers:
snowfall

each
translucent flake
lighter than eiderdown

the entire town entombed
but not in gloom,
bedazzled.



Variations on Night

Night,
ice and darkness
conspire against human warmth
―Michael R. Burch

Night and the Stars
conspire against me:
Immensity
―Michael R. Burch

in the ice-cold cathedral
prayer candles ablaze
flicker warmthlessly
―Michael R. Burch



Variations on the Arts
by Michael R. Burch

Paint peeling:
the novel's
novelty wears off ...

The autumn marigold's
former glory:
allegory.

Human arias?
The nightingale frowns, perplexed.
Tone deaf!

Where do cynics
finally retire?
Satire.

All the world’s
a stage
unless it’s a cage.

To write an epigram,
cram.
If you lack wit, scram.

Haiku
should never rhyme:
it’s a crime!

Video
dumped the **** tube
for YouTube.

Anyone
can rap:
just write rhythmic crap!

Variations on Lingerie
by Michael R. Burch

Were you just a delusion?
The black negligee you left
now merest illusion.

The clothesline
quivers,
ripe with unmentionables.

The clothesline quivers:
wind,
or ghosts?



Variations on Love and Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

Wise old owls
stare myopically at the moon,
hooting as the hart escapes.

Myopic moon-hooting owls
hoot as the hart escapes

The myopic owl,
moon-intent, scowls;
my rabbit heart thunders ...
Peace, wise fowl!



Original Tanka

All the wild energies
of electric youth
captured in the monochromes
of an ancient photobooth
like zigzagging lightning.
―Michael R. Burch

The plums were sweet,
icy and delicious.
To eat them all
was perhaps malicious.
But I vastly prefer your kisses!
―Michael R. Burch

A child waving ...
The train groans slowly away ...
Loneliness ...
Somewhere in the distance gusts
scatter the stray unharvested hay ...
―Michael R. Burch

How vaguely I knew you
however I held you close ...
your heart’s muffled thunder,
your breath the wind―
rising and dying.
―Michael R. Burch



Miscellanea

Childless
by Michael R. Burch

How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.

sheer green stockings
queer green beer
St. Patrick's Day!
―Michael R. Burch

cicadas chirping everywhere
singing to beat the band―
surround sound
―Michael R. Burch

Regal, upright,
clad in royal purple:
Zinnia
―Michael R. Burch

Love is a surreal sweetness
in a world where trampled grapes
become wine.
―Michael R. Burch

although meant for market
a pail full of strawberries
invites indulgence
―Michael R. Burch

late November;
skeptics scoff
but the geese no longer migrate
―Michael R. Burch

as the butterfly hunts nectar
the generous iris
continues to bloom
―Michael R. Burch



Haiku Translations of the Oriental Masters

Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
― Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow low
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Come, investigate loneliness!
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Lightning
shatters the darkness―
the night heron's shriek
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

One apple, alone
in the abandoned orchard
reddens for winter
― Patrick Blanche, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The poem above is by a French poet; it illustrates how the poetry of Oriental masters like Basho has influenced poets around the world.



I remove my beautiful kimono:
its varied braids
surround and entwine my body
― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This day of chrysanthemums
I shake and comb my wet hair,
as their petals shed rain
― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This sheer kimono—
how the moon peers through
to my naked skin!
—Hisajo Sugita (1890-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

These festive flowery robes—
though quickly undressed,
how their colored cords still continue to cling!
—Hisajo Sugita (1890-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Chrysanthemum petals
reveal their pale curves
shyly to the moon.
—Hisajo Sugita (1890-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Loneliness —
reading the Bible
as the rain deflowers cherry blossoms.
—Hisajo Sugita (1890-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

How deep this valley,
how elevated the butterfly's flight!
—Hisajo Sugita (1890-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

How lowly this valley,
how lofty the butterfly's flight!
—Hisajo Sugita (1890-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Echoes from the hills—
the mountain cuckoo sings as it will,
trill upon trill
—Hisajo Sugita (1890-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch



This darkening autumn:
my neighbor,
how does he continue?
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Let us arrange
these lovely flowers in the bowl
since there's no rice
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

