tomes

 

tomes of haikai --

page  after page scattered

here to beyond

 

 

 

 

 

 

Housekeeping

 

Running an eye over content (cripes sake, more unintelligible 20th century jargon?) has gone apace, consuming the three years prior.  Everything, I mean everything, can be improved. Forever. Depending on my mood or airs. Lucidity. That, too.

Otherwise, I view what posts have been viewed and edit on the fly; for content, layout, and, larger type. Better late than never, its less embarrassing that way. Plausible deniability.

I still intend, eventually, to learn how to write haikai. The skill of fitting Mississippi, or say refrigerator, into a poem, with panache, still eludes me though.

Continuing to add links in haikai, asymmetry and news items I find of interest; 

Some links, like Japanese Storytelling at Bedtime, don't work. I keep it for sentimental reasons. Another is a blog of a woman I fell for, hard - through correspondence. More than an infatuation, I loved her for her mind, and mentorship, her courage. We two were the only bloggers in existence who listed The Westerner as a favorite movie. That's how we met. I remember it well; we spoke about our affection for dogs, actually ,,,

She made her keep as a writer. She wrote like a dream, in fact, with nuance, knowledge and gorgeous phrasings. Resourceful as she was intelligent, she could submit on any subject - she'd knock it down for a few dollars more, reliant on the quality of her craft, even professing to be an authority in different careers. Just enough detail to support a suggestion, say, as example, she was a microbiologist. Fifty cents a word, and never dyed a pathogen to identify under a microscope, putting her in league with institutions such as the CDC.

For that deft deception I adored her, even more so for her dry wit and like me, a solitary manner. By coincidence, both of us were of Norwegian descent, attuned to that taciturn insight inherent of our ancestry despite living a continent apart. You see, we never met in person, yet I affectionately called her Swede.

Fool that I am, I ended up alienating her. Facebook, that platform of division, was involved, of that I'm certain. Resentment of her superior talent, perhaps, I'd reverted to mansplaining that Hillary Clinton was the chosen one to advance the USA's greatest deception; The Rumsfeld/Cebrowski doctrine, intending all the world's inhabitants to be its vassals.
 

Unable to persuade her, in a pathetic, Minnesota Nice/passive aggressive gesture I called her Mrs. Parker.  I'd crossed the line. For that petty indiscretion by my own hand, I had become the un-friend. .

 What mysterious impulse could have forced it? The hour, the season, the ill conceived perfection of a social media apparatus honing its behavioral modification savvy to serve a darker agenda?

There may be a waka poem or two in these pages, also. The feeling's there, the pattern, the partner ... I'll not tell for fear of my in-hesitant heart.

Most remaining rubbish is the result of my sloth and neglect. I beg your pardon.

Unless, I might want to balance a section - I've overlooked tsuri-dōrō until now - or a region, by adding Nikkei Asia today. It seems as indifferent a journal, thus objective, as Interfax or Swiss Policy Research may be. 

One recent Nikkei lead informed of the opening of the first NATO liaison office in Asia next year, in the country of Japan. The report said NATO and Japan will take more steps to increase cooperation by signing an agreement known as an Individually Tailored Partnership Programme ahead of the NATO summit that will be held in Vilnius, Lithuania, in June. Japan also plans to open an independent mission to NATO, separate from the Embassy in Belgium.

Will the black ships sail once again, I wonder? 

Oh, look, I've misspelled liaison.

Noon in the Middle Kingdom (amerikan spoken here)

hmm, look at that baby, clean lines, Corinthian leather, and,
(sssnnniiifff) that new weapon smell!

· Reply · 44m

I think the Chinese are trying to bankrupt the US. They prefer that to actual war.

· Reply · 1h

that's part of war - they stopped buying treasuries already - "death to Amerika"

· Reply · 34m

Yes, but I like to mince words.

· Reply · 33m

no, no, no, that ain't me babe - ` made sure to put it in quotes

· Reply · 33m

Yes, but Uncle Confucius wants YOU! Use your head, son.

· Reply · 31m

come on board for the big win... sir?

· Reply · 30m

No, just follow the Middle Way.

· Reply · 30m

observe the squirrel - yes, I think I understand now

· Reply · 29m

Good. Now leave all your aircraft carriers in my bath tub.

· Reply · 28m

what about my ducks?! ... oh

· Reply · 27m

We can use then for firing practice.

· Reply · 27m

get an estimate first

· Reply · 26m

Bashaar plus 20.

· Reply · 26m

from a reliable contractor - betty's list?

· Reply · 26m

Betty crock of what, eh?

· Reply · 25m

a service to find services

· Reply · 25m

but remember - back down the ladder may cost you more

· Reply · 24m

The true searcher for the way enters the rock cliff cave and then contemplates the guano.

· Reply · 23m

I love a good guerro solo

· Reply · 23m

That figures. I'll tell president Xi that one. He'll have a good ho ho ho.

· Reply · 22m

not now it's nappies

· Reply · 22m

everyone's asleep

· Reply · 21m

But it's noon in the Middle Kingdom.


Manage
LikeShow more reactions
· Reply · 20m

We just like the photograph

drunk on early wine, perhaps,
or, a taste of morning's dew?
on a day like this, one now rendered endless --
poor, poor grasshopper, another poet dead,
one we never read, set up like some god damn fool,
but, for just his lonely heart - and an early, killing frost


;;;;

Habits of Thrift: or, How Counter Insurgency Makes Their Little Dingus' Go Ring-a-ling-ling

sifting through
for copper coins
a penny at a time --
Autumn begins





hope you could dig our swingin' little poem; We never knew dotGOV could be so hip! count it off, Maestro ... Conk, conk, conk-conk ka chonk!

Reconciliation

trying to reconcile my image of a semi-retired slouch
with my OCD has been no Spring picnic










more people seem fixated on a speckled fawn
than concerned with a flight of geese










poets anthropomorphize plants and rocks and things
while I struggle with inanimate objects










my MMPI reveals a predilection for occasional chairs that swivel










more than once I've been called upon to ask myself,
"What would a Monkey do?"









I never understood what they meant by "fat ladies in glasses"
until I'd been under surveillance by the Secret Service











they talk of War and all the while I've fought myself
and I'm one tough son-of-a-bitch

higher learning

love letters --
a yearning for higher learning,
but never to finish school

hard red wheat

drought, dry weeds
every sign and billboard
a bullet hole


pheasant chicks in columns
march into the grass

the yearling's death cry
stilled with a penknife -
the only day it rained

curlews choose flight
over Blacktail Dam

pronghorn antelope
plunging across the road
hard, red wheat

a dust trail rises
with the horizon