Tanuki

 

 

They gave me the "tour", still in handcuffs, first, up the infamous elevator where many a  trouble maker paid their due, without witnesses, (in that regard, there's a tale about a guy who instead beat up two St. Paul PD, but with his feet) and then through the gauntlet between pens and holding cells on a warm Saturday night, unscathed but still blinded, cries of the detainees bemoaning the full moon.

In one cell a stunning young woman stood alone, defiant behind shatterproof glass, rake thin, proud of her screams as captivating as any wild animal, their intensity justified with a declaratory smile mocking the injuries to my eyes as they met her gaze, as though demanding I be handed over to her, that liquid line from cheek to jaw taught, flexing, and clenching.

And then at once, the trance broken - I found myself released into the rabble, with no visible organization to it, as if though that must disturb the incarcerated waiting processing there.

So inured of the nature of anger and its frustration, I offered my own ministrations for calm, to be rejected and restated again without offense or sight, a blind monk among priests and kings in the City of Thieves


... tanuki *
for a few cups of sake
recites the sutras
recidivists crowd the shrine
offering prayers all night long

* tanuki; mischief, magic, and change

spring snow

 

"This is enjoyable for a lot of folks. It's been such a mild winter otherwise. They're forecasting eight to ten inches." 

 

"Really? It's funny; I was just telling a friend earlier of a time I was in South West Texas and watching the scorpions come out to hunt beneath my cot after dark. I was just a little boy.

 

"I shouldn't be surprised, I am a Midwesterner, after all."

 

We thanked each other and I walked out of the market to my car, careful to avoid the snowplow's path.

spring snow --

the moon invisible behind

a wall of clouds

;;;g;;;

 

 

10 - 10 - 10

Her voice echoed down the alley, bouncing off the buildings, loud in the crisp air. Once strident and accusatory, now pleading, bemoaning the hour, the situation, a bit more aggressive. Shutting the walk-up loft's battered door carefully behind him, he quickened his pace. She was holding her own. He wondered when she would contradict herself. As though it mattered.

"Ma'am. We're just saying there have been complaints."

A man's voice. It carried a warning. He was becoming annoyed. The three chevrons on his sleeve heaved and roiled, biceps flexing nervously, the blue cloth barely restraining them.  Behind where he stood two squads cars waited in the little parking space. Just beyond the altercation beginning to unfold, hidden from the view of passersby, lay a respite of sorts.  

Tucked into a notch between buildings, its few humble features remained relatively undisturbed, placed with care and an eye for design. Two worn but sturdy benches flanked a huge circular picnic table with seats attached, liberated from the back of the bar next door. During a somewhat drunken debauch of self-righteousness, it had been rolled away in broad daylight. There it stood at odd angles to three wooden planters with found weeds inside, strains of native prairie plants a thousand years old, seeds carried on a jet stream.

From a Shepard's hook in a corner hung a bird feeder and chimes, a place to store ladders and other implements on the opposite. Always at the ready, a cooking grill stood in the center. Neat and orderly as any English garden, a border of Perennials completed the scene. The tiny oasis belied the bleakness of the neighborhood's meager prospects. It was a sanctuary literally carved out of the asphalt.

  Humming and clicking as they cooled, the police cars squatted menacingly, paint schemes in black and white a stark contrast to the gold insignias like badges on each door. The constant babble of radioed dispatches emitted unintelligible commands to anyone more than a few feet distant. Adding to the cacophony, strobe lights flashing red and blue, every surface of worn Chicago brick bedazzled without mercy.

  She seemed oblivious to the danger despite this tension. "Or is she", he thought? He couldn't be sure even now. Implacably forceful or subtly benign, her moods could stymie him. At times it made him want to retreat. Walking out quietly, sometimes he did, or to go for a drive. He would jump on the trampoline with her other times. She could engage on an uncomfortably personal level, arguing every point impossible somehow, total strangers or her beloveds, until he forgot how it started. It didn't often matter, since both were adult children of alcoholics, or was it a peculiarity of the neighborhood?

Two more officers lingered in the shadows, chattering quietly like bored observers watching a ballgame.

"Why can't we enjoy our birthdays! It's just a little party!" Her speech slurred slightly. " It's 10-10-10!"

  As though explaining to the dullest of children, she enunciated with an emphasis of particular stridency, tangential or not, sibilants less distinct with each phrase.

"We can't even celebrate our birthdays?!" She repeated dates and numbers to anybody who might be listening.

Closer now, he inhaled and breathed out, slowed his walk, willing himself a compliant posture. Making sure to stay in the light, he held both hands open and in plain sight.

Nearing the end of his patience, the Sargeant's voice took on a darker tone.

"Ma'am, we've been called out twice. Next time, somebody's going down." He wasn't having any circular arguments. The warning had been directed at the both of them.

The husband directed his gaze at his wife only and smiled.