An ancient pond,
the frog leaps:
the silver plop and gurgle of water
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The butterfly
perfuming its wings
fans the orchid
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Pausing between clouds
the moon rests
in the eyes of its beholders
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The first chill rain:
poor monkey, you too could use
a woven cape of straw
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This snowy morning:
cries of the crow I despise
(ah, but so beautiful!)
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Like a heavy fragrance
snow-flakes settle:
lilies on the rocks
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray autumn's gay,
contemptuous of frost
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill,
solemn evangelist
of loneliness
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The sea darkening,
the voices of the wild ducks:
my mysterious companions!
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Will we meet again?
Here at your flowering grave:
two white butterflies
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Fever-felled mid-path
my dreams resurrect, to trek
into a hollow land
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Too ill to travel,
now only my autumn dreams
survey these withering fields
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this has been called Basho's death poem

These brown summer grasses?
The only remains
of "invincible" warriors...
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Graven images of long-departed gods,
dry spiritless leaves:
companions of the temple porch
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

See: whose surviving sons
visit the ancestral graves
white-bearded, with trembling canes?
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

An empty road
lonelier than abandonment:
this autumn evening
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Spring has come:
the nameless hill
lies shrouded in mist
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This world?
Moonlit dew
flicked from a crane's bill.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen (1200-1253) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Seventy-one?
How long
can a dewdrop last?
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dewdrops beading grass-blades
die before dawn;
may an untimely wind not hasten their departure!
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dewdrops beading blades of grass
have so little time to shine before dawn;
let the autumn wind not rush too quickly through the field!
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Outside my window the plums, blossoming,
within their curled buds, contain the spring;
the moon is reflected in the cup-like whorls
of the lovely flowers I gather and twirl.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



The Oldest Haiku

These are my translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into poetic forms such as tanka, renga and haiku over time. My translations are excerpts from the Kojiki (the "Record of Ancient Matters"), a book composed around 711-712 A.D. by the historian and poet Ō no Yasumaro. The Kojiki relates Japan’s mythological beginnings and the history of its imperial line. Like Virgil's Aeneid, the Kojiki seeks to legitimize rulers by recounting their roots. These are lines from one of the oldest Japanese poems, found in the oldest Japanese book:

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Here's another excerpt, with a humorous twist, from the Kojiki:

Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make!
Heaven's indignant messengers,
you remind me of wordsmiths!
― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Here's another, this one a poem of love and longing:

Onyx, this gem-black night.
Downcast, I await your return
like the rising sun, unrivaled in splendor.
― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch



More Haiku by Various Poets

Right at my feet!
When did you arrive here,
snail?
― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Our world of dew
is a world of dew indeed;
and yet, and yet...
― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, brilliant moon
can it be true that even you
must rush off, like us, tardy?
― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Standing unsteadily,
I am the scarecrow’s
skinny surrogate
―Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Autumn wind ...
She always wanted to pluck
the reddest roses
―Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Issa wrote the haiku above after the death of his daughter Sato with the note: “Sato, girl, 35th day, at the grave.”



The childless woman,
how tenderly she caresses
homeless dolls ...
—Hattori Ransetsu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Clinging
to the plum tree:
one blossom's worth of warmth
—Hattori Ransetsu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

One leaf falls, enlightenment!
Another leaf falls,
swept away by the wind ...
—Hattori Ransetsu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This has been called Ransetsu’s “death poem.” In The Classic Tradition of Haiku, Faubion Bowers says in a footnote to this haiku: “Just as ‘blossom’, when not modified, means ‘cherry flower’ in haiku, ‘one leaf’ is code for ‘kiri’. Kiri ... is the Pawlonia ... The leaves drop throughout the year. They shrivel, turn yellow, and yield to gravity. Their falling symbolizes loneliness and connotes the past. The large purple flowers ... are deeply associated with haiku because the three prongs hold 5, 7 and 5 buds ... ‘Totsu’ is an exclamation supposedly uttered when a Zen student achieves enlightenment. The sound also imitates the dry crackle the pawlonia leaf makes as it scratches the ground upon falling.”



