The ghost of me from yesteryear
Visited me in my dreams last night
Reminded me of innocence so dear
Causing me to shed precious tears
Missing innocence’s wondrous light
The ghost of me from yesteryear
Encouraged me to release my fears
Now my soul struggles to take flight
And reminded me of innocence so dear
Though my path is not always clear
I fear being caught in an endless night
The ghost of me from yesteryear
Has snuggled in and holds me near
Wanting to fill me with such delight
And reminds me of innocence so dear
Silence fills me as I peer
Deep inside to find love so bright
The ghost of me from yesteryear
Reminded me of innocence so dear

Kelly Rose
October 16, 2015

Original French

Dictes moy ou, n'en quel pays,
Est Flora la belle Rommaine,
Archipiades ne Thaïs,
Qui fut sa cousine germaine,
Echo parlant quant bruyt on maine
Dessus riviere ou sus estan,
Qui beaulté ot trop plus q'humaine.
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

Ou est la tres sage Helloïs,
Pour qui chastré fut et puis moyne
Pierre Esbaillart a Saint Denis?
Pour son amour ot ceste essoyne.
Semblablement, ou est la royne
Qui commanda que Buridan
Fust geté en ung sac en Saine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

La royne Blanche comme lis
Qui chantoit a voix de seraine,
Berte au grand pié, Beatris, Alis,
Haremburgis qui tint le Maine,
Et Jehanne la bonne Lorraine
Qu'Englois brulerent a Rouan;
Ou sont ilz, ou, Vierge souvraine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

Prince, n'enquerez de sepmaine
Ou elles sont, ne de cest an,
Qu'a ce reffrain ne vous remaine:
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?


English Translation

Ballad Of The Ladies Of Yore

Tell me where, in what country,
Is Flora the beautiful Roman,
Archipiada or Thais
Who was first cousin to her once,
Echo who speaks when there's a sound
On a pond or a river
Whose beauty was more than human?
But where are the snows of yesteryear?
Where is the leamed Heloise
For whom they castrated Pierre Abelard
And made him a monk at Saint-Denis,
For his love he took this pain,
Likewise where is the queen
Who commanded that Buridan
Be thrown in a sack into the Seine?
But where are the snows of yesteryear?

The queen white as a lily
Who sang with a siren's voice,
Big-footed Bertha, Beatrice, Alice,
Haremburgis who held Maine
And Jeanne the good maid of Lorraine
Whom the English bumt at Rouen, where,
Where are they, sovereign ******?
But where are the snows of yesteryear?

Prince, don't ask me in a week
or in a year what place they are;
I can only give you this refrain:
Where are the snows of yesteryear?

Bring back the days of yesteryear,
When all seemed easy, all was free.
Before life had progressed so much,
With all of mans' technology.

Back when most men moved slower,
And their acts were mostly true.
In a world that really believed,
So much could be done with few.

When your neighbor next door to you,
Would wave and ask how you are.
And a father and son could be spied,
Working together to fix an old car.

When mothers tucked their children,
Into their beds every night,
After saying The Lord's Prayer together,
Before turning out the light.

When the festival held in the town,
Caused the businesses to close.
When grandpa's sat with grandchildren,
Under trees to read some prose.

When lemonade was squeezed outside,
Under a big old oak tree.
And honey for the mornings' toast,
Was stolen from the honey bee.

And in church every Sunday,
Man would shake each others' hands.
And forget any differences,
Knowing that God surely understands.

When there was still a clean, crisp, creek,
With a tire swing overlook.
And the teens would find their first love,
A sheepish grin was all it took.

When picnic tables were filled with friends,
And families would still play a game.
And when you went to the five and dime,
Everyone knew your name.

A time when money had less value,
Than the work a man could give.
Bring back the days of yesteryear,
So that I could simply live.

My chamber teems with tensions, taut, that logic can’t withstand,
fragmenting mental masonry with memories unplanned,
as bitter tears from hazel eyes reduce the stone to sand.

Dim shadows cast by candles flit across the haunted room,
beleaguer apparitions, pale, that stalk me through the gloom,
usurping purloined purple forms forgotten ghosts assume.

The tick-tock clock of time rewinds within the mirrored hall
and pendula suspended, pause, while creatures creep and crawl
on images of effigies, through memories that maul.

The madness of the midnight mass! Perchance it interferes
with spiders spinning spiral threads which bridge the chandeliers
when weaving minds' discarded coils to silken souvenirs.

Reflections graced the vacant gaze of idols as they fled!
Their futile, feigned, far-flung farewells now hammer in my head,
marooned like frozen silhouettes in footprints of the dead.

My lovers smile through marbled masks before they turn their backs
(like furnace flames deserting ash or phantoms fleeing cracks)
with faded, painted, wrinkled faces nightmares carve in wax.

Sometimes a gust disturbs the dust and secrets reappear,
which dance in silver slippers through the dusk of yesteryear -
it's not the screams that drown my dreams, but whispers which I fear.

The hangman posts a letter home, his message indiscreet
about the vestal ****** in the café (where we meet
to savour tea and crumpets) down a one-way dead-end street.

The rapping and the tapping at my tattered, time-worn door
repeat reports of migrant myths, of tales of nevermore,
strung far across a sullen sea, most shipwrecked near the shore.

Forget-me-nots, enwrapped in rain the while a wan wind blows,
recall the faintly fickle fates this drifter undergoes –
alone, unknown with tracks interred in teardrop undertows.

My feet, no longer tied or tethered, traipse within a squall
pursuing profiles long forsaken, buried in the sprawl
of spectres spread amongst the dead, some tattooed to the wall.

At times, the belfry towers toll of anarchy and gin,
of smoke and mirrors, rolling dice and other things akin,
impaled on forks down byway roads, and things that might-have-been.

The skies outside, beyond the night with shutters shut and drawn,
begin to glow on shattered shapes escaping ’fore the dawn
as clouds undone beneath the sun release this captive pawn.

By: Cedric McClester

It’s a **** shame
No it’s absurd
How the gentry
Are changing Williamsburg
And if you need
The concrete proof
They’ve raised the rents
Right through the roof

I dream of Williamsburg of old
The one only my memory holds
And it’s for this I shed a tear
The Williamsburg of yesteryear

The indigenous people of course
Were first
In time it became
More ethnically diverse
And then an enclave
For artists and the arts
With dirt cheap rents
In certain parts

I dream of Williamsburg of old
The one only my memory holds
And it’s for this I shed a tear
The Williamsburg of yesteryear

Everything changes with time
Except the memories in the mind
The Williamsburg I knew and loved
Is the Williamsburg I always think of

Artists held a funeral
I here tell
And sounded off
The last death knell
They gave Williamsburg
Their sad goodbyes
And wiped the tears
Away from their eyes

Everything changes with time
Except the memories in the mind
The Williamsburg I knew and loved
Is the Williamsburg I always think of

I dream of Williamsburg of old
The one only my memory holds
And it’s for this I shed a tear
The Williamsburg of yesteryear
I dream of Williamsburg of old
The one only my memory holds
And it’s for this I shed a tear
The Williamsburg of yesteryear
I dream of Williamsburg of old
The one only my memory holds



(c) Copyright 2015, Cedric McClester.  All rights reserved.

Midnight rain on the window
Memories of you
My strings sing a melody
My heart sings it too
              The amplifier hums
As I pluck each new note
Wishing for what was
Thinking over what you wrote
             So I sing a midnight melody
Play a song that reminds me of you
And my heartache sings the harmony
'Cause you don't know the damage you do

I ask myself, exactly how
Did I not see as I do now?
What things went on in yesteryear
To blind what I can now see clear

Perhaps it is with every age
Our lens grows sharp with each new page
Time, it makes us wise and true
And strips naïveté from you

The young, the old, we’re all the same
Just wand’ring souls in life’s bored game
We drift and dwell and dream and drink
And hardly ever stop to think

It is the way we’ve always been
‘Twas even said when we’d begin
It will not ever change, I fear
I long for what’s lost: yesteryear

checking potent aftershock
observing seismic anniversary
checking another tremor
resuming constrained writing

annexing hidebound constituents
hugging incoming eschatologies
fighting pervasive insomnia
battling invasive fatigue

damning incompetent fools
awaiting furtive escape
abandoning corporate wasteland
summoning celestial syzygy

detesting spaghetti code
protruding riparian dolphin
establishing unilinear escritoire
glowing cybernetic cynosure

avoiding eternal invisibility
supporting valued customer
performing lexical gymnastics
scrooping notification sounds

restoring usual happiness
glorifying darkwave fanfares
collapsing old relationships
raising ambient awareness

defining wolf people
propagating yesteryear's spectre
achieving hemispheric virality
testing weekend legerity
installing iron curtain

propagating today's spectre

developing niche audiences
transmitting abstract propaganda
disappearing thought experiments
overusing various condiments

double-checking hyper-real emotions
rubbernecking celestial explosions
observing splendid holiday
exploding volcano day

erupting bucolic mountain
disrupting hectic shouting
perfecting suggestive triptychs
checking festive pyrotechnics

drifting across multiverse
regifting glossy paperwork
writing six-lined hexagrams
liking two-toned instagrams

recalling pygmalion sculptures
brawling tatterdemalion cultures
"rambling corporate shill
rattling rapid prosody"
"battling hamburger hill
ambling hundredth library"
"sensing ideological schism
pending guttural neologism"

glowing verdant background
foreshadowing palmyra takedown
developing geopolitical mess
geminating quasi-couplet stress

"hugging cultural diversity
shrugging irrational adversity"

distancing spooky raindrops
avoiding potential burnout
implementing lexical databank
approaching crash-scene sudser

becoming increasingly selective
escaping tyrannical bureaucracy
perpetuating cut-throat capitalism
purchasing contrived happiness
incorporating chance elements
relaxing rigid structures
reheating your retweet

holding theoretical design
smiling beach life
scrutinizing eternal simulation
rushing artificial apothegm
annexing facetious document
freaking creepy centipedes

writing neural structure
congratulating yestreen's warriors
encouraging seatbelt usage
boosting abstract setting
sensing frivolous ochlocracy

keeping hypothetical metropolis
blurring metaphorical æsthetic
scrutinizing computational festival
memorializing towel day

raising six-fingered paw
eternizing fragment schedule
liking subtextual repository
quoting quintessential quidnunc

finding ideological style
disregarding their slovenliness
planning spatial factoid
spinning glacial ellipsoids

enjoying eternal spreadsheet
deleting repetitive tweet
awaiting festival lineup
gainsaying unethical startups

observing turgid experiment
contemplating conniving contrivances
enjoying dynamic project
dropping two-toned simulation
finding harmonic space
finalizing warring cavaliers

detecting enigmatic apathy
retrieving potential exchange
meddling middling muddling
baking hypnagogic pizza

spinning galactic dinosaur
building trans-pacific partnership
finishing theoretical mission
giggling agog googlers

crashing atypical tessellation
cherishing precious hexagons
proliferating western lottery
cretaceousing funkaholic skeletor

blurring turgid gallery
cancelling tsunami warnings
extemporizing incoherent neologisms
transmitting harmonic rave

gliding black hawks
hiding quacked ducks
archiving animated light
googling moonbow imagery

ignoring relatable messages
observing unfinished world
generating optional content
continuing exponential growth

Matsuo Basho Translations

There are my English translations of haiku by Matsuo Basho...

