mollusk

 too-warm night       children pushing  each other in wheelbarrow 

 cherries jubilee       at some bar drinking  with the fellas

child running.... pepperoni has grown  quite cold . porch light off...     approaching people  i print up reports . shrimp boat passes...        hours spent  standing on the pier  . new Tesla moving at breakneck speed... slowly sippin' this coffee . tattered emotions  wrapping up her hair she goes to bed . lunch stop—       warm roast beef sandwich and small coffee . transporting—different worlds behind closed eyes . cats in heat couple at odds . rusted coffee pot granddad's 'spit' bucket . behind curtains a buzzing workforce in this office . gray-blue walls for  a time this office prison- like . tired— unable to string together words . hurriedly counting down time til shift  is over . frayed edges ... her apron a faded cornflower blue

 town outskirts madame's house have best tulips 

 daddy meets loanshark seedy side of town

combing       this long black hair... twists and turns of Life

down Senryu Avenue            seeing many lives  in various facets . sunrise     several dahlias dressed in Sunday pinkness . milk´n cereal      for his kids... where´d i misplace  normalcy  . armless mannequin   supposing   she´s Venus de Milo . untouched books      thermometers don tell  how long my life´ll be . revising her will      aged actress wants her swan provided for . summer shower   humans pass by   with their own insights . trying   to look detached   hoping i dont look indifferent . witch hazel   for my face:   finally home from work  . watching Kurosawa film      before bed... this monochrome world . slaughterhouse...        something charming about brick-red color´d blood . unable to finish        house of cards... ¨who stole the ...

hungry waves our feet dissolve under foamy tongues . knock on door salesmen with their  oily grins . enjoying  whiskey overnight  stay at a  villa . waving mustard talk of ´Black Death' over tea . high   stopping by bookstore   for magazine . mannequins  tonight they  huddle around whispering

 irritated by everything doll's beady-black eyes

breakfast lady   draggin' this morning—work work work  prostitutes   stop by for coffee—nearly 6 am brewing coffee   dropped   my sleepiness in it overnight shift   suddenly thinking of   samurai dread at an end   father's dead child   discovered swiftly flowing downstream   traces   of my time out with friends   bowling drinking   and gossiping white   of noon tombstones—i don't want to die  sagebrush   desert burial   of yellowed bones my monmon gone:  speaking to her   obituary picture  *mother in Kouri-Vini

floating world   row of dolls   same blank expressions  same dust   on ornamental plates—this floating world  with blank expression   home from work   staring at the wall  workmen   returning home after 4am— things we do most nights   colliding into myself—prostitute's warm smile under desert sky   Navajo spirits   dance in rhythm  through hotel doors   workmen returning   coffee tastes burnt bored—stringing words together   overnight shift  senryu—exploring simplicity   of being human  snapshots—human's being and doing   stored in senryu floating world:   what more to do   where to go forgiving myself:   milk-white light   of a vending machine cynicism—will purple eggplant   be purple  uncertainty—carried on folk's back   like shadow kid's birthday party...

in this city   after a rainpour   loneliness walks quickly detention center:   remembering his face   sepia photograph friday night   under a vague moon   tea with whiskey pleasure yacht   moored in harbor—divorce coming  quite suspicious   mama's sharp glance   at dad melancholy laughter   lonely laughter   some things the same  graceful—late evening   a swan does its own thing peeling potatoes   news on tv   forms background white noise complex relationship   leaving  wine glass   untouched crooked painting—woman's shadow   uninterested  "more than just a birther"   pink   of cotton-candy weekend tryst   opening and closing   of hotel doors  computer left on   sublimated anger   seething under surface darkness—wind pushing  ...