"What'cha doin', hon? Gettin' into a fight with the cops?" like berating a little girl, he continued, calmly yet each word with the slightest emphasis.

"I just took the dogs in now. We're all goin' in - right now."

Both promise and order, an offer of compliance to the Sargeant, feigned admonishment to his wife. Surely she knew how to respond? The situation had turned serious.

He'd been in a similar situation years earlier and only a few blocks away. Like this one, it started with the neighbors and a noise complaint raising someone's ire.  Subsequently, a radio turned too loud set off a chain of events uncommon to a local noise ordinance. With the right set of personality traits any situation can escalate from the ridiculous to sublime. Involving police contact, in an instant a right horror show.

The complainant was known to the police department as a serial caller to 911 who placed grievances against the officers responding if she felt slighted or deemed "enforcement" was lacking.
The lady of that house where the call was made on became belligerent enough to be put under arrest. A guest, practically a stranger, inexplicably jumped up and assaulted one officer.

Calls went out for back up. Stuck in a no man's land, the husband went to ground when an officer stuck his fingers in his eyes from behind. Eerily calm, he complimented the effectiveness of the hold. This earned him curses, boots and a tasing he didn't even feel, so involved was he in the wonder of police tactics.

Sixteen officers responded to the call in all, a few were acquaintances from the tavern they'd both frequent. A vehement argument broke out with the first officers on the scene. Fisticuffs broke out in the middle of the street. None of this appeared on the record. A witness later quipped the scene resembled sharks at a kill.

What had set off this misfortune? The husband told his wife to get in the house. His voice attracted the attention of an angry Lieutenant on scene. He then gave chase to the wife who managed to elude him. She locked the screen door behind her and then taunted him through the screen as he commanded her to come out. The husband eluded three tackles before his capture.

Many years later, they both understood the other's most subtle gestures. As if on cue, respond she did.

Abruptly turning on her heel, she marched off in the opposite direction. Her arms and elbows apace with her gait, it appeared as though to make a last stand in the garden cul de sac. For the briefest of moments he looked after her not sure what to do.

Well aware that pursuit of this one could lead in many unexpected directions, he remained still. Quietly, he observed her gamine walk, so compelling and graceful, a rare species in retreat, the insides of her long wrists exposed and turned slightly askew.

For whatever odd reason, the strains of a familiar love song came to him. Maybe a chord from a car stereo passing on Highway 61 set it off. This conjured up a picture, a gathering of people your Mother wouldn't approve of, its melody lilting, an old standard Norteno style, lyrics evoking casual friendships become intense affairs and grown more entwined than bargained for. An odd exhilaration overcame him then, reckless and inviting, shivering up his spine. He exhaled quickly, like stifling an errant laugh during a sermon in church. His humor was doubtlessly irreverent, however.

At that moment she, too, was overcome. Her voice was always one that carried. Nor did it go unnoticed this time. an obscene insult hung precariously in the crisp, night air, taunting as an errant curve ball. And in that instant the situation changed. Authority had been breached. Egos were at stake. A determination had to be made. This ball was about to be smacked out of the park.

Throughout the shift the young cop riding shotgun beside the Sargeant remained quiet and motionless. Therefore he was unnoticed. Slumped in the car seat as he was, he was able to observe without being seen, a tactic he'd learned during two tours in Afghanistan and the Mid East. He'd also learned the art of ambush, training extensively in assault tactics, before transfer to a Police unit attached to JSOC. A stranger in a strange land, he'd guarded and arrested foreigners and friendlies alike; even stood patrol over some peculiarly questionable fields of native crops.

Mostly, his duties were apprehensions involving rapid, fully armed actions against unknown targets. The bulk were turkey walks, fully equipped squadrons against one or two unarmed suspects, actions Blackwater and other unnamed mercenary units wouldn't or couldn't handle.

On his discharge he'd locked in a police department job within just a few weeks. This was his 6th actual duty night out, and he was bored to death. Like the sound of a starter's gun, his demeanor burst from quiet watcher to angry agitation.

"What did you say, Ma'am?!" No response. "Wait a minute - come back here!"

The last order barked with command. He'd had enough posh talk - any patience he'd learned on this job had suddenly regressed to tactical training and muscle memory.

Barely able to wrest control, the weary Sargeant looked ready to stand down and let the excited rookie run with it. But, in his haste, the newbie had locked himself in the car. He hadn't learned to be a good Jump Out Boy yet, tackling unassuming pedestrians with a leap out of a moving SUV from behind tinted windows. Robbed of this exhilaration, he cursed his inattention and fumbled with the handle.

The husband still hadn't moved. He lingered as though in deep contemplation, then eyeing his wife's retreat, seemingly unaware of the forces gathering around him. Actually, struck by the incongruity and happenstance, he marveled at the chain of events that had led to that point in time, its escalation and Absurdity.