My Personal Favorites

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wish I could wash
this perishing earth
in its shimmering dew
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

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



Basho's Butterflies

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

Will we remain parted forever?
Here at your grave:
two flowerlike butterflies!
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Air ballet:
twin butterflies, twice white,
meet, match & mate.
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Ballet in the air! ―
two butterflies, twice white,
meet, mate, unite.
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

A spring wind
stirs willow leaves
as a butterfly hovers unsteadily.
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

As autumn deepens,
a butterfly sips
chrysanthemum dew.
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch
aki o hete / cho mo nameru ya / kiku no tsuyu

Come, butterfly,
it's late
and we've a long way to go!
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Dusk-gliding swallow,
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers!
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch



Basho's Famous Frog Poem

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

An ancient pond sleeps...
untroubled by sound or movement...until...
suddenly a frog leaps!
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Explosion!
The frog returns
to its lily pad.
—Michael R. Burch original haiku



Basho's Heron

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

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

A flash of lightning―
the night heron's shriek
splits the void
― Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch



Basho's Flowers

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

Like a heavy fragrance
snowflakes settle:
lilies on rocks
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

High-altitude rose petals
falling
falling
falling:
the melody of a waterfall.
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Revered figure!
I bow low
to the rabbit-eared Iris.
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Cold white azalea—
a lone nun
in her thatched straw hut.
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

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

Disdaining grass,
the firefly nibbles nettles—
this is who I am.
—Takarai Kikaku translation by Michael R. Burch

A simple man,
content to breakfast with the morning glories—
this is who I am.
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch
This is Basho's response to the Takarai Kikaku haiku above
asagao ni / ware wa meshi kû / otoko kana

Ah me,
I waste my meager breakfast
morning glory gazing!
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Morning glories blossom,
reinforcing the old fence gate.
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The morning glories, alas,
also turned out
not to embrace me
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Morning glories bloom,
mending chinks
in the old fence
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Morning glories,
however poorly painted,
still engage us
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch
asagao wa / heta no kaku sae / aware nari

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

Curious flower,
watching us approach:
meet Death, our famished donkey.
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch



Basho's Poems about Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter

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

Spring!
A nameless hill
stands shrouded in mist.
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The legs of the cranes
have been shortened
by the summer rains.
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Autumn darkness
descends
on this road I travel alone
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Taming the rage
of an unrelenting sun—
autumn breeze.
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch
aka aka to / hi wa tsurenaku mo / aki no kaze

The sun sets,
relentlessly red,
yet autumn's in the wind.
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch
aka aka to / hi wa tsurenaku mo / aki no kaze

As autumn draws near,
so too our hearts
in this small tea room.
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch
aki chikaki / kokoro no yoru ya / yo jo han

Late autumn:
my neighbor,
how does he continue?
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Winter in the air:
my neighbor,
how does he fare?
― Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Winter solitude:
a world awash in white,
the sound of the wind
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The year's first day...
thoughts come, and with them, loneliness;
dusk approaches.
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch



Basho's Temple Poems

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

The temple bells grow silent
but the blossoms provide their incense―
A perfect evening!
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

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

Like a glorious shrine—
on these green, budding leaves,
the sun's intense radiance.
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch
ara toto / aoba wakaba no / hi no hikar



Basho's Birds

A raven settles
on a leafless branch:
autumn nightfall
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

A crow has settled
on a naked branch—
autumn nightfall
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

A solitary crow
clings to a leafless branch:
autumn twilight
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

A solitary crow
clings to a leafless branch:
phantom autumn
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

A crow roosts
on a leafless branch:
autumn nightmare
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

NOTE: There has been a debate about the meaning of aki-no kure, which may mean one of the following: autumn evening, autumn dusk, the end of autumn. Or it seems possible that Basho may have intentionally invoked the ideas of both the end of an autumn day and the end of the season as well. In my translations I have tried to create an image of solitary crow clinging to a branch that seems like a harbinger of approaching winter and death. In the first translation I went with the least light possible: autumn twilight. In the second translation, I attempted something more ghostly. Phrases I considered include: spectral autumn, skeletal autumn, autumnal skeleton, phantom autumn, autumn nocturne, autumn nightfall, autumn nightmare, dismal autumn. In the third and fourth translations I focused on the color of the bird and its resemblance to night falling. While literalists will no doubt object, my goal is to create an image and a feeling that convey in English what I take Basho to have been trying to convey in Japanese. Readers will have to decide whether they prefer my translations to the many others that exist, but mine are trying to convey the eeriness of the scene in English.

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

Swallow flitting in the dusk,
please spare my small friends
buzzing among the flowers!
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch




Basho's Insects

A bee emerging
from deep within the peony's hairy recesses
flies off heavily, sated
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

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

The cicada's cry
contains no hint
of how soon it must die.
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Nothing in the cicada's cry
hints that it knows
how soon it must die.
—Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The cicada's cry
contains no hint
of how soon it must die.
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch




Basho's Moon and Stars

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

The moon: glorious its illumination!
Therefore, we give thanks.
Dark clouds cast their shadows on our necks.
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The surging sea crests around Sado...
and above her?
An ocean of stars.
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch
ara umi ya / Sado ni yokotau / Ama-no-gawa



Basho's Companions

Fire levitating ashes:
my companion's shadow
animates the wall...
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Among the graffiti
one illuminated name:
Yours.
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Scrawny tomcat!
Are you starving for fish and mice
or pining away for love?
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch



Basho's End of Life and Death Poems

Nothing happened!
Yesterday simply vanished
like the blowfish soup.
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch
ara nantomo na ya / kino wa sugite / fukuto-jiru

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

Sick of its autumn migration
my spirit drifts
over wilted fields...
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Sick of this autumn migration
in dreams I drift
over flowerless fields...
―Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

NOTE: While literalists will no doubt object to "flowerless" in the translation above ― along with other word choices in my other translations ― this is my preferred version. I think Basho's meaning still comes through. But "wilted" is probably closer to what he meant. If only we could consult him, to ask whether he preferred strictly literal prose translations of his poems, or more poetic interpretations! My guess is that most poets would prefer for their poems to remain poetry in the second language. In my opinion the differences are minor and astute readers will grok both Basho's meaning and his emotion.

Too ill to travel,
now only my autumn dreams
survey these withering fields
― Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch



New Haiku Translations, Added 10/6/2020

Air ballet:
twin butterflies, twice white,
meet, match & mate
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Denied transformation
into a butterfly,
autumn worsens for the worm
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dusk-gliding swallow,
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers!
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Up and at ’em! The sky goes bright!
Let’***** the road again,
Companion Butterfly!
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Higher than a skylark,
resting on the breast of heaven:
mountain pass.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Farewell,
my cloud-parting friend!
Wild goose migrating.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

A crow settles
on a leafless branch:
autumn nightfall.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An exciting struggle
with such a sad ending:
cormorant fishing.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Secretly,
by the light of the moon,
a worm bores into a chestnut.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

This strange flower
investigated by butterflies and birds:
the autumn sky
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Where’s the moon tonight?
Like the temple bell:
lost at sea.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Spring departs;
birds wail;
the pale eyes of fish moisten.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

The moon still appears,
though far from home:
summer vagrant.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Cooling the pitiless sun’s
bright red flames:
autumn wind.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Saying farewell to others
while being told farewell:
departing autumn.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  
Traveling this road alone:
autumn evening.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Thin from its journey
and not yet recovered:
late harvest moon.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Occasional clouds
bless tired eyes with rest
from moon-viewing.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

The farmboy
rests from husking rice
to reach for the moon.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

The moon aside,
no one here
has such a lovely face.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

The moon having set,
all that remains
are the four corners of his desk.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

The moon so bright
a wandering monk carries it
lightly on his shoulder.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

The Festival of Souls
is obscured
by smoke from the crematory.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

The Festival of Souls!
Smoke from the crematory?
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Family reunion:
those with white hair and canes
visiting graves.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

One who is no more
left embroidered clothes
for a summer airing.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

What am I doing,
writing haiku on the threshold of death?
Hush, a bird’s song!
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Fallen ill on a final tour,
in dreams I go roving
earth’s flowerless moor.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation of his jisei (death poem) by Michael R. Burch

Stricken ill on a senseless tour,
still in dreams I go roving
earth’s withered moor.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation of his jisei (death poem) by Michael R. Burch

Stricken ill on a journey,
in dreams I go wandering
withered moors.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation of his jisei (death poem) by Michael R. Burch


New Haiku Translations, Added 10/6/2020

Air ballet:
twin butterflies, twice white,
meet, match & mate
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Denied transformation
into a butterfly,
autumn worsens for the worm
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dusk-gliding swallow,
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers!
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Up and at ’em! The sky goes bright!
Let’***** the road again,
Companion Butterfly!
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Higher than a skylark,
resting on the breast of heaven:
mountain pass.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Farewell,
my cloud-parting friend!
Wild goose migrating.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