courtyard lamps milky white... quickly moving  through darkness another  workshift to complete

in thought... mama´s white terrycloth robe  comforts me . tarnished pewter picture my grandson wants a drone  . coming rainpour  dim lights of  corner teas-shop  . discussion... her miscarriage over  tough veal  . headed to work night seems so foreign to me  . rich green of bellpeppers leaving television on 

spilled coffee grounds an oscillating fan 

crack  in a glass of vodka cat enjoys a rat

 my mind is a continuously rolling stone  children painting eggs briefly revisiting my own childhood moments alone i turn my phone face down i think and think days continue nights continue my heart like something... wanting a lover what is mosquito netting i often wonder brightness on the water a man's shadow and his laughter  turning into a snake's heart a bit of demon in all of us  fragile hand thinking of monmon day before Mother's Day in a hotel ac blowing high wondering what is beyond this  today darkens i welcome the bit of evil nesting in my heart cold fingers on my loneliness i entertain someone else's guy collpasing under tiredness trudging home from my shift  hearing a guilty verdict a stone statute shivers in my courtyard wanting my lips to be pink thinking the devil ain't that bad deprived of necessities Gaza citizens occupy a place in my heart in secrecy my inner whore arriving with style and no shame  holding loneliness in my arms anxiety...

 something pagan: gentile in my taste irreverent in my ways 

i love senryu give birth to senryu it blooms in my womb

 holding loneliness in my arms anxiety medicine a brilliant white

 pressing a stamp to the envelope standing with self-confidence i mail divorce papers to him  married lover you've become cumbersome...my skin keeps the heat of his strong hands  male vanity sometimes attractive sometimes not i think of too much while showering  love lives together with owls and flowers and childrens and indifference coloring everything 

 making a book of senryu another overnight shift and coffee breath 

 a quiet willow i refuse him i refuse any man  be it tied, be it united...i am unfaithful and proud daybreak comes i dress slowly in a balmy wind in blurred night high on caffeine and a man's attention  deutzia flowers—i seek absolution of my sins  in a sudden shower opening my current man's umbrella unable to compose a piece on anything grabbing more coffee in darkness rats have their way this home this unrest no one gives me evening sun the ferry moves into shadow Cupid should avoid me polishing grandma's old pewter deeper into evening darkness i reassess my stance on life a summer Fuji furiously blending rogue on her face  sewing fingers quite fat and somewhat unsteady  wearing wildly hairy shawl a woman lives only with cats  in thin rain rushing home do nightmares come in politeness erotic explorations his strong fingers peel back my folds  blooming akebia under my hands a woman's myriad thoughts beautiful days turn into beautiful nights enjoy...

married lover you've become cumbersome...my skin keeps the heat of his strong hands  .  male vanity sometimes attractive sometimes not i think of too much while showering 

 not much morning talk of frivolous things a green wind is born later on  . returning home after a busy day "release the Kracken" screamed out in a loud voice . eating black olives this morning's balmy heat dampens my skin again and again  . travel bans due to Coronavirus torn pages from a book of tanka by Nakajo *Nakajo Fumiko remarkable tanka poetess who died of breast cancer. She wrote of her life in "Chibusa Soshitsu" (Losing My Breasts)  . salvaging a broken relationship—i don't consider my age much anymore or anything else  . old journal full of monotanka i recognize a man's ornate handwriting in an old book 

 love lives together with owls and flowers and children and indifference coloring everything 

lunch  with a group  of lawyers... finding beauty  in a simmering pot of collard greens . group of men  out in the parking lot in between coughing from cigarettes  they shoot 'the shit'  . noodles cooked too long... no one speaks after the argument about the personality of Trump  . under the curve  of a cool moon  the Black and Latino communities are heavily targeted  with political misinformation . under  a weeping willow  re-reading "Jane Eyre"  for a peek into  the lives  of white women  . deliciousness  of summer sausage making the choice to stay inside the house— the sun's heavy heat . summer akebia... how often i write down  certain things  in this  aged diary 

Microsoft... all of our responses go out  . walking into vapor desert rearranges itself  . defiant... he still douses his taco with jalapeños . splash in a pool: not a frog but something else  . ripened red apples my granddaughter's brilliant smile  . aged teahouse  enjoying the taste  of toast  .