In his position to "agree" with the new recruit and stand down would be the safest course. He felt the aggravation in his voice and the menace below its surface. His funds were low and bail for two would be impossible on short notice. The country was still in a Recession. The multi-billion dollar industry of fraud carried on unabated. He lived by his wits and his craft, breadwinner an anachronism, building a name for himself in the Black Economy at worst.

Who would want to spend the weekend in jail anyway? You could get roughed up in the process - he'd heard the stories of the trip up the isolated jailhouse elevator. The memory inherent in unchecked authority washed over him like an icy blackness. Sighing inaudibly, he gathered himself as the young cop flung open the door. He turned, with a smile, and then spoke.

"Ahhh, she's just had too much to drink is all." 

Mockingly penitent, delivered like some country bumpkin. He scuffed the toe of his boot along the pavement, for emphasis, which placed him squarely to block the squad car's door.

Short of leering, his grin widened, a little over the top but for a lack of concern in his eye. The display distracted the young cop. He hadn't trained quite this way. He'd certainly never been confronted so.

The husband's body language reverted to a cat taking pleasure in teasing a mouse.

" ... gee, officer - guess I better get control of my bitch."


each in turn,
the crickets all go silent -
Autumn's voice



` ` ` ;;;;;

 

The Wheel

 

  Were their lives prearranged? But how can that be possible? I may or may not fear the truth. Actually, I don't fear much of anything at all anymore.

Our fate may already be sealed by the turn of some monolithic, cosmic wheel, for that matter, a record of the future written eons ago the deciding factor. Where's the point in dawdling in metaphysical claptrap? Although, it still can't explain when I saw her the first time.

In appearance she was very young. Her face, set just so, affected an innocence that mirrored the little boy's perfect features at her side exactly. Once she became aware I was watching - I doubt anything missed her attention - the corners of her mouth curling, jawline rising ever so slightly, exposing a flawless throat. For the briefest of moments I imagined her offering it like ripe fruit for the taking.

"This can't be", I thought. Had she just made a gesture? My cheeks flushed a little. What the Hell was I thinking? I hadn't looked away, however. Her eyes, and their gaze, were inescapable. No shame or remorse there. Near crystalline in perfection.

I couldn't be sure. There it was again! Something imperceptible, yet like an expectation, perhaps. Or, a clever deceit? Intuition, maybe, revealed in her best feature, belying calm and wisdom beyond her years, or mine, of an awful knowing Consciousness. I knew my presence aroused it.

I turned aside, mumbled some hurried excuse and walked away.


spring crows,
languid in their searching --
the old school ground

 

 

Swede Hollow

 

 

Although one of the oldest settlements in the city,  Swede Hollow was also arguably the poorest as each wave of immigrants settled in the valley.

 

The area was originally a small, steep, wooded ravine cut through by Phalen Creek, with its first settlers arriving in the 1850's. Unusually for a neighborhood in the heart of a mid-20th-century major American city, Swede Hollow was never electrified, and plumbing was extremely primitive. The residences were constructed almost entirely out of recovered and scrapped building materials and serviced by a single dirt road.

 

The former area was a true slum. People and industries occupying the surrounding "upper" neighborhoods used the Hollow as a makeshift dump, which the inhabitants down below routinely scavenged for clothing, metals, building supplies, and even shoe repair needs.^[4] Several gristmills operated on the creek by the 1850s. Railroad tracks were built along the creek in 1865 because the creek bed provided an easier grade up from the Mississippi River than bluffs elsewhere.

capped in the north by the sprawling Hamm's Brewery with its imposing Hamm family mansion overlooking the area,  the poorest as each wave of immigrants settled in the valley.^[1] Swedes, Poles, Italians and Mexicans all at one point called the valley home. A similar community just downstream called Connemara Patch also existed for Irish immigrants.

So squalid were the conditions of the Hollow, in fact, that in 1956 the city declared the entire neighborhood a health hazard. The last remaining families were forcibly evicted, and the entire housing stock was burnt to the ground.

Phelan Creek ran down from a chain of lakes to the North, part of a larger floodplain molded by oceans, jet streams and glacier, later diverted underground to accommodate streets and homes and schools and neighborhoods diverse in origin, culture, and language. This process repeats again, with different players, a hundred years later, its microcosms occurring block by block, progress determined by destruction, perpetuity and fate. 

 

It emerges near  the vestiges of an expansive garden space gone to ruin, the creek bed rises again, in sight of remnants of an orchard, with plum gone wild, some favored by spring reservoirs  and mostly overgrown.  The slow moving trickle wends it's way, receiving numerous inlets of spring water running from the hills above to form a lagoon that eventually spills toward a goal.

Nothing is quite ordinary here; a sense of time passing sustains even in the thin soil of its slopes, shedding, eroding and re-birthing through wear and weather, invasive saplings mixing with ancient seed stock blown from the prairie. A few heroic elms, tall, skeletal, foreboding in death and sheer size, demarcate an age and boundaries surpassed by people and goods arriving and leaving, their destinies bound by this northernmost port to the breadbasket of America. 

Eventually, the creek diverts underground again,  through culvert and sandstone worn by the waters of the Mississippi itself, dropping millennia to millennia in the space of a few hundred feet.

 

 

as now, in eras' past

traces of the Mississippi

mark a current's flux

they beckon that we follow

make entreaties we depart

Black Helicopters: zero dark thirty . . . . . again

 

I remember the Black Helicopters. That's right, I saw them. They hovered right over the crib, shaking the rafters, the pulse of their rotors like a bass drum played double time deep in a black cat bone. I didn't know whether to fall screaming to the floor or run into the street shouting platitudes to glory and firing my riot gun indiscriminately at erstwhile targets hidden in shadows. 

 

I wasn't the only one. It seems our own River City had been chosen, along with other metropolises across the nation, as practice grounds for doppelganger constructions born of the sands of Araby and beyond. San Diego was one, Dallas another and others, all without prior notice a dozen or so years after the Big One - 9/11. 

 

Actually, I went out on the roof to observe a squad of choppers, a hairsbreadth over 100 feet above, maneuvering like the bats that rose from the Mississippi on many a summer evening, door gunners and missiles glinting menace on that moonlit night. I could almost reach out and touch them.

 

The paper was headlined with explanations the next morning. It had been an exercise to protect our freedoms after all, in league with our now infamous efforts to save the world from "terr'ists" while spreading Democracy afar. 

 

Visiting the supermarket later in the day, I questioned the two off duty policeman stationed there to quell shoplifters if they had been informed, and, to the purpose of such an exercise. 

 

The officer responding boomed, "You don't want Bin Laden attacking us again, do you?", in proper authoritative tones, as though he were addressing the village idiot.

 

I didn't have the heart to remind him that Bin Laden had died quietly of kidney disease in Pakistan well over a decade before.

the fog of war --

even the general 

dons his battle fatigues

 

 

 

FM

 

   Every morning we drove into the Res, my little FM radio with the broken antenna would faintly pick up the signal from KXSW.
 

   The nearer we would draw, the stronger became the beating of the drum as deer stood, shoulder to shoulder, lining the road like some pensive gauntlet, the moon in every eye.

   

Agency Village--
    the eagle returns in daylight
     to inspect an old kill

Maidan

 
I'd just spent time analyzing my troublesome laptop with a computer tech, online, in the winter of 2014. This guy was different than any I'd spoken to before. He'd just recommended a competitor over his own software. I wanted to know more about the man.

"Where are you from, friend?"

"Ukraine."

His tone belied a weight as though burdened with some calculation - I'd heard of trouble. Not many others had. I couldn't quite phrase the question, fresh on my mind, uncertain as I was in how to frame it.
 

All I could muster was to ask about the weather. Where I live we boast of our Latitude as though it's some great fete to survive such extremes.




Maidan -
 the technician reports,
"it's cold as fuck"


Ihor Kolomoïsky did not kill himself.

Genjuan Ends ... With A Book!

 

 Dear haiku friends,

I hope this email finds you in good health in spite of the pandemic we are living through. 

I thought you might want to know that the Genjuan International Haibun Contest has decided to call it a day with this year's Contest, so there will be none in 2022. The reason is simple (unconnected with coronavirus!): neither judges, nor officer wished to go on. It has always been hard work and with no revenue from entry fees, an act of charity attempting to better connect Japan with the rest of the world of haiku. This has continued for 13 years (incl. the forerunning Kikakuza Contest). Other things must be done instead. If you have or know of a suitable newsletter or webpage, it might be nice for your readers to read know this news in advance. 

As a final act, the Hailstone Haiku Circle (based in Kansai, Japan), which has been running the Contest for the past 8 years, has just published an anthology of awarded pieces from the last 4 years (+ judges' comments, judges' haibun, new trans. of Kyorai, Basho, Kikaku, and illustrations by Buson and Taiga). It can be ordered from overseas sales officer, Hitomi Suzuki here: indigoapple28@gmail.com 

It costs ￥1,400 (or US$ 18 airmail). Picture of the cover and more details are here at our Icebox site: https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2021/07/22/the-latest-and-last-genjuan-anthology/

Even without buying the book, you can read just the top four works from each year at that site by clicking the appropriate 'Genjuan Awarded Pieces' link at the top. 

Thanks in advance for anything you can do to get the word out.

 

Respectfully,

Stephen Gill

 

 

 

  

It Rained: haibun

 

 

 

 

I remember those crazy shads. Nemesis brand, as I recall. Everybody had a pair on. Secret agent wrap around style, they kept the dust out of your eyes and wouldn't fall off.  I wore them all that summer, 16 hours a day in 100 degree heat, and it only rained once. Don't know if them pipe liners, or, the Latinos started the fashion. They out numbered us white boys 10 to 1, but we spoke English, took and gave orders.

Not me. I was the fuckin' new guy, the nigger of the outfit, and, potential whipping boy. To my good fortune, I stuck with the Mexicans and Hondurans mostly, steel or poly pipe, depending what work was. My preference, too. They were nicer people than the drunked up cowboys. Being outsiders, they were more tolerant of my lack of knowledge. You do get teased, at best, along with the job description. It's the same with any trade. Nice to know what they're saying about you, too, so you pick up the language little by little.




drought and dead weeds--
  in every road sign
  a bullet hole




Not like my chosen profession. That was life or death, and I'm Jack Black, mother fucker. There, I'd worked with hundreds of new "emigres" on thousands of spaces in a Metropolitan numbering a million for a multi-billion dollar industry of fraud, no less, at the behest of our elected leaders.  But don't rescue the schedule, however far behind, they might tell you to take your tools and go home. Until, finally, when it all crashed, we all did.

My stance was anybody that worked as hard I did was all right. For that matter, here in one of the last American boom towns, there were people present from every corner of the Earth, all of them on a last chance effort to seek redemption.  As for me, in this oil patch set among prairie, my comeuppance was a meal of tamales wrapped in fresh corn leaf created by someone's loving spouse just before dawn, its sauce tempered sweetly with crisp green chilies emitting fire ... la familia producion l'amour. Auqi, no es tardes, amigo, de nada, primo, de nada.




pheasant chicks
in columns march
into the grass





Nope, this was a humbling experience. You see, there's just nowhere to hide on that plain. You might have to stand on a rock to get a cell signal. Ain't no trees ... but glory to God, there is wheat. Waving amber and sunlit on end, from it, you can observe the wind criss-cross the prairie from miles away. Pray, you might escape that splendor, for at night it becomes an Ocean, phosphorescence visible in the seed. You could chart a course by the moon or the stars where they meet the horizon, always ahead, your headlights egging you on, your destiny, perhaps, to just let go the wheel.




an Angus calf all caught up --
a few loose strands of wire





Somewhere in deepest, darkest Central America, there's a video taken on a cell phone in a place five cultural nightmares laid end to end and a little dictatorship away. It's protagonist is a laconic, gangling man, tan as bark but for the raccoon lightness around his eyes, reeling like some mad, shape shifting kami chasing some lads around and over the riven earth, snorting and stomping, pretending to be a bull. They made me do it, and not so reluctantly I agreed. So little children would laugh. All little children share that laughter, yes?

Then came the day I hit that deer, fiddling with my wipers in the convoy and a split second lost. I could have missed him, an immature buck, I'm quick because I have to be, yet it was so close ... the Honduran boys finished the poor fella off with a penknife, his blood soaked up by the dust along side that perfectly straight road.

And later, leaning against the wind carrying the earth's contents to the sky, they feasted on its haunches, lit by the waning sun just before midnight on the only day it rained.




red sky at night -
curlews choose flight
over Black Tail Dam

 

 

Prairie Rose

 

 

 

A mile or two west of Dickinson, ND, and the cell and wi-fi connection gadgets are barely operable. I found if you stand on a rock you bring a signal in. But mostly I go into town now and then for smokes and supplies, find some high ground to make calls, search the state website.

Along the way I met some long-time residents, their dialect full of 'd's' in place of 'th's' and a way of speaking like old Scandinavians in Minnesota, yet oddly westernized, as though any moment they might burst into cowboy song.

Like lots of older folks they seemed starved for conversation, for someone just to listen.

This old fella come up and asked me where it was I was from, what my plans were and, mostly without prompting, talked about how the town had changed with the oil boom - real estate prices through the roof, old-timers selling out and leaving, and 'wasn't all the traffic just awful'? I commented on the trusting nature of the town's people, and for a minute he seemed to brighten some.

I forget what else it was he said . . .


prairie rose-
a barn swallow suspended
in ceaseless wind

 

 

 

Summer Clouds: haibun

Moonfly and me took a walk through our three acre wood today. I don't know what drew us. I just followed her lead, she taking me firmly by the hand to remove me from my lethargy. First, we skirted the perimeter, peering into it's darkness and then, for a lack of caution, walked right in together as though it were an everyday occurrence.

We kept a sharp eye for wildcats, jaybirds and poison ivy (not to be confused with Ivy, the neighbor's daughter, or, trailing ivy on a blue mail box). I wore long pants and a dead man's shoes, forging ahead to clear the vague trail overgrown in green shadow, twisting south to north with others of uncertain origin intersecting here and there. Arriving at a fork, naturally, we chose the high road.

We bypassed the reed bed where many a crawdad or rollie pollie might wander for a swim or a drink. No deer or unicorns were spotted near its banks. Moonfly was easily able to escape the branches and switches that I had to duck and dodge, flitting beneath while I crashed through above.

A far piece distant, 100 yards or more, and a perilous traverse atop a block wall consumed our return home, though we managed to check ourselves for ticks and chigger bugs having safely arrived. Where's a Opossum when you need one?

'

when I was just a boy

I counted to a thousand -

summer clouds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boris Yeltsin Standing On a Tank

 I still have this powerful mental image of Boris Yeltsin standing on a tank. I don't recall any one photo in particular. Vaguely, perhaps ...

I imagine him aged and weakened by his own political chicanery and alcoholism.

The latter is rumor, not substantiated by more than the dire nature of the situation.

He'd nearly sold the country out from under its citizens to the New York banking cartel.

His Dachau, security and family were assured, from his share of IMF loans diverted to he and the accomplices. '98, wasn't it? Shortly thereafter, the banker's cabal lost their asses as well as their shirts, only to be made whole again. The ones who survived ....

That must make Bill Browder late to the party, any trace of gravitas light in substantial proofs of his invention of the Magnitsky plot to commit tax fraud. Eventually, John McCain carried his water, loyal to whatever his captains of industry would demand. Nations followed suit, made paper tigers of their own promotion.

I can't recall the epiphany Boris experienced, if there were one, the realization he'd been horn swaggered into his own peculiar boondoggle, or, to whatever Gulag he was about to commit his fellow man.

All that was required was he maintain the Lie.

Was it the day, the field, or the realization Russian soldiers under his command were about to mow down his comrades and sovereign kin? Did he struggle through the fog of war, or had he felt struck by a bolt of lightning?

Could those grunts see past that rotten duty the angst in Yeltsin's blood shot eye, climbed up in plain sight on that spartan Russian tank, surrounded by housewives and uncles, the odd veteran waiting for the inevitable, and willful children out on a lark ... ?

Does dissent kill, or is it suicidal? On that day, neither.

a flock of 'jays

ravage through the park -

the mourning dove's

silent repose

Last Man

 

 

My best friend Steve is a Vietnam vet. Bless his heart, he never broached the subject, nor did I, until I’d known him for a few years.

he told me some tales, witty, sardonic, with some hilarious punchlines thrown in and, quite often, disturbingly surreal. He’d won a medal for stealing a jeep once … it’s a long story, I couldn’t tell it like he could.

We have a last man's club of sorts; one bottle Johnny Walker Black, one pair clean socks, a pack of Winston's, stuffed into a re-gifted wine box – everything a guy needs.

Someday, one of us will get to piss on the other's grave.

Dragon's Breath
the forest alight in flame,
red, green, orange, black!
laughing, a ghost beckons,
beautiful and serene

George Floyd

Day four and now cars on fire on the highway in Minneapolis. News anchors practically begging the governor and mayor to *just do something*.

Really? Not at all an uncommon theme in this day and age.

Then all the Minnesota plates in Hudson, Wisconsin, smack dab on the border 20 miles beyond are stuck, too, since they could close Interstate 94 again and first Minneapolis, then St. Paul, got the curfew. But most the new arrivals came from the East, Chicago to the Rust Belt, a surge of professional agitators and a sight to small towns on the way and this outpost between civilization, the big woods and rolling prairies.

30 white kids at the riverfront park and downtown packed, all 3/4 mile of it. An odd mix, revolutionaries and tourists. No place to go in the Twin Cities. Everybody had shut down for fear of the barbarians in the metropolitan, urban centers. You couldn't even buy a tank of gasoline despite pallets of bricks placed strategically in the hot spots by someone, or some organization, unknown.

I infiltrated the protest to get a feel for the grievances, the postures and imposters. Provocateurs abound in America, real and imagined, some just figments of their own imagination.

I got the latest narrative, "we come in peace, and we deny property damage as a response". I've lived through the Civil Rights Act and know the motivations run much deeper than that. Heard from a big, likeable Swede talking to a La Raza lookin' character on the fringe with two mugs in tow.

"I don't see colors", he stated proudly.

Holmes and I both blurted, "What? Are you color blind?"

I'd worked with enough undocumented over the years to understand caution. Me and the small, quiet hombre, Central American by the looks of him, shared a wary respect. We both knew the other was a spy.

One professional agitator ran the show, and despite my efforts, I didn't get his pay master's name, but I knew mi vato and his homies weren't there to shout slogans. But the po po had 'em outnumbered. I never seen so many blues in this little village before.

They weren't really much different than I, similar in importance and status, neither of us really belong to this high dollar real estate escape from the urban jungle - we who cared not for repression; why does someone have to pay absurd fines for BS like possession of marijuana or driving while suspended to support executive bonuses and parachute clauses for those who oversaw failed publlc pensions and bailed out boondoggles? We're all opportunists in that regard, migrants from The City of Thieves.