Disdaining grass,
the firefly nibbles nettles—
this is who I am.
—Takarai Kikaku (1661-1707), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A simple man,
content to breakfast with the morning glories—
this is who I am.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
This is Basho’s response to the Takarai Kikaku haiku above

The morning glories, alas,
also turned out
not to embrace me
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The morning glories bloom,
mending chinks
in the old fence
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Morning glories,
however poorly painted,
still engage us
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I too
have been accused
of morning glory gazing ...
—original haiku by by Michael R. Burch

Taming the rage
of an unrelenting sun—
autumn breeze.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The sun sets,
relentlessly red,
yet autumn’s in the wind.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As autumn deepens,
a butterfly sips
chrysanthemum dew.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As autumn draws near,
so too our hearts
in this small tea room.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Nothing happened!
Yesterday simply vanished
like the blowfish soup.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The surging sea crests around Sado ...
and above her?
An ocean of stars.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Revered figure!
I bow low
to the rabbit-eared Iris.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, butterfly,
it’s late
and we’ve a long way to go!
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Nothing in the cry
of the cicadas
suggests they know they soon must die.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I wish I could wash
this perishing earth
in its shimmering dew.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dabbed with morning dew
and splashed with mud,
the melon looks wonderfully cool.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Cold white azalea—
a lone nun
in her thatched straw hut.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Glimpsed on this high mountain trail,
delighting my heart—
wild violets
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The bee emerging
from deep within the peony’s hairy recesses
flies off heavily, sated
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A crow has settled
on a naked branch—
autumn nightfall
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Except for a woodpecker
tapping at a post,
the house is silent.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

That dying cricket,
how he goes on about his life!
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like a glorious shrine—
on these green, budding leaves,
the sun’s intense radiance.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Yosa Buson haiku translations

A kite floats
at the same place in the sky
where yesterday it floated...
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

On the temple’s great bronze gong
a butterfly
snoozes.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hard to describe:
this light sensation of being pinched
by a butterfly!
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Not to worry spiders,
I clean house ... sparingly.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Among the fallen leaves,
an elderly frog.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In an ancient well
fish leap for mosquitoes,
a dark sound.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Flowers with thorns
remind me of my hometown ...
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Reaching the white chrysanthemum
the scissors hesitate ...
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Picking autumn plums
my wrinkled hands
once again grow fragrant
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A silk robe, casually discarded,
exudes fragrance
into the darkening evening
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Whose delicate clothes
still decorate the clothesline?
Late autumn wind.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An evening breeze:
water lapping the heron’s legs.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

gills puffing,
a hooked fish:
the patient
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The stirred morning air
ruffles the hair
of a caterpillar.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Intruder!
This white plum tree
was once outside our fence!
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tender grass
forgetful of its roots
the willow
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I believe the poem above can be taken as commentary on ungrateful children. It reminds me of Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays."―MRB

Since I'm left here alone,
I'll make friends with the moon.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The hood-wearer
in his self-created darkness
misses the harvest moon
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

White blossoms of the pear tree―
a young woman reading his moonlit letter
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The pear tree flowers whitely:
a young woman reading his letter
by moonlight
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

On adjacent branches
the plum tree blossoms
bloom petal by petal―love!
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A misty spring moon ...
I entice a woman
to pay it our respects
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Courtesans
purchasing kimonos:
plum trees blossoming
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The spring sea
rocks all day long:
rising and falling, ebbing and flowing ...
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As the whale
  dives
its tail gets taller!
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

While tilling the field
the motionless cloud
vanished.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Even lonelier than last year:
this autumn evening.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My thoughts return to my Mother and Father:
late autumn
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Late autumn:
my thoughts return to my Mother and Father
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This roaring winter wind:
the cataract grates on its rocks.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

While snow lingers
in creases and recesses:
flowers of the plum
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Plowing,
not a single bird sings
in the mountain's shadow
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In the lingering heat
of an abandoned cowbarn
only the sound of the mosquitoes is dark.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The red plum's fallen petals
seem to ignite horse dung.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dawn!
The brilliant sun illuminates
sardine heads.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The abandoned willow shines
between bright rains
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dew-damp grass:
the setting sun’s tears
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The dew-damp grass
weeps silently
in the setting sun
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

White plum blossoms―
though the hour grows late,
a glimpse of dawn
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The poem above is believed to be Buson's jisei (death poem) and he is said to have died before dawn.

Lately the nights
dawn
plum-blossom white.
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is a second interpretation of Buson's jisei (death poem).

In the deepening night
I saw by the light
of the white plum blossoms
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is a third interpretation of Buson's jisei (death poem).

Our life here on earth:
to what shall we compare it?
Perhaps to a rowboat
departing at daybreak,
leaving no trace of us in its wake?
—Takaha Shugyo or Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



I thought I felt a dewdrop
plop
on me as I lay in bed!
― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot see the moon
and yet the waves still rise
― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The first morning of autumn:
the mirror I investigate
reflects my father’s face
― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Wild geese pass
leaving the emptiness of heaven
revealed
― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Inside the cracked shell
of a walnut:
one empty room.
—Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Bring me an icicle
sparkling with the stars
of the deep north
—Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Seen from the skyscraper
the trees' fresh greenery:
parsley sprigs
—Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Are the geese flying south?
The candle continues to flicker ...
—Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Still clad in its clown's costume—
the dead ladybird.
—Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

A single tree,
a heart carved into its trunk,
blossoms prematurely
—Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Silently observing
the bottomless mountain lake:
water lilies
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Cranes
flapping ceaselessly
test the sky's upper limits
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Falling snowflakes'
glitter
tinsels the sea
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Blizzards here on earth,
blizzards of stars
in the sky
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Completely encircled
in emerald:
the glittering swamp!
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The new calendar!:
as if tomorrow
is assured...
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Ah butterfly,
what dreams do you ply
with your beautiful wings?
― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Because morning glories
hold my well-bucket hostage
I go begging for water
― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Spring
stirs the clouds
in the sky's teabowl
― Kikusha-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight I saw
how the peony crumples
in the fire's embers
― Katoh Shuhson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

It fills me with anger,
this moon; it fills me
and makes me whole
― Takeshita Shizunojo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

War
stood at the end of the hall
in the long shadows
― Watanabe Hakusen, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Because he is slow to wrath,
I tackle him, then wring his neck
in the long grass
― Shimazu Ryoh, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Pale mountain sky:
cherry petals play
as they tumble earthward
― Kusama Tokihiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The frozen moon,
the frozen lake:
two oval mirrors reflecting each other.
― Hashimoto Takako, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The bitter winter wind
ends here
with the frozen sea
― Ikenishi Gonsui, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, bitter winter wind,
why bellow so
when there's no leaves to fell?
― Natsume Sôseki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Winter waves
roil
their own shadows
― Tominaga Fûsei, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

No sky,
no land:
just snow eternally falling...
― Kajiwara Hashin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Along with spring leaves
my child's teeth
take root, blossom
― Nakamura Kusatao, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Stillness:
a single chestnut leaf glides
on brilliant water
― Ryuin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

As thunder recedes
a lone tree stands illuminated in sunlight:
applauded by cicadas
― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The snake slipped away
but his eyes, having held mine,
still stare in the grass
― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Girls gather sprouts of rice:
reflections of the water flicker
on the backs of their hats
― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Murmurs follow the hay cart
this blossoming summer day
― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The wet nurse
paused to consider a bucket of sea urchins
then walked away
― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

May I be with my mother
wearing her summer kimono
by the morning window
― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The hands of a woman exist
to remove the insides of the spring cuttlefish
― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The moon
hovering above the snow-capped mountains
rained down hailstones
― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly:
a puff of white snow
cresting mountains
― Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Spring snow
cascades over fences
in white waves
― Suju Takano, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Tanka and Waka translations:

If fields of autumn flowers
can shed their blossoms, shameless,
why can’t I also frolic here —
as fearless, and as blameless?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Submit to you —
is that what you advise?
The way the ripples do
whenever ill winds arise?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Watching wan moonlight
illuminate trees,
my heart also brims,
overflowing with autumn.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I had thought to pluck
the flower of forgetfulness
only to find it
already blossoming in his heart.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

That which men call "love" —
is it not merely the chain
preventing our escape
from this world of pain?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Once-colorful flowers faded,
while in my drab cell
life’s impulse also abated
as the long rains fell.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I set off at the shore
of the seaside of Tago,
where I saw the high, illuminated peak
of Fuji―white, aglow―
through flakes of drifting downy snow.
― Akahito Yamabe, loose translation by Michael R. Burch


Haiku Translations

As the monks sip their morning tea,
chrysanthemums quietly blossom.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fragrance of plum blossoms
on a foggy path:
the sun rising.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The sea darkens ...
yet still faintly white
the wild duck protests.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pear tree blossoms
whitened by moonlight:
a young woman reading a letter.
—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Outlined in the moonlight ...
who is that standing
among the pear trees?
—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your coolness:
the sound of the bell
departing the bell.
—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As the moon flies west
the flowers' shadows
creep eastward.
—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

By such pale moonlight
even the wisteria's fragrance
seems distant.
—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Leaves
like crows’ shadows
flirt with a lonely moon.
Kaga no Chiyo, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let me die
covered with flowers
and never again wake to this earthly dream!
—Ochi Etsujin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To reveal how your heart flowers,
sway like the summer grove.
—Tagami Kikusha-Ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In the thicket's shade
a solitary woman sings the rice-planting song.
Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unaware of these degenerate times,
cherry blossoms abound!
Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These silent summer nights
even the stars
seem to whisper.
Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The enormous firefly
weaves its way, this way and that,
as it passes by.
Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Composed like the Thinker, he sits
contemplating the mountains:
the sagacious frog!
Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A fallen blossom
returning to its bough?
No, a butterfly!
Arakida Moritake, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Illuminated by the harvest moon
smoke is caught creeping
across the water ...
Hattori Ransetsu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fanning its tail flamboyantly
with every excuse of a breeze,
the peacock!
Masaoki Shiki, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Waves row through the mists
of the endless sea.
Masaoki Shiki, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I hurl a firefly into the darkness
and sense the enormity of night.
—Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As girls gather rice sprouts
reflections of the rain ripple
on the backs of their hats.
—Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: haiku, tanka, oriental, masters, translation, Japanese, nature, seasons, Basho, Buson, Issa, waka, tanka, mrbhaiku

I wake up every other day wishing I could just **** the pain
Or just jump ship and never see another again
This ship is sinking
In this sea of thoughts and feelings
Then you notice your phone there's a message at the tone
Her voice rings through your soul
Your my symbol of hope
A SOS when i feel alone
Take a shower
Watch the water drain away
Wishing it could carry the pain away
I'll hold my breath, I'll tempt death
But in those moments
My body and mind are side by side
I can feel the water in my eyes
I guess this is how it is to be alive
Get up, get dressed and meet your girl
I'll find the strength even at my lowest depths just to see her smile
I'll never let her see that side
That's the only secret I'll ever hide
Reject that frown
I'll never let this ship go down
Even when I'm sinking she makes me float
She's the life raft and I'm the boat
And I don't understand why she's given me a chance just some lonely broken kid with a fake smile and nothing much to give chilling in a maiden shirt listening to offspring
I'm not her Normal type
From the lowest of all clicks
The bottom of the food chain
A goldfish in the ocean
Take a deep breath you're going under
The currents pulling your mind astray
Drowning in my bottled up ways
You'll talk on the phone
Just so she can moan about
All her worries and her fears and  the occasional tears
But you don't mind
You're her rock in her hard time
The thoughts in your head decline and you're no longer stranded out at tide  
That fake smile you provide is Keeping her alive
If only you knew you're the picture in her head
The strength that pulls her out of bed
And you don't understand why she's given you a chance.

i got a little goldfish won him at the fair
through his little bowl he began to stare
looking straight at me in a bowl that was to small
no room to swim around no room there at all

i took home with bought a bigger home
put the fish inside where he began to roam
bought some little plants put some rocks in to
now his goldfish life had a different view

bought a little friend so he had company
this it made him smile happy now was he
now from a goldfish bowl full of misery
i was glad that day i took him home with me

visit my website to see my video poems
and songs i have written feel free to share
william-worthless.org.uk,