stone Jesus  across from  stone Buddha both drenched  in a midnight  rainpour

 it is ok  not to have  any words to spill into poetry... it is ok . behind a parked car red taillights  i take  another sip  of cheap wine . the spinning of yellow flowers a book of tanka by Mokichi  lies on my table . for a while  staring  at the swirls  on a  peppermint candy... where is hope . neighbor's  puppy  pooping... rearranging  the crease in her white dress . for  the duration  of my afternoon  dancing to myself  some woman  called me 'zesty' 

 'playful and clever' old man is described in glowing terms

 don't like you little boy: his father's who i want low moon 

  how to pray  i ask you Bondjé how to part these trembling lips  and pray for  the soul of a nation  a nation  with a mouthful of iron teeth that often  repeatedly  eats its own. how does one pray? how does one pray for people  under the weight of delusion  that they represent you  by oppressing and erasing  diverse lived experiences  and authenticity, how does one pray  for a people devoid of civility?

'first do no harm!'  having nothing to say  or to judge  if another human's living  doesn't injure me

swaying  of these summertime flowers... another generation  of humans  dodging accountability  for America's original sin

told repeatedly  'this is a Christian Nation the founders made it so...'  saying a thing repeatedly doesn't make it  so

over coffee talk  of Falwell and Robertson's  baby... the 'Heritage Foundation' - moral majority  moral right... and yet they're often the ones  busted for myriad vice - 'One Nation under...'  the iron fist of White superiority... hyacinth grown for remembrance

in a tight zone  at twilight... how do we flee this rollback  this cruelty of people 

mémér... is this how segregation days  felt... you in your white nurse's uniform avoiding restricted places *mémér: grandmother in Kouri-Vini

another day  catching the tail-end  of a news story... feels more like 1968 than 2024

living in the center of  a violent womb... July hot July hectic  and all reason  trembles. crumbles 

quietly  walking these hotel hallways  approaching 6am  i want this world to remain  young forever 

dandelion head  on a  weakened stem— a woman gives birth to  a child who'll be a prophet - laughter  by everyday folks  an old bench  in the park  empty...empty 

the eyes  of black-eyed susans  distant  and cold even  as i walk by 

crossing myself  with my whispered confessions... who will absolve America of her sins

smell of uncertainty, much more stronger than hope. news cycles filled with things that drive fear; i've watched white smiles become more feral and black knowings full of red flags.  sheet rain falling— forgetting to tie my left  tennis  shoe-string

 this country  comin' apart  at its seams tellin' my mentor  of my uncertainty - silent thanks  in quickly  whispered prayers that my parents  and grands aren't here - rush of fear... a manifesto that details  rollbacks to  Civil War-era life - cutting the tv off... Life  has grown unfamiliar - people  leaning into  their savage sides... white smiles  appear feral  - fearmongering  on each news cycle... brilliant light  of afternoon sun  - sheet lightening i can't decide what to do this week

on the cameras noticing  first stirrings  of people... this solitude slips away 

on the cusp of another week. in the back office silently hoping that the movement of the world doesn't break my solitude. i really want a job entering in data, not dealing with people.  lone man  on the bench  enjoying  a morning cigarette  in predawn darkness

 black history  is american history... brush dripping with  whitewash for a while  forgetting this tanka music searching my mind  for what to spill  the word is 'Schadenfreude'... for minutes  staring at monmon's  obituary on the wall  pot of beans soaking ... outside in the dark watching someone's doggie pass by this morning  watching the way  this  hotel silence  will slip away 

incentive  to smile... not wrestling with  depression 

 roadside hibiscus picked by a homeless child  laughing with old friends crates of oranges rot  lasciviousness: when was i ever comfortable in my maleness waiting for autumn...skeletons will enjoy a seance too 'in'n outness' of tides: who IS the Prince of Tides editing poems that really make no sense...yeah... ashes from blooming fires ways i hated my aunt  restaurant visit: he only orders water with a smirk  boxed adoption records—coldness of Autumn readily apparent  beyond Machiavelli—Hitler and Tojo with a summer heatwave unwashed dishes...Madam Pol Pot has too many shoes buying wallpaper i find Madame Mao quite charming  'vanity, thy name is Imelda Marcos' sweltering noon  what of uncried tears of the Shah... wondering what the Empress jotted down in her diaries  *thinking of the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and his wife, the noble; Shahbanu Farah. behind soft words, all the force of my fury  red azalea white azalea what colla...