A couple of National Guard boys (so they said) in civvies and open carry seemed all jacked up talking smack with no where to go. The one gave it away. Too fuckin' nervous. First time he carried in public, I reckon. Likely as afraid of the police presence as any scofflaw or knucklehead, though the cops I'd spoken to were fairly laid back, enjoying the overtime and mild atmosphere.

Their polite audience, as I'd eavesdropped, some well to do married couples from Golden Valley, that far suburb in the sunset on this beautiful, summer like eve, had no where to dine out but here. One of 'em said I looked like Sam Elliot and took my picture. I'd gone without a haircut for weeks, moustache bristling and a protest against Covid lockdowns that closed the only decent barber I'd found anywhere around. You should see it now ... At one point, as I interviewed the sign spinners, I heard a ruckus above the chants and horn honking. 

Jesus Christ was walking through the midst of the group shouting "Heil Hitler!" with his arms raised in defiance. 

They just asked him to leave; an appropriate response. "JC", to the locals, got the nick name for his appearance and eccentricity. I know, because I'd met him once, gave him the once over, but, I can't say I know him personally.
`


 apple blossom white -
 placards and pamphlets strewn
across the commons

Boris Yeltsin standing on a tank

I still have this powerful mental image of Boris Yeltsin standing on a tank.

I don't recall any one photo in particular. Vaguely, perhaps ...

I imagine him aged and weakened by his own political chicanery and alcoholism.

The latter is rumor, not substantiated by more than the dire nature of the situation.

He'd nearly sold the country out from under its citizens to the New York banking cartel.

His Dachau, security and family were assured, from his share of IMF loans diverted to he and the accomplices. '98, wasn't it? Shortly thereafter, the banker's cabal lost their asses as well as their shirts, only to be made whole again. The ones who survived ....

That must make Bill Browder late to the party, any trace of gravitas light in substantial proofs of his invention of the Magnitsky plot to commit tax fraud. Eventually, John McCain carried his water, loyal to whatever his captains of industry would demand. Nations followed suit, made paper tigers of their own promotion.

I can't recall the epiphany Boris experienced, if there were one, the realization he'd been horn swaggered into his own peculiar boondoggle, or, to whatever Gulag he was about to commit his fellow man.

All that was required was he maintain the Lie.

Was it the day, the field, or the realization Russian soldiers under his command were about to mow down his comrades and sovereign kin? Did he struggle through the fog of war, or had he felt struck by a bolt of lightning?

Could those grunts see past that rotten duty the angst in Yeltsin's blood shot eye, climbed up in plain sight on that spartan Russian tank, surrounded by housewives and uncles, the odd veteran waiting for the inevitable, and willful children out on a lark ... ?

Does dissent kill, or is it suicidal? On that day, neither.

a flock of 'jays

ravage through the park -

the mourning dove

silent in repose

City of Thieves: haibun

They gave me the "tour", still in handcuffs, first, up the infamous elevator where many a  trouble maker paid their due, without witnesses, (in that regard, there's a tale about a guy who instead beat up two St. Paul PD, but with his feet) and then through the gauntlet between pens and holding cells on a warm Saturday night, unscathed but still blinded, cries of the detainees bemoaning the full moon.

In one cell a stunning young woman stood alone, defiant behind shatterproof glass, rake thin, proud of her screams as captivating as any wild animal, their intensity justified with a declaratory smile mocking the injuries to my eyes as they met her gaze, as though demanding I be handed over to her, that liquid line from cheek to jaw taught, flexing, and clenching.

And then at once, the trance broken - I found myself released into the rabble, with no visible organization to it, as if though that must disturb the incarcerated waiting processing there.

So inured of the nature of anger and its frustration, I offered my own ministrations for calm, to be rejected and restated again without offense or sight, a blind monk among priests and kings in the City of Thieves


... tanuki *
for a few cups of sake
recites the sutras
recidivists crowd the shrine
offering prayers all night long

* tanuki; mischief, magic, and change

Patch

I showed Bobby my brand new cowboy hat. It was the end of a long day on the patch. I bought it in Kildeer, up the line from Dickinson near Teddy Roosevelt's old haunts. I wanted to know what style it was, where it hailed from. Bobby was the eldest of a crew of Navajo carpenters from Arizona, a place better known for it's cowboy accouterments than any existence they might eke out there. Age wise, I was an elder, too, which may be why he tolerated my company. Bob sat still and eyed the prize, measuring it's weight and brim before he answered. It definitely had a presence, no doubt.
 

Just what I'd thought. Texas, damn straight, and a 10X besides. That means it's tall and sturdy, and can't be blocked no more. It was straw like a working man would wear with a resin coat to make it stand up and dyed white for the noon day heat. It fit good and snug, so it wouldn't blow away nor fall off in a tumble.

Bob, on the other hand, wore a modest black felt number, made when hats were as common as belts and suspenders. A 4X, which is far more pliable, so to give with the wind yet deflect the hard rain. Its slightly vague shape had been shifted many times.

I pointed to the crow's feather tucked in mine. It molted from one of those city crows that live where I come from, found in the alley next to my door just before I started on this journey. I'd kept it resting on the cowl of my Dodge 360 until that very day. I'd stuck it in the band for a little bit of luck. Cocked a little sideways, it had that hat have an outlaw flair.

That's when I confided to Bob how them city crows would squawk at me in their city dialect. Sometimes I'd talk back, or ask a question directly, I told him, by tone of voice or just the way I'd look. They'd turn their heads to eye me up, make some raspy call to alert their fellows, then resign themselves to clucking sounds as though chiding me. Or, maybe they were just sad. 

  Bob looked at the feather, me waiting, while neither of us spoke. After a time he declared it was medicine - it could even cure cancer!

I figure that's a good thing, 'cause I've been smokin' a lot more lately, you know?


the hawk moth sips
a last bit of nectar -
the Bakken and the shale

 

Sleepy Bees

We had some Joe Pye Weed planted in the midst of our garden. I placed it there, in plenty of light, with compost around its roots.

I took some from the lot next to the credit union building, after hours, when nobody one was looking. It grew wild there, but sooner or later, development would over take that little piece of unfettered nature and bulldoze it all back to asphalt, block and mortar.

That old weed attracts lots of insects, including Monarch's migrating up from Mexico. I wanted to do my thing for the butterflies, you know what I mean?

What really intrigued me were the masses of bumble bees that flocked to its medicinal flowers, shocking enough for the dearth of honeybees present, and all through out this northern latitude's season. It was if their lives depended on its nectar, so thick their number on its pistils and stems, from early on the fragrant breeze of summer beyond the lingering heat of fall.

eupatorium purpureum -
in the chill air of morning
petting the sleepy bees

.. * GENJUAN Int'l Haibun Contest * .. . . . . . . . . 2020 GUIDELINES . . . . . . . .

GENJUAN Int'l Haibun Contest 2020 GUIDELINES

Genjuan 幻住庵 is the name of the cottage near Lake Biwa where, in 1690, Basho lived for a time. His residence in this ‘Vision-Inhabited Cottage’ was probably the happiest period of his life, and it was there that he wrote his most famous short haibun. The purpose of the Contest is to encourage the writing of fine haibun in English and maintain the connection between the traditional Japanese perception of haibun and what is evolving around the world. The judges are hoping that the Contest will continue to receive a warm response from all haibun writers. The award for the Grand Prix remains the same – a fine, full-size replica of a Hokusai or Hiroshige ukiyo-e print – and smaller gifts will be sent to the An (Cottage) Prize-winners. The writers of all the decorated works will receive a certificate of merit. We sincerely look forward to your participation.











Guidelines for 2020

1 Subject: Free.

2 Style: No restrictions, but special attention must be paid to honour the spirit of haikai. This includes such features as the subtle linking of haiku with prose, omission prompting the reader’s imagination, humour and self-deprecation. (Examples of previous year’s winning works can be viewed at Genjuan page links at top rt. of our top page)

3 Length: In total, between 7 and 35 lines (at 1 line = 80 spaces; a 3-line haiku counts as 3 lines; the title, as 1 line).

4 Haiku/Title: At least one haiku (no formal restrictions) should be included and each piece should be given a title, however short.

5 Format: Print each piece separately on one sheet of A4-size paper (and use the reverse if long) and write at the very bottom your name (and your pen name, if you have one) together with your address, telephone number, and email address. Your privacy will be strictly protected, and the judges will not see your names until the result has been decided.

6 Deadline: All entries should reach the following address between 1 October 2019 and 31 January 2020. Please send your entries to: Ms. Yaeno Azuchi, 53-56 Izumigawa-cho, Shimogamo, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-0807, Japan. Entries received after this date might not be accepted. Kindly avoid sending by express and using extra-large envelopes. Best write your home address on your envelope, too. We apologize for not being able to accept emailed entries.

7 Entry Fee: None.











8 Restrictions: Entrants can send up to three entries, but one or two is what we normally expect. They should be unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere. As we cannot return your entries after screening, please retain your own copies.

9 Questions: All queries should be sent to the address above or by email to yaeno@iris.eonet.ne.jp Email Ms. Azuchi 2 weeks after sending your entries if you wish to have an acknowledgement of receipt.

10 Judges: Akiko Takazawa, Stephen Henry Gill (Tito), Sean O’Connor

11 Special Request: The authors of the decorated works will later be requested to send us their pieces as Word-files by email. In this, we expect your cooperation.

12 Results: The results will be posted on the Hailstone Icebox site by May, after awardees have first been notified by email. Later, the prize-winning pieces will be posted there on a dedicated page. Judges’ comments will, in due course, be sent to awardees, together with prizes and/or certificates of merit.