A crow settles
on a leafless branch:
autumn nightfall.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An exciting struggle
with such a sad ending:
cormorant fishing.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Secretly,
by the light of the moon,
a worm bores into a chestnut.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

This strange flower
investigated by butterflies and birds:
the autumn sky
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Where’s the moon tonight?
Like the temple bell:
lost at sea.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Spring departs;
birds wail;
the pale eyes of fish moisten.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

The moon still appears,
though far from home:
summer vagrant.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Cooling the pitiless sun’s
bright red flames:
autumn wind.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Saying farewell to others
while being told farewell:
departing autumn.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  
Traveling this road alone:
autumn evening.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Thin from its journey
and not yet recovered:
late harvest moon.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Occasional clouds
bless tired eyes with rest
from moon-viewing.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

The farmboy
rests from husking rice
to reach for the moon.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

The moon aside,
no one here
has such a lovely face.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

The moon having set,
all that remains
are the four corners of his desk.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

The moon so bright
a wandering monk carries it
lightly on his shoulder.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

The Festival of Souls
is obscured
by smoke from the crematory.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

The Festival of Souls!
Smoke from the crematory?
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Family reunion:
those with white hair and canes
visiting graves.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

One who is no more
left embroidered clothes
for a summer airing.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

What am I doing,
writing haiku on the threshold of death?
Hush, a bird’s song!
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

Fallen ill on a final tour,
in dreams I go roving
earth’s flowerless moor.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation of his jisei (death poem) by Michael R. Burch

Striken ill on a senseless tour,
still in dreams I go roving
earth’s withered moor.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation of his jisei (death poem) by Michael R. Burch

Stricken ill on a journey,
in dreams I go wandering
withered moors.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation of his jisei (death poem) by Michael R. Burch




NEW BASHO TRANSLATIONS 06-19-2025

SPRING

Blame the rainy season
for my absence,
old friend Moon.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

For yet a little while,
the pale moon
floating among blossoms...
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Moon past full:
darkness
increasing.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Spring rains
so heavy
they overflow the waterfall.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I’ll catch up
about cascading waterfall blossoms
when I drink with Li Bai.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fluttering rose petals
fall
into the river’s gurgling waters.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Spring rains
overwhelming the falls,
overflowing...
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rainy season downpour
sours even the ears
of ripening plums.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Flood!
Stars will soon sleep
atop a rock.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I’ll dare drenching
my paper robes
to nab a sprig of spring blossoms.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where is that handsome man
no long with us:
the rain-hidden moon.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So much harsher
than other mouths,
the wind devours newborn blossoms.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So taken by their beauty,
I long to take
the maiden flowers.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Trembling, feeble,
heavy with dew:
the maiden flowers.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Other flowers bloom,
the camellias
remain indifferent.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An orchid’s
lingering fragrance
veils the bedchamber.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The boy’s bangs
retain the scent
of youthful grass.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Spring winds
tickle the flowers
till they burst out in laughter.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Falling to the ground,
returning to its roots,
the flower’s farewell.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So many things
recur in memory:
spring blossoms reopen.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Seeing them naked
almost makes me caress
the ******* flowers.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As temple bells fade
flowers strike their fragrance
into the silence.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The bat also emerges
into the birds’
world of flowers.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When planting,
please handle the infant cherry tree tenderly,
gently, like a baby.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How can one fret
during cherry blossom time?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How I envy them,
growing high above our transient world,
the mountain cherries.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Curiosity:
a butterfly alights
on nectarless grass.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A solitary butterfly
hovers over
its own shadow.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A solitary butterfly
flutters above
its own shadow.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since spring showers insist,
the eggplant seeds
commence sprouting.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Never belittle
the tiniest seeds:
the spunky pepper reddens.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Once green,
behold!
The red pepper.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

After spring rains
mugwort shoots up
in grassy lanes.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Higher than the larks,
resting amid the blue,
this mountain pass.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The blossom-filled day
makes the tree’s sadness
seem all the darker.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Goodbye, old friend:
no longer beckoning
miscanthus plumes.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Spying plum blossoms
the infatuated ox
bellows, “Yes!”
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The day-lily,
dripping water
into the grasses’ forgetfulness.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Scooped up by my hands,
the springwater
shocks my teeth with its iciness.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The cats’ noisy mating subsides;
now into our bedroom
creeps the quiet moonlight.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here at Wakanoura
I’m finally in step
with fleeting and fleeing spring.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A bell-less village?
Who will ring in
the end of spring?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The temple bell unheeded?
Unheard?
Still, spring is fleeting.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The sun’s about to set:
the spring’s last shimmering heat ray.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

SUMMER

Such coolness
when shouldered:
the summer’s first melon.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A wicker basket
shields the coolness
of the first melon.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Morning dew:
the muddy melon
exudes coolness.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Early summer rain:
the green spikemoss,
how long to remain?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Timidly the willow
refrains from touching
deutzia blossoms.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An oiled paper umbrella
attempts to push aside
unobliging willows.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The ancient river
ogles
the slender willow.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So like life:
this small patch of shade
beneath a wicker hat.

Still alive
despite the slightness of my hat,
I cherish its shade.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This summer world
floats in the lake’s
silver waves.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A weary horse
collapsing in barley:
traveler’s rest.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

On the distant plain
the deer’s voice
seems an inch tall.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How sad, the bellowing of bucks,
The bleatings of does,
at night.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Even woodpeckers
hold this old hut sacred,
still standing in the summer grove.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Toppling from the topmost bough,
emptiness aloft:
the cicada’s husk.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The hollyhock
leans sunward
in the summer rain.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ah, the splendid resplendence
of sunlight
on tender evergreen leaves!
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fragrance of oranges...
In whose farmyard
is the cuckoo calling?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Temple bells reverberate:
cicadas singing.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Shouldering hay bales,
someone left enough straw
to mark our way.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fireflies
turn our trees
into well-lit lodges.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A noontime firefly,
dim by daylight,
hides behind a pillar.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Firefly watching,
the tipsy boatman
rocks the boat.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rising above fields of rice and barley,
the cry of the summer cuckoo.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tedious life!
Plowing the rice field
back and forth...
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lying in the summer grass,
discarded like a king’s robe,
the snakeskin.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The shrubby bush-clover?
How impudent
her appearance!
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Glistening dew
sways without spilling
from the bush-clover.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I bow low
to the venerable
rabbit-eared Iris.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rabbit-eared Iris,
pausing to chit-chat,
one joy of my journey.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rabbit-eared iris
inspires
another hokku.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rabbit-eared Iris,
admiring your reflection?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Inside Uchiyama,
unknown to outsiders,
blossoms full-bloom.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Uchiyama was a temple little-known to the outside world. In fact, uchi means “inside.”

AUTUMN

First of autumn:
the sea and the rice fields
the same green hue.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The autumn wind
like a ventriloquist
projects its piercing voice.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Voices in the reeds?
Ventriloquism
of the autumn wind.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

East and West
united by the autumn wind
into a single melancholy.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Seeing a friend off,
his hunched back
lonely in the autumn wind.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Illuminating
sawn-off tree trunks:
the harvest moon.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

After pausing
for harvest moon viewing,
we must be on our way.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Our moon-viewing interrupted
on Asamutsu Bridge,
dark yields to dawn.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Consider lonesomeness
surpassing even Suma’s:
this deserted autumn beach.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The temple bell
drowned in the sea,
and where is the moon?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My humble take on the world?
Withered leaves
at autumn’s end.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Withering flowers:
out of such sadness
seeds emerge.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Red on red on red,
the sun relentless,
yet autumn’s unimpressed.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This lusciously cool autumn day
we peel
aubergine melons.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Cling to your leaves,
peach trees!
Autumn wind.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This whiteness,
whiter than mountain quartz:
autumn wind.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Shocking the grave,
my grief-filled cry:
autumn wind.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Spider,
to whom do you cry?
Autumn wind.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How to reach safe haven?
An insect adrift
on a leaf.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Reverential tears:
the falling leaves
bid their trees goodbye.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Plates and bowls
gleaming dimly in the darkness:
evening coolness.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Twice the pity:
beneath the headless helmet,
a chirping cricket.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Secretly
by moonlight
weevils bore chestnuts.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Cranes on stilts
surveying the rice paddies:
autumn village.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Thankfulness:
someone else harvests rice
for me.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How touching
to survive the storm,
chrysanthemum.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Slender again,
somehow the chrysanthemum
will yet again bud.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

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

His loosened jacket collar
invites the cool breeze.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Butterfly wings:
how many times have they soared
over human roofs?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mosquitos drone
with dusky voices
deep within the cattle shed.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Basho leaves shred in the gale;
the basin collects raindrips;
all night I listen, alone in my hut.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The dew drips, drop-by-drop...
I’d rinse this world clean,
if I could.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fire’s banked ashes
extinguish
your tears’ hisses.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Turn to face me,
for I am also lonesome
this autumn evening.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Plucking white hairs
while beneath my pillow
a cricket creaks.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Everything that blossoms
dies in the end:
wilted pampas grass.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As autumn departs,
shivering
I scrunch under too-small bedding.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It seems, to dullard me,
that hell must be like this:
late autumn.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

WINTER

The year’s first snowfall;
such happiness to be
at home in my hut.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fire-making friend,
let me show you something grand:
a huge snowball!
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Written for Basho’s dear friend Sora, who visited Basho’s hut to feed the fire, cook, break ice and make tea.

Come, children,
let’s frolic in the snowstorm,
dodge the hail.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Farewell for now,
we’re off to find snow
until we tumble into it.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let’s get up
until we fall into
the snow we seek.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Yesteryear’s snows,
have they fallen anew?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter drizzle;
irate, I await
snow adorning the pines.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Practicing bowing,
the bamboo
anticipates snow.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bowing low,
the upside-down world
of snow-laden bamboo.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Melancholic flowers
shrivel
in the frost.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hailstones
stitching
the silken snow.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oars slapping waves,
the stomach a-shiver,
these nighttime tears.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Icefish
shoaling through seaweed
swim into my hands.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sunrise:
one-inch sliver
of the whitefish’s iciness.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Alive
but congealed into one:
the frozen sea cucumbers.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Somehow alive
yet congealed into a single solid mass:
the frozen sea cucumbers.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Water so cold,
rocks so hard,
where will the seagull sleep?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Plovers depart
as evening deepens
windward toward Hiei.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Crying in the darkness,
unable to locate its nest,
the homeless plover.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The plovers cry:
“Be watchful of the darkness
at Star Cape!”
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mushroom-gathering,
rushing to beat
cold evening rains.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ceremonious
hailstones
assail my hinoki hat.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Caught hatless
in a winter shower?
So it goes.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How many frosts
have tested
this pine’s mettle?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A winter drizzle
obscures
the field’s freshcut stubble.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The drinkers’ faces
paler than the snow:
a flash of lightning.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The polished mirror
clear as snowflake petals.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The relentless wind
sharpens rocks and stones,
topples cedars.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Cold fear
desolate as a deserted
frost-crusted shack.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How marvelous,
the winter snow
will return as rain.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Children come running,
dodging jewels:
hailstones.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

At least the world has left,
unblemished and unbegrimed,
a single wooden bowl.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The bowl in question had been left by Rotsu in Osaka, and was returned undamaged seven years later. Rotsu was a Basho disciple.

The mud snail’s closed lid:
winter confinement.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Inside my hut,
watching my own breath:
winter confinement.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So weary of Kyoto,
of the withering wind
and winter life.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I will soon be included
among the fortunate ones:
beyond winter.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

VARIOUS

As clouds drift apart,
so we two separate:
wild geese departing.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The old nest deserted,
how empty now
my next-door neighbor’s hut.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Yesterday?
Departed,
like the blowfish soup.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Exciting,
but with a sad conclusion:
cormorant fishing.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The one who died:
her delicate kimono
hung out to dry.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Behind the veiling curtain,
the wife in her bedchamber:
plum blossoms.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

See her slim figure:
the ingenue moon
not yet ripened.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Clouds now and then
offer intermissions
from moon-viewing.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Drinking
alone with the moon,
my shadow makes three.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon and the blossoms
lack only a man
drinking sake, alone.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unbar the door,
allow moonlight
to enter Ukimido.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ukimido was a temple Basho visited in 1691.

Drinking morning tea,
the monks
silent amid chrysanthemums.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Its fragrance whiter
than the peach blossoms’ whiteness:
the narcissus.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The narcissus
reflects the whiteness
of a paper screen.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hibiscus flowers
garland
an otherwise naked child.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The overproud
pink begonia
thinks it’s a watermelon.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Echo my lonesomeness,
mountain cuckoo.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The cuckoo’s lone voice
lingers
over the inlet.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Solitary hawk,
a heavenly vision
over Cape Irago.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

At Cape Irago
the incomparable cry
of the hawk.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Better than any dream,
the thrilling reality
of a hawk’s cry.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The hawk’s eye narrows
at the quail’s call.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Naptime!
But my drowsiness is nixed
by busybody warblers.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Carolers:
the sparrows smile
at their warbling.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Giving thanks to the flowers
for brightening my visit:
farewell.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Melancholy nub!
The bamboo bud’s
sad end.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This lightning flash
the hand receives in darkness:
a candle.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Carrying a candle
into the dark outhouse:
the moonflowers’ whiteness.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Seeing a moonflower,
I poke my sake-addled face
through a hole in the window.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Nighttime folly:
grabbing a thorn,
expecting a firefly.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

More nighttime weirdness:
a fox stalking
a melon?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It’s better to become a beggar
than a critic.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No rest:
the carpenter
hangs his own shelf.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Blowing away
the volcano’s molars:
the typhoon.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What decays
have you endured,
watchful tomb ferns?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A disgusting smell
slimed on waterweeds:
pale chub entrails.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A country boy
shucking husks
gazes at the moon.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The poet’s heart?
Will we ever really understand
ume blossoms?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

For at least today
let all the poets be
melodious as winter rains.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I believe the haiku above was written during a gathering of poets.

What tree blossoms here?
I do not know
its mysterious aroma.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I will lodge here
until the tender goosefoot
matures into a walking stick.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I’d compare a flower
to a delicate child
but the field is barren.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Basho wrote the poem above for a friend, Rakugo, who had lost a child.

Even a poorly-painted
morning glory
pleases.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The morning glories
ignore our drinking,
drunk on themselves.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Slender glistener!
Each dewdrop a burden
for the maiden flower.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon absent,
treetops cling
to the nighttime rain.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May you tumble safely
onto sand or snow,
sake-addled horse rider.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I miss my mother and father
so much:
the kiji’s cry.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The kiji is a green pheasant but also a metaphor for the love of one’s family and kiji is also a homophone for “orphaned child.”

I pause from my journey
to observe the fleeting world
going about its housecleaning.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No simile!
Nothing compares
to the crescent moon.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The overstaying moon
and I
linger in Sarawhina.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Her ascent easy
and yet still hesitant,
the cloud-veiled moon.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A cuckoo flying,
cawing, crying and cajoling:
busybody.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What’s all the ado
about this busybody crow?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Art begins
with ancient rice-planting chants
drifting on the wind.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Today’s words
vanish tomorrow:
evaporating dew.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Basho may have proved himself wrong with the poem above, since so many of his poems are still being read, studied and translated.

Unregarded by the high-minded
the lowly chestnut
blossoms by the eaves.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Clinging for dear life
to the bridge,
these winding vines.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This swinging bridge:
hard to imagine
horses crossing.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Even in Kyoto,
a longing for Kyoto,
the cuckoo calling.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The cuckoo symbolizes nostalgia. Here Basho seems to be in Kyoto but longing for the Kyoto of his past.

Rock azaleas
dyed red
by the cuckoo’s tears.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In Japan the cuckoo is said to shed tears of blood.

I would wipe away the tears
brimming in your eyes
with these tender leaves.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Reincarnation?
The fawn’s first dawn
falls on Buddha’s birthday.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Forbidden to speak
of holy Yudono,
my sleeves wet with tears.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let us learn
from the travails
of these ancient pilgrims.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The samurai’s
overlong discourse:
the tang of bitter daikon.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tender-horned snail,
point those tiny tips
toward distant mountains!
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A dragonfly
clings tentatively to the air,
hovering above waving grasses.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tiny river crab
creeping up my leg?
Back to the water!
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The windblown butterfly
is unable to settle
in the waving grass.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Even the wild boar
is blown about
by buffeting winds.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The boat
comes to rest
on a beach of peach blossoms.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lightning
does not enlighten,
of what value?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A banked fire,
the shadow
of a guest.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Remember:
the thicket
guards plum blossoms.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Don’t chortle with glee:
through the leaves of the silk tree
stars wink at me.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Kiyotaki’s unblemished waves
gently dispersing
still-green pine needles.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is said to have been Basho’s last haiku. Kiyotaki means “clear” and is the name of a river.

Immaculate white chrysanthemums:
no matter how closely investigated,
without a blemish.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I suspect the two poems above are related because the first poem in one version had “without a blemish” or “nary a blemish.”

Faint
in a trace of water:
floating chrysanthemums.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

OTHER POETS

Observe:
see how the wild violets bloom
within the forbidden fences!
—Shida Yaba (1663-1740), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When no wind at all
ruffles the Kiri tree
leaves fall of their own free will.
—Nozawa Boncho (1640-1714), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Keywords/Tags: Basho, haiku, translation, Japan, Japanese, Oriental, Orient Occident, nature, season, seasons, waka, tanka, life and death, compassion, empathy, mrbhaiku, mrbbasho

Now our Yesteryear
You can’t put your finger on it but a shift has occurred neighborhoods are different
A few clues lay in the losses delivery to the home what delivery thats just it
Doctor’s house calls milk delivery neighborhood grocer even the mail is indifferent
Anyone want to get close and peek in a nylon mail bag oh but those great leather ones

Milk delivery I don’t care if I whistle smile or sing carrying a bottle of store bought milk
Where is the feeling Phil’s dad use to float or blast out of the door and sweet clinking bottles
Sure you can drop plastic no breakage just an idiot plop who cares we all might as well drink silk
They called it progress change they forgot one more sad word that is so fitting empty

East end grocer barrel full of kites rolls of string or Cecil doing long addition on a paper sack
What about the Quonset hut on west third with a tree that’s wonder fingers touch to assure if real
Ever feel comfort in a giant store feel as you know any one if only there was a button to take us back
Oh to big of a hurry for all that let one materialize see the stampede and kindness would flourish again

We have more they never bothered to explain that with so much misery is part of the package
Front porch social gatherings it’s just what you race a cross in this quantum age
Do you remember those long summer days somehow it would draw from us the hidden sage
All can refuse with effort we can stop this insanity with more heart we can turn back the page

Substantial quadrants of hate



Throughout these veins circulate



Spiraling in frenzied states



Adrift an ailing coma





Infinite corruption clawed my corneas



Birthing the erasure of euphoria



Imprinting trademarks of memoria



Leaving in wake vile aromas





All confidence dissolved to solvents



Due to definitive involvement



Susceptible to gaunt installments



Marring my skin with melanoma





Mother Earth serves as a mime



Humanity must be refined









© 2012 (All rights reserved)

Road Runner is my all-time favorite- I like the song by Junior Walker too.

He, Road Runner, that is , reminds me of mentally ******* friends of mine who always strut around in a huff.

"It"'s a scream.

Bugs Bunny and Mel Blanc (Mel, one of Jack Benny's sidekicks) voice for him - Bugs was frothy with my kind of sarcasm.

Mickey Mouse I thought of as a kind of a put-on for guys that look like that a little who were always cutting up.

I used to get that song Hey Mickie by Toni Basil read piped in loud in my mind, it seemed when it played on the jukebox at that sports bar I used to hang out at.

Yosemite Sam is like some of the severely mentally ill guys on my geriatric psych ward who are really abrupt, loud, and whose bark is bigger than their bite.

McGruff - I wrote a piece about him - he's not of course from a cartoon - but from my yesteryear, who was under the weather, hence the crime wave.

Just like Smokey the Bear, he was a lovable character.
I like King of the Hill and Family Guy at night for yukks.

On Sat morn back in the day I guess when I had enough time I used to get a bit of a kick out of Fat Albert cartoons and the Jackson Five stuff on lonely, for me, Saturday morning to perk me up for the rest of the day.

Back in the old days, they reminded me of figures I knew like them in real life.

Sylvester the Cat, Felix the Cat, Hekyll and Jekyll, Daffty Duck, and Might Mouse tickled my little boy sense of humor.

In comic Books, I was impressed with the sense of humor of Little LuLu.

In the newspaper, Hagar the Barbarian and Beetle Bailey tickled my funny bone a little.

That's all, Folks.

Behind those eyes of blue-gray-green
Lies a heart of which is seldom seen
Though hard for some to realize
There's a world of pain behind said eyes
From drama of torn childhood
From doing bad but being good
To grown up tears of discontent
From words once spoken but never meant
And now with empty bottles past
With clarity one hopes will last
Can be seen a glimpse of inner peace
Of eager joy which begs release
Though years of numbness linger still
Denying freedom to laugh at will
A perfectly polished yesteryear
Cradles everything the heart holds dear
The memories of warmth and fun
Tarnish easily out in the sun
When walking backwards leads you blind
One can never leave the past behind
The farther away the better it seems
Even the nightmares look like a dream
Now, when walking heel to toe
Facing the way you want to go
The road's less bumpy for the ride
Obstacles faced with longer strides
The light behind those eyes still burns
As chapters end and pages turn
The book continues day by day
Joy slowly rises come what may
Living is what makes us strong
To do what's right when we've been wronged
And though that pain may never die
There's no place left for it to hide
It's worn dull by loves embrace
Displaced, in time, with joy and grace
And then those eyes of blue-gray-green
Will sparkle new with brighter sheen
For a heart that's swelled to greater size
Will be foretold behind those eyes

Our hero's and legends
Narrative's of the past
All changed to preserve
The corpses they outlast
What is fact is no matter
Truth is of no mind
Whats is left for us is filtered
Blurred, obscured and confined
We all are lead to believe
Only the wicked do wrong
All detractors are silenced
By the victors swan song
With altruism so lacking
Humility all but lost
Hope in what once was
Is preserved at all costs
The lore of yesteryear
False idols built so high
Lives we cannot attain
Given only after we die

You remember the good old days
the days during the war
When there was still a thing called homelessness
and everyone seemed poor

You'd work all day and half the night
just so you'd get by
And then they'd send your job abroad
or give it to a cheaper guy

Your money would buy less and less
cos things cost more and more
And everyone felt scared
but why we were not sure

Economies went through the floor
the whole world was in debt
Even things like land and real estate
were no longer a safe bet

Oh how I miss those happy days
so much better then than now
Hang on a sec whats that up there
is it a flying pig or cow?

By: Cedric McClester

It’s a **** shame
No it’s absurd
How they've gentrified
Williamsburg
And if you need
The concrete proof
They’ve raised the rents
Right through the roof

I dream of Williamsburg of old
The one only my memory holds
And it’s for this I shed a tear
The Williamsburg of yesteryear

The indigenous of course
Were first
In time it became
More ethnically diverse
And then an enclave
For artists and the arts
With dirt cheap rents
In certain parts

I dream of Williamsburg of old
The one only my memory holds
And it’s for this I shed a tear
The Williamsburg of yesteryear

Everything changes with time
Except the memories in the mind
The Williamsburg I knew and loved
Is the Williamsburg I always think of

Artists held a funeral
I here tell
And sounded off
The last death knell
They gave Williamsburg
Their sad goodbyes
And wiped the tears
Away from their eyes

Everything changes with time
Except the memories in the mind
The Williamsburg I knew and loved
Is the Williamsburg I always think of

I dream of Williamsburg of old
The one only my memory holds
And it’s for this I shed a tear
The Williamsburg of yesteryear
I dream of Williamsburg of old
The one only my memory holds
And it’s for this I shed a tear
The Williamsburg of yesteryear




Cedric McClester, Copyright (c) 2016. All rights reserved.

In her rocking chair she sits,
While she hums to herself and knits.
She’s knitting a shawl to fend off the cold,
For now she’s wrinkled, gray-haired and old.

She used to run and have lots of fun,
But that was way back when she was young.
Now her arthritis is really bad,
And she’s feeling very lonely and sad.

Now she lives in a nursing home,
Most of the time, she’s all alone.
Her children don’t come to visit much,
‘Cause they’re always so busy with work and such.

She stares out the window and she sighs,
She watches the road with watery eyes.
And wonders if they’ll come today,
But they don’t; she knew they wouldn’t anyway.

She lays her knitting on her lap,
Then closes her eyes and has a nap.
Down her cheek, there rolls a tear,
As she dreams of yesteryear.

California highway buzzes and the searing sun shines on the beach towel as I stroke Walt Whitman's beard
Transcendent and alive, but dead, still dead as my brother and his brothers, the 19th Century posse
We know the world better than them but are less learned, as the schools are a failure
and the business is us, but not the same as the industrial business of yesteryear
We are here to consume, consume and as we're dying of consumption , we consume more.

Alcohol, cars, phones and laptops, tablets, tablets, pills and more pills, condoms, liquor, ***** and brews, women, men, more women, more men, razors, lasers, heaters, coolers, snacks, rucksacks, ex lax and nick-knacks. They sell us dreams and nightmares, movies and bomb scares, they sell us news by the hour and power as they exert their own power. They give us gifts and incentives, draw us in so they they can stick us with a pin or a bracelet, and we too can sell to our friends on group hangs or as we stand still listening to our favourite bands. Billboards scream for our attention, or the buses stop at the intersection, and we're supposed to open our little phone and buy whatever is advertised. Why? Y?

They call us the Y generation too, why? Perhaps we ask the question  too much, perhaps we haven't asked enough. Perhaps the X generation simply ponder why we are so consumed with the technology they feed us. Why? Why must they question us, when we are the next great generation, we do laugh at that too. The internet is the new religion, bow down before Google and drink from the pixelated chalice, my child. Any question one could need answering is answered by the internet. The Bible is irrelevant in our society, burn it and download a bible app on the latest smartphone, the Qur'an too, hell, try the Tanakh, the Smriti and the Pāli Canon, for we are enlightened ******* It. And we want more.

somenonamesarcasticasshole@yahoo.com
RE:PARTY TONIGHT!!!!!

Hey yo mane some warehouse downtown has this dubstep DJ from like ******* Iraq or some ****. *** down, gonna be hella ******* there
xo

What music do you like?
All of it
Films?
All of them
TV
I don't own one but I watched every episode of The Wire on Netflix
...
I am a pansexual being riding the ever changing dunes of the Sahara, like so many great poets before me.

Digital immigrants and immigrants of empathy too
How serious do you believe us to be?
I am not using sarcasm as a form of wit for I have no wit.
Stoicism and rejection of education, employment and training.
We surly are the neatest generation, how can we make a mess if we are not awake most days?
Save for the endless party that is life, as we throw used glow sticks at women we desire
and ***** over car windows before getting blown on the lawn

lol dat wuz cray last nite
xo

Die young poets we have no desire for your kind, pacify us with Kerouac and Ginsberg so that we may emulate intelligence and impair the senses, for we care not about the real world either
Our world is the only one that exists, yours will soon crumble
We have trained for the end with extensive views of zombie flicks in coffee houses

@SomeFacelessJerk Follow for follow

Hey OP, you are a ******.
Why yes, yes I am. Does that bother you.
No, OP. You see I too am a ******.

Do away with your hurtful words they have no meaning today
White man died and lost control of his precious dictionary
We are here to save language by replacing all vowels with X's and O's
We are here to consume and in turn consummate this marriage,
the marriage of ignorance and bliss.

Sitting very quietly, looking at a blank page
Prompted me to pen a poem about toys that were all the rage
I had some wooden jigsaw blocks when I was only two
In a wooden  box with a shiny brass clasp
And a picture of Winnie the Pooh

I remember at the age of six, when I was given some stickle bricks
Plastic shapes so colourful, with brushes of small plastic fingers
Making a train of red, yellow and green, the memory of it still lingers
Then at the age of seven, I remember ‘coming a cropper'
When dared by my cousins to bounce up the street
On their big and orange space-hopper

When I was eight, my favourite toy was a plastic daredevil skydiver
Many parachute jumps from the top of the stairs, that guy was a true survivor
When I was nine, the Spirograph, a drawing toy based on gears,
Was my favourite toy to play with, watching marvellous patterns appear

At ten years old I found building with Meccano lots of fun
Metal strips and gears and nuts and bolts, invented in 1901
When I was eleven the Rubik’s Cube was really all the rage
With coloured squares, six sides of nine, a puzzle for any age

At the age of twelve, Shinsai  Mystery was my fave
Two eight-hinged polyhedra could be folded into many shapes
At the age of thirteen, my baby brother was born
His favourite toy was Lego, my love of building things was reborn
There are many toys of yesteryear, would take ages to mention the rest
But for me, after all these years, Lego will always be the best

The Atlanta Falcons ,  defender of the city in a sport of the passionate ! A longtime cold weather tradition of the Peanut State with youth , high school and university alike ......Memories that conjure Van Brocklin , Nobis , Humphrey , Van Note , Bartkowski and Ryan . Fall is for dark green numbered fields , pageantry , struggle as tactician , athlete and opponent mired in battle , bestowing honor , emotion , and pride in the warriors of yesteryear , locked in the spirit of competition , sportsmanship and Georgia folklore* !...

Standing on the hillside is a rustic yellow cottage,
Rusty yellow staining from the steel dust of the trains.
Passing, rushing carriages that crisscross by the hour,
The ten o clock from Frankston meets the City train detained.

Golden light of sunrise in the calm of early morning
Golden light reflected on the rusty cottage roof,
Puffing at his briar and sitting at the doorstep
Old Grandpa drinks the peacefulness whilst stroking cat aloof.

Bacon smells a-beckoning from coal range fires a-glowering
Delicious tang of coffee from my Granma’s breakfast fare,
The clattering of silver wheels as silver rails reverberate
Sings the music of the morning with not a trace of care.

Memories from yesteryear I treasure on reflection,
Memories, a little boy, recalled from times secure.
Memories of cuddles in the ***** of my Grandma
And the scent of plum tobacco giving Grandpa’s pipe allure.

Perhaps a trick of memory, perhaps my passing fancy
But I clearly recall a sign above the kitchen door,
A simple sign of welcome with a sense of real belonging
In the gentle name of “Sunrise” to warm the heart galore.


Marshalg
In memory of my dear Nan and Pop Cummings @ Mordialloc by the bay.
23 April 2013

you were my yesteryear.
when you ruled,
as the pop-**** queen,
atheletic and cool.

me,i was one of the
weird, vibe tribe.
theatre mad, and
a library hound.
you barely knew,
i was around.

but we lived in,
a small, small town
and you,
dated my brother
so you only, iced me gently.

it was surreal,
truly dali-esque.
to see you today...
i would not,
have known
you....
so faded, grey..and overblown.

we have all got older,
but the years,
have...
mugged you
and left
you beaten, battered
and low...

you tell me
you were done,
with living,
about two husbands ago.


and now just plod
through, each day,
willing the dark grey
to swallow you whole.
staying, living only for
your son Tim.
you say all this,
while ,
heavily, perspiring,
pure gin.

you cry and the tears,
run down the cracks
in your leathered,
over-sunned skin
and down to pool,
on your blowsy breast,
clad in ***** pink polar fleece.

my heart, curls in pity,
for you have fallen far.
as you sit and drink,
gifted coffee, talk about
when you were the star,
the brightest, prettiest,
flame by far.

and as i leave you,
sitting, dejected and depressed.
there is a little, heartfelt shame, in the fact,
that throughout
our untimely meeting,
i could not recall your name.

The train goes rattling down the track
A trail of smoke is at your back.
A spot of soot may close your eye,
To miss the gums as they fly by.

The porter shouts "All tickets please",
To check that all have paid their fees,
The engine driver blows his whistle,
As the view converts to thistle.

Out on the verandah the children play,
"Come inside", the parents say.
From the windows they hang around,
Not a care is to be found.

Traveling onward 'round the bends,
A joyous journey with our friends.
Then at last our stop we reach;
Hooray! Hooray! It is the beach.

Eric Rodda 1996

When I was a little lassie my Grandad and I
were very fond of each other indeed
(although not sexually I must add
before you suspicious buggers start complaining).

Over the hills and fields we used to wander just like, er,
...let me think of a nice metaphor here...
er, like a man and his granddaughter or
like a couple of not so lonely clouds.

Oh how joyfully we would seek out rare birds’ nests
so as to smash the eggs to bits in a frenzy of joy,
which we both enjoyed a lot as it was, er, reet good fun
and a statement of individual choice we both appreciated.

Sometimes we would noisily take a steaming **** together
(although ABSOLUTELY NO ****** contact ever took place
I really must reiterate that for all you ***-abuse-obsessives,
but he had a stupendously big ***** for an old codger).

When we got home in the evening dear old Grandad
would usually make us a nice *** of builders' tea
and some ****** great doorstop sandwiches, but
even at that tender age I would have opted for a good stiff whisky.

Or, come to think of it, a large glass of chilled Chardonnay,
and a plateful of smoked salmon or some oysters,
but the old ******* was teetotal (at least in public) -
either that or just plain ******* mean as Hell.

Darling wizened Granny would make us some toast
out of leftover stale Mother’s Pride white bread,
but, being half blind, the silly fat old cow usually managed
to burn it to a sodding inedible cinder.

On Sundays they would get the gramophone out
and put on some tango 78 records
as they loved Latin American dancing and a good old *****
of each other's flaccid, age-withered buttocks.

How happily I remember the old couple tangoing away
just like a couple of wrinkled whirling ****** dervishes
to 'La Cumparsita' recorded by Mantovani & His Tipica Orchestra
on 20th June 1940 and issued on the Decca label.

They also taught me how to do the rumba
(oompah, oompah, stick it up your jumpah)
and I became quite an expert at the Cuban samba
(which my beloved Grandad wittily called the *****).

How joy-filled were those faraway times of my golden childhood.
but one day I went round only to find an ambulance outside
and the paramedics told me the old pair had been found dead in bed,
their boudoir resembling an abattoir at closing time.

Grandad had bashed the old *****’s brains out
with a red-hot poker during some depraved *** session
and then shoved it eighteen inches up his own *******
which must surely have stung his piles quite a bit.

But what a creative way to go - I bet he danced a bit
as the steaming poker seared his poor back passage.
And thus my grandparents ascended up into the sky -
may they stay forever young in the company of the angels.

Let me again emphasis our friendship was purely platonic
because this was in the rare old times of yesteryear
when widespread paedophilia was not yet a gleam in the eye
of some trash newspaper editor eager to engage with the plebs.

They're burning the stubbles of yesteryear's fields
Before ploughing.
Walls of fire around every farm.
Smoke blends with the smell of pig's furtilizing manure,
And whenever my nose wrinkles up
I remember my father's words:

It's the result of millennia of agricultural tradition.
It's the smell of money.
It's the smell of soil to bread.
It's the smell of something far more important
Than nasal comfort.

He had me at
-Where he should have said-
*Organic.

The drunk one's
always sunken
they say; undone
by ether. Either
crashed by
primordial
Phonographs;

         OR

passed by my
own next doors
Smack addict
acting like a
CIA Agent. Yes,
an impatient
poisoned partner
under here; for sure.

hopefully when i call
the constellations will appear
tears hang like crystals
from yesteryear
the vapors sail out from a distance
yet leave my soul feeling very cold
underneath the moonlight
deeper than the sky above
hoping that when you come
I will call again.

I think I should have
been born in the past
not just so my life
would have a new cast

Because often I feel
somewhat out of place
A reminder of earlier days
for this race

Days when our work
was all done at home
On horse or in buggies
is how we would roam

We'd grow our own food
raise our own stock
and keep time by the chime
of a grandfather clock

We'd sit on the porch
and we'd read or we'd write
and have deep conversations
on into the night

We'd fish in the pond
and swim in the creek
and shingle the roof
whenever it leaked

We'd not have no money
but be richer than most
And thank god for our fortune
with grace and a toast

We'd sit by the fire
in winter when cold
and live happy together
right 'til we got old

Then when the time came
for our maker to see
We'd get laid to rest
in the plot 'neath the tree

If I couldst show to thee the measure of my love, wouldst thine eyes shine in radiant hues? Smoulder then in deepest lapis blues, that put to shame the very rainbow's best intent.

If I couldst share with thee, the hottest of my humors, wouldst not the boilings in that abyssal pit, pale and mediocre seem, as 'twere mine, in compare? It would melt old Vulcans's anvil, adamantine!

Take for thee, these my softest kisses, which, placed upon lips, seeming to mine own essence, as pillowed angels breath, yet, those godly messengers own sweetest puckerings, as granite, to those of my mistress.

If thou couldst pluck from my chest, a still beating heart, wouldst not the sanguine, boiling streams, scold the unforgiving stones, on which they splash?
The fiery vapours rending air, as heaven bound they rise to paint the sky, incarnadine!
And yet, merely moistening that beloved hand, which holds, the fleshy, ruby prize.

Canst thou now measure, that which knows no measure?
And like heavens starried twinkles, whose beacons point the way, know  this, infinite, is the measure of my love for thee, my mistress.

As I scale the *****
I note the melody of the wind
With its sweeping symphonic shifts
My nails grind against granite
Before flaking and falling into the abyss
Yet I persist
Upward along the lone path
Where the air recedes like tides
And frost forms fellowship upon my eyes
Before seeking to turn my sore limbs, frigid
Icily assuring each ache is anchored in anxiety
Which stems from the worn clothes of society
Yet as I climb, the fabric is discarded
Like old styles of yesteryear
Now basking in all my naturalness
I finally summit, my thoughts thankfully descend
My heart lifts up its scepter and then my chin
Beating with Brilliance it grins
Furls up it sleeves and wordlessly begins
The work of healing from within

"The question should not be in what ways writing and utterance trope each other, but how both are involved with number. Without relating the technology of writing to number (as opposed to sound or drawing), it is impossible to discuss it meaningfully as an aspect of versecraft."

          Courage to write and courage to not write. Read
          The great poets and highly accomplished letters
          Of leaders. Yet the war and the book have lives
          Of their own. Vacuum house, analyze mankind.
          His idea of himself. Ideas subsumed by
          Better ones unite people in melting pots.
          I watch from my little bowl of nuts. Watch
          The one red squirrel and the many gray.
          Watch the nuthatch pair, platoon of chickadees.
          Here is what I say: When we can go
          From planet to planet on nothing but air,
          Leaving behind a drop of water,
          No burger bags blowin’ in the sun,
          I’ll love my sons, and my dogs will be happy.

"What is needed is a way to pry apart the polar, mimetic fiction that undergirds discussions (even sympathetic ones) of writing and versification, and see how we can relate writing to measure. Roy Harris’ investigations into the origin of writing make this connection possible."

          Electronic millennium. A long silence
          Wouldn’t hurt. Not that the national debate
          Should cease, it should proceed, passionate
          And furious. Those who have studied the matter
          And have something to say should write cogent
          Opinion pieces on the totalitarian
          Tendencies of minaret Islamists,
          The terminal contradiction of advancing
          Democracy with the unitary military.
          George Washington would not have approved
          And even Lincoln vacillated between
          The practicalities of preserving union
          And the ideal of freeing slaves. The president
          Carries his burden of matter, the physics
          Of existence cannot change our aloneness
          Or the butterfly’s importance, the very
          Last insects at the screens of August.
          It is life we face and death we meet.

"He argues that the origin of writing did not lie in the drawing of figures, or attempts to imitate speech, but in the recording of number. According to Harris, the oldest ‘writing’ that we have, like that on the 11, 000-year-old Ishango bone, is in ‘lines.’ The surface is scored with rows of short, parallel strokes, which probably served a numerical function. We still use such scoring systems today on occasion."

          OK, different strokes. But reading North’s poems
          And his predecessors’ in which noun and verb
          Are so far separated by modifiers,
          Post-positioned prepositions, diversions
          Into ditches, gardens, heavens, I don’t know
          What to do laugh or put the book down and eat
          Several cookies. In other words, anything goes,
          There truth resides. 1/3 life in suburbs,
          1/3 on the subway, and the last third
          On the mountain. A fourth hallucinating
          In heaven. That’s how it goes. You get what you believe.
          Bones in mud. It’s always possible I suppose
          That for nine months analogous or symmetrical
          With gestation our souls wander call it limbo,
          Doing the limbo and harassing the living
          With unanswerable questions, finally accepting
          Free molecular rent in a cubic meter
          Of interstellar space, a rose hip.
         
"Harris speculates about counting by scoring:"
'What is relevant for our present purposes is the fact that counting is associated in many cultures with primitive forms of recording which have a graphically isomorphic basis... The iconic origin of such recording systems is hardly open to doubt: the notch or stroke corresponds to the human finger...'

          Partridgeberry, mugwort, mats of raspberry,
          Cranberry, bearberry, autumn eleagnus,
          Autumn Nocturne, Autumn Leaves, the changes
          To the tunes and the scientific names.
          When it doesn’t matter what you do
          You’re probably doing something new.
          That’s a woodpecker. That’s a moth. I’m bounded
          By my surroundings, I feel at home.
          Could be Schenectady. Could be Troy.
          One of many small cities in which to
          Await my anonymity. Be specific.
          Not asphalt but impermeable surface.
          Not trees but mature stems. Quercus rubrus—
          Quality veneer. Into such a garden
          Have a victor and a fool penetrated.

'In short, the rows of strokes are graphically isomorphic with just that subpart of the recorder’s oral language which comprises the corresponding words used for counting. It makes no difference whether we ‘read’ the sign pictorially as standing for so many fingers held up, or scriptorially as standing for a certain numeral.'

          In a crowded world every action results
          In an equal and overwrought reaction.
          Yet, all the energy recycles
          And there is not one thermal unit more or less
          When all is said and won. Even when the tribes
          Were isolated behind mountain ranges
          And rushing rivers, they sought each other out
          For trading and for taking. Humanity
          Is lonely. Humor is the only remedy
          And going to your daily discipline
          The only way past Monday. Join the torrential
          Flow of words, emotion, wit and erudition.
          It is embarrassing to see a good writer
          Work himself into a lather, having
          Something to say. A system of beliefs
          To illustrate, characters dressed accordingly.
          Gardens and wilderness in which to wander.
          A cave with a view. The plumbing problem never
          Resolves. But we will do what we can and
          Some things we shouldn't because that is human.

"Along with other evidence, this leads him to argue that the invention of writing–or the division of writing and drawing into separate functions–occurred when the graphic representation of number shifted from the token-iterative system that appears on the Ishango bone, to type-slotting."

          Electricity is occult enough for me.
          Excessive classifying could be fascist!
          Yet how else can one organize people
          Into contexts. By their associations.
          Family, work, habits, each assigned
          A day of the week, moon of the month.
          Poets rhyme, jazz musicians count time.
          There is more than one way to make war. By
          Declaration, by punishing offenses
          Against the law of nations, by granting letters
          Of mark and reprisal, by making rules
          Concerning captures on land and water, by
          Suppressing insurrections and repelling invasions,
          Erecting forts, magazines, arsenals,
          Dock yards and other needful buildings. Today
          I face the blank page between the finished pages.

"Harris gives the following example of what he means:"
'The progression from recording sixty sheep by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by sixty strokes to recording the same information by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by a second sign indicating ‘sixty’ is a progression which has already crossed the boundary between pictorial and scriptorial signs.'

          When my grandmother considered it favorable
          That I would be a writer, she had in mind
          Clear commentary from which many people
          Would derive meaning. No such luck. My writings
          Are like the flicking tail of that flycatcher,
          And I am the flycatcher, weighing but an ounce.
          My grandfather’s rough-hewn peasant chairs
          Are well known by my sons though they never knew him
          And the chairs were not hewn, just owned by him.
          One is in a corner of the room and two
          Are scrimmaged around a computer screen.
          Computers post-date him and cars post-date
          His father and so on. If the grid collapses,
          The crops fail and the roads close, some will be forced
          Across boundaries among boulders, naming snakes
          And stars according to memory.
          They will be hungry, mortal and strong.

'A token-iterative sign-system is in effect equivalent to a verbal sublanguage which is restricted to messages of the form ‘sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep...’, or ‘sheep, another, another, another...’, whereas an emblem-slotting system is equivalent to a sublanguage which can handle messages of the form ‘sheep, sixty’.Token-iterative lists are, in principle, lists as long as the number of individual items recorded. With a slot list, on the other hand, we get no information simply by counting the number of marks it contains.'
"When this change occurred it opened ‘a gap between the pictorial and scriptorial function of the emblematic sign’, which had been previously inseparable in the counting represented by rows of slashes."

          No book I know tells if blue cohosh
          Caulophyllum thalictroides—a barberry—
          Is edible. Other barberries are
          But that blue berry looks risky to me.
          And May-apple—Podophyllum—other
          Than the fruit itself which is definitely
          Sweet. So I read, not sure of myself.
          There is a patience with which to wait out anger,
          And a patience with which to endure ignorance.
          The job is everything. It is freedom
          And purpose and religion. It is acceptance
          And shelter and sustenance. Last night
          We were watching Tweet’s show: groveling before
          The rich pharisee’s judgements. I said no
          Amount of money could make me grovel
          Before that guy. His toupe’s gayer than his lisp.
          But who am I? You think bullets won’t ****?
          I’m the guy they put before a wall and shoot
          Then eat lunch. But that feeling passed quickly.

"This semiological gap, made writing possible because it meant that signs could be manipulated to ‘slot’, or identify, anything whatsoever. The open-ended quality of the scriptorial sign was a necessary precondition for the development of writing systems."

          Lately I’ve been copying wholesale
          From the great poems, lines and ideas not my own
          Or owned by all? It’s ok, I can be ignored
          Or appreciated in a future city,
          By a future shore. The honest man can
          Only recognize what he loves and point to it.
          That Borges poem called In Praise of Darkness.
          Emerson and snow. A meditation
          That bumps serenely, with acceptance,
          Between things and thoughts. It is said one should
          Know for whom, to whom one is writing.
          These are letters to those who love letter writing.

"As Harris points out, no writing system is accurately phonetic. Even the alphabet only highlights certain phenomena in the speech stream. The reason for this is that alphabetic writing did not begin as a simpler or more accurate way to record speech than other writing systems, but as an easier way to write."

          A possible cancer had taken me
          To the edge of my endurance. Pokeweed,
          Poisonous, became attractive. Red stems
          And juicy black berries. I had packed warm clothes
          And pain killers. Why the warm clothes if this
          Was to be my last walk? To die in comfort
          Without a fly’s buzz. Overlooking a ravine,
          Sea of mountains, dawn. But it proved a false alarm.
          Now Sunday will be a holy day of plant
          Identification. Nothing better
          Than lying in leaf litter, skin drying
          To a taut drum. Ravens stay away!
          Until cougar’s had his fill! Instead
          I showed the boys pokeweed growing among blackberries
          And taught them the differences and uses.

"Through a radical reduction in the number of signs, the alphabet simplified the scriptorial system in and of itself. The evolution of writing therefore may look like this: simple forms of counting preceded the complications of pictorial representation, which in turn led to simplification of the writing system in cultures that adopted the alphabet."

          I was running uphill, parallel to
          The Taconics extending northward into
          Vermont (I find Vermonters in their jalopies
          Annoying but admire them for planning
          To arrest the president for war crimes) when
          I happened upon a flock of cedar waxwings—
          Said to be a gentle and politic bird—
          Sharing—very orderly—dried frozen grapes
          On the vine. (Rose hips, buckthorn, ash, pokeweed.)
          I tried one, too, the two seeds in my mouth
          Keeping me company down the mountain.
          I see no downside whatsoever
          To compensating for global warming,
          Constructing the green energy economy.
          New inventions may facilitate
          Our transportation to other planets.
          Yesterday a young man, Barack Obama,
          Won Iowa. I’m hopeful he will
          Articulate an international vision,
          A world order in which each neighborhood’s
          Good as another. I have no particular
          Love for writers; they’re a dime a dozen.
          But so are chickadees and I love them!

"Discussing the power of inscriptions of number, Harris points out:"
'Counting is in its very essence magical, if any human practice at all is. For numbers are things no one has ever seen or heard or touched. Yet somehow they exist, and their existence can be confirmed in quite everyday terms by all kinds of humdrum procedures which allow mere mortals to agree beyond any shadow of a doubt as to ‘how many’ eggs there are in a basket or ‘how many’ loaves of bread on the table.'

          True, nature would be a stern, unforgiving
          Mistress too, and man is but her right hand
          Acting on her command. How cold! How hot!
          The individual doing what he loves or not.
          Trees and cities. Herons, hawks. What we fail
          To govern in ourselves, nature will.
          We caught the killer and his gorillas,
          Now let’s go home, let the “innocent” choose
          Up sides. A good thing was done but the tyrant
          Should’ve been undone through global governance.
          Writing is divination using rhymes
          And estimations. Words like mammals
          Come near your sleeping head. Last night I emerged
          From the hum of our refrigerator
          Under a hazy, phaseless moon. The peepers
          Were an exact expression of my happiness.

"Or, one might add, for how many stanzas there are in a poem, or lines in a stanza, or stresses, feet, or syllables in a line, or occurrences of particular syntactical or grammatical patterns, and so on. As every serious student of versification has always understood, versification is about counting language."

          5:30-6 write poetry,
          6-7 ****, shave and shower, stretch
          Then get dressed, 7-7:30
          Clean house, 7:30-8 drive to work
          8-6 work (except Monday and Friday
          Work 8-4, basketball 4-6)
          6-7 drive home, shop, help make dinner
          7-8 eat dinner, read paper,
          Watch McNeil-Lehrer News Hour,
          8-9 play trumpet, study plants, type poems
          9-10 watch TV Mon: Murphy, Cybil,
          Tues: Frazier, Grace, Wed: Roseanne, Ellen,
          Thurs: Seinfeld, Friends, Fri: go out to dinner,
          10-11 read, except Tues watch
          NYPD Blue, Fri: Friday Night Lights,
          11 sleep. I could send this to the networks,
          Get a gizmo in my box. I hope my
          Schedule won't be interrupted for war.
          My dentist asked had I seen this morning’s
          Press conference, didn’t it just scare the ****
          Out of you. I said your bill is what scares
          The **** out of me. But here I am, writing
          And the sphere’s still turning. Or should I say
          Burning. As long as you write one poem per day
          You’ve left a little litter in the world.

"The reason to write verse is less to score the voice than to imbue words with the magical quality of counting. That is why meter, or measure, is at the heart of debates over all verse forms, including free verse."

          Vigorous wind, voracious ocean,
          Many merciless hard frosts, hurricanes.
          The bed of a human, its smell and warmth
          36 teeth, 46 chromosomes, 2 feet, a loose dime,
          61 summers, some soot, some sand,
          Thunderstorms. I wake up to a lightning strike
          And my dream incinerates. When they say
          Life is but a dream, that’s what they mean.
          The writer working hard, telling the story
          Of what happened yesterday or yesteryear,
          A man’s born to a country not his choosing,
          Let labor flow like capital, of mere being!
          Pomegranate juice, broccoli, arugula,
          Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower,
          Collard greens, kale, radishes, turnips,
          Garlic, leeks, scallions, onions, 2 lbs
          Swordfish, tomatoes (8 medium),
          3 cups almonds, carrots, a sweet potato,
          Winter squash, cantaloupe, mangoes, watermelon.
          2 daily writing exercises,
          50 words on any subject: complaint, headache.
          The imagination applies a
          Countervailing pressure to reality.
          Writing badly is the best revenge.

"Number is one of the creative grounds of poetry, and the idea that writing grew out of counting is the missing link in studies of the graphic in versification. It is almost uncanny that lines of verse look exactly like the most primitive ways of counting–parallel scorings that can be numbered."

          What you do to one side of the equation
          You gotta do to the other. Isolate
          The variable. Combine like terms. Metaphors
          And analogs are reduced to least common
          Denominators. Multiply through (parentheses).
          Write a new equation after each operation.
          Inscribe neatly. Check your work. Imagine
          That if you’re wrong, the astronauts burn.
          Change the signs which will avoid going
          The wrong way down the number line. Zero
          Is the middle of your universe.
          There it is, calm, comfortable as an egg
          On a spoon. That is, before possibilities
          Become probabilities. This is just
          Another equation manipulated
          With opposable digits. For at the ends
          Of your guns is the earliest calculator
          A magical machine which converts
          Numbers to words and words to numbers,
          Measures the mists, frequency and wavelength,
          Of the material penumbra.

"Verses are countable in exactly the way that token-iterative digits are countable, from either end of the sequence. Each one indicates only its singularity, not a number. Every poem in lines effaces, or predates, the distinction between writing and drawing in the same way as the lines on the Ishango bone."

a beast
bitterly binding
the broken books
of the benevolence
that be-seats
the thrones of thieves
a binary botulism baby
survived by
the lowest common denominator
lord of may be
the calamity shaker
shaking limbs from trees
he made me
who am i
to be enshrined by
the designs in which
he heaves the storms away
leaves the drones in decay
as of yesterday
in an electrical parfait
of symbiotic energy
******* tempting me
in its tether
as embryonic entities
shutter the flow
to the effects
that no one knows
of the development and growth
of self
and the foes he oppose
as was imposed upon
by force of will
exposed and deloused
of the shrill
cockiness instilled
in his build
aroused
in the post stillness
of his kills
he is i
and i am thrilled
to lower the shields
leveling out the playing field
and yielding
to the technical terminology
of my basic demonologies
of my ****** up philosophies
cloning the technologies
you infuse into the spirituality
of your broken dichotomy
just let me know
how that goes
as corrosive winds blow
through the boroughs
of your haunts
i can almost feel
the taunts
as i hear the boots clomp
turn to stomping through the door
enacting your unholy chores
in that which bares no reward
the price is blood
the cost is love
in which i cannot afford
unfurled upon the hoard
in torn intellect
abhorred in the twirls
of a de-cored vortex
inter-sexed
and robbed of originality
in the result of cultural finality
empty
in a sea of dreams
our heads blown apart
is only the start
as it seems
ill be whispering
from afar
by dark
yet to embark
from under the rage of my darkening heart
but if i hiss cyphers into your charts
ill become safer than the cause
as i shall get the sympathy
of the claws
across my character
in the jaws of the barrier
to non existence
its even scarier
than the persistence
of ignorant citizens
with hard-ons
and night vision
down-loadable intuition
with the precision of the averages
unlocked savages
in the ravages
of synthetic bliss
1.1 happiness
projected in eyelids
emptiness
defectors of the world
gotta free them
beat them
if you have to
defeat them in the bathroom with a knife
rip their chips of deceit
show them life
clip their legs in retreat
until they secrete
the evil from their throats
binary bohemia
pooling into a despondent
pool of blasphemy
drained happily
from the heads of greed
only when willing
to commit to killing
can we fix the dream
and control the lean
of modernized thinking
chromatically depleting
as our chromosomes are shrinking
not one inkling
nor notion
of the ocean sinking
before the rise
and in all that you bitterly despise
forgotten
as the world is washed
before your eyes
yet to realize
the compliance of failed tries
a crashed system of self told lies
yet ...
i still spy the better days
i can smell them in range
estranged
surprised
i muffle the cries
of demise
in reprise
of a new name
a fresh start
summarized
in the surmise
of restraint
the faint
whisper
delivering from here
the elixir of life's experiences
cryptically laid upon the sentences
of my ethereal commencements
the beautiful lessons
entrenched in the blemishes
the scars of the heart
impart
on you
the virtues
of the tried and true
blood sweat and tears
in the blurbs
of yesteryear
obtuse
it be my will
to instill
in you
the
jaded
truth
love yourself
and i shall
love you
too

I should've guessed
by the nondescript response
teenagers glazed
by 'proper' use of language;
'old-speak' as some would see it
yet to be blessed by a words prowess
fazed by more than 1 syllable
seems inconceivable
and yet text-speak sits,
or rather, should be, languish,
as a hybrid of our languages
prompts me to write this
out of plain literary anguish.

each year on birthdays
write a small poem or limerick
the momentary excitement of opening the card
is lapsed by reason
(it does not contain a £20 note)
the thought bubble denotes
they express some disdain
the speech bubble that follows
the spark in the brain
just another of Uncles gimmicks
lacking the imagination to invoke
something more personal
than a hardback book:
another 200 recipes
for the aspiring young cook

they implied they enjoyed lunchtimes at school
instead wanted an iPad or something
equally expensive and cool

So I try to embrace it
this thing they call urban
write something poetic in text-speak
the very premise of it
is somewhat disturbing
the infinite curve of learning
LOLs from actual LOLS;
the mobile language equivalent
of online voyeurs,
the posters of nonsense,
noobs and trolls

apparently a ROFL
is more-or-less as potent as ****
I scratch my head in wonder
text-speak is used by millions
to converse on a global scale
some how

Q: does SUM exist
(as in 'shut ur mouth' )
is that acceptable?

A: not yet cordially invited on the list
(its an actual word
doesn't count as an acronym)
Im told

the coal face of the lexicon:
indigestible
the steep learning curve:
unpredictable

by your 30s its automatically
re-classified:
Congratulations
You are now officially 'Old'

we are merely wordsmith pedestrians
lost in the tide of text-speak equestrians
jumping and leaping and rolling in SETE and S2R's
are we binned as an S4L, the Spam For Life?
(perhaps I haven't got that abbreviation quite right)

in the context of text-speak
they are suitably troll-like in their essence
forgive me dear teenager
I am but a
SNAG in your presence:

'Sensitive'
(on occasion)
'New
Age' and
'Grown-up'
(given the right persuasion)

the riposte would be SUYF!!
('Shut Up You Fool' - said like MR. T in A-Team)
STM and Spank The Monkey
apologise, SOZ, SRY and Apls
or something equally short,
snappy and funky

at this juncture
before the brain has a puncture
simply BBFN, lest I
BBS or BBIAB or BBIAF
[thankfully this isn't a test]

like WCA
(Who Cares Anyway)
but you'd remark WAI
(and thats I for Idiot)
let out a long distance sigh
wave the imaginary fist
at the youth of yesteryear

all you'd get back was
Wicked Evil Grin
(WEG) for a
Wild *** Guess
(WAG);
a WEG for a WAG
and a PDQ x 2

would be the sum parts of the conversation
between me and you

if language and words and meaning was lost
if acronyms and abbrieviations
in CAPS
was all that there was

*** smeared in ***
with APLS for the PMJI
TXT SPK has got me PML
when MHBFY and
M8s on a MOB crusade
AWOL and dizzy for the next API
MGB for your MF device
throw in some GALGAL logic
where GIGO will simply suffice
Warning: PAW and GJIAGDV
(where the latter is Volcano)
include your GF for some cuddly GBH
and some GHP if she says so

its T2Go
be positive with the T+
and all of that Text-Speak CUZ
I'll T2UL and T for your time,
I'll TAH on the whole TBC

next year i'll just slip in a £20 note
and simply write:
Happy Birthday
with LV
from me

The story of a defined bus
A description of the 1954 Greyhound Scenicruiser that reminds us
A coach bus with its own design
A long distance bus that comes to mind
The Scenicruiser had all the features
Air conditioning to help passengers relax
Picture windows so the passengers wouldn’t feel perplexed
A full equipped restroom at your disposal at your elect
Then a dual half floor with a big window in the middle of galore
The view from all angles at the top
The traveler’s enjoyment that just wouldn’t stop
The famous Scenicruiser being that revolutionized bus
It involves the slogan, “Leave the driving to us”
A bus of the past
The memory that will certainly last
The workhorse of the fleet
The reclining seats that add to the treat
I almost forgot, every seat had a place for your feet
Scenicruiser of years past
I almost hear the echoes of the wheels that turn
History in the making of a long lasting urn
Hauling passengers and freight
The idea is don’t be late
The motto, “Don’t miss the bus”
The Scenicruiser’s history involves all of us.