black cemetery wreath replaying dead one´s voicemail . mid urination, ¨damn it ive left the stove on¨ .

hydrangeas he incorrectly assumes im a queen  . lost earring soft footstep  of *mo mær *my mother in Kouri-Vini . scribbling in the margins these shoes too tight . unshaved did i finish  that pear . derailed train all the conversations  paused  . new Venetian blinds he´s sullied my honor . loose rain my dentures are looser and  so are my memories

sound of large bird feet ive grown calloused toward many things

 death of heterosexuality: stopping by his home he gives me beer

 another heat-wave—in a dream wrestling James for his giant peach 

 children of Eve or Noah's unnamed wife, roaming streets tonight

 'revolution' is rarely neat or peaceful broken cactus 

 hungry to master senryu we talk of social justice and love 

 holding hands with her woman lover i polish an empty vase 

 mistaken identity i roll around in a well made bed

 saying something inaudible 'fellatio' is a lovely word 

 in balmy evening full of indecisions and disassociations 

 highjacked government..is there anything else to imprison 

 according to haiku master Kyoshi Takahama, #haiku was all about:  'Kachofugetsu' /flower, bird, wind, moon/ as subject matter.  senryu was all about:  'Kidoairaku' /joy, anger, sadness, cheerfulness/  the full gamut of human emotions, activities, impulses, thoughts etc.

 bit of moon caught in glint of evening goldfish bowl 

 seedless watermelon: another reason to ignore his text message

 well within darkness a woman coughing up regrets 

 wearing an AC/DC shirt i lust every handsome man i meet

 'what the hell happened to Kathleen!' time slowly pouring out 

 whining of a dog i walk up and down stairs doing things

 guest's trash gathered by each door hotel life hotel life 

 walking down hallways rapidly with each step blood-sugar lowered

  stepping outside to absorb warmth tonight  not sure  what i feel  thinking  'monmon  what do you see  from your vantage point  in the after-life' biting  into a taco... a man  asks me  for coffee

 getting older: second half of a response, delayed 

stench  of a corpse flower... on the news tonight  string of murders 

  how i hate him...  being watched in warm darkness doll's eyes

Auschwitz  Tule Lake  South Africa.... human's depth of evil 

accident in Germany getting a beer  blaming it on  medieval witches 

crumbs in  the earthenware cookie jar house empty of kids now

 candle'd mirror opposite restroom... not so charming 

 aged couch: husband home, he collapses in silence 

 potted plants— still putting memories  in three lines 

 stone saint  as unbothered as i am right now

 well done steak:  "you and your kind  go elsewhere"

under owl moon  moving with the heart of an exile now

tonight  standing outside  my body like one big  open pore absorbing balmy darkness and the smell of rain 

 near castle's moat....nothingness 

billboard advertisement... pronouncing 'advertisement' as 'ad'vuhrt'is'muhnt'

ornamental cabbage... remembering when i  was attractive 

 downtown  for some fun — red heels hurt like hell unloved— wouldn't mind a man  fleecin' me dilapidated church  holiness spills into the grass stationary clouds  my daughter  plants her laughter i love men: free swimming koi in dim darkness untouched— still baby potatoes  sprout and grow

less and less  sacred—under  a slew of storms  prognostication of a coming  white horse and dark rider

 unanswered texts unanswered telephone calls...im me

 doctor's raucous coughing, should i pull away or what

 my sleepy eyes     closing them just a moment

 nearing 6am...      supposing i could nap  for 30 min or so

 laughter slid into the cracks, frequently pissing during the night  loopy moon, a paraplegic arrives home after midnight writing about whatever comes, slicing another white melon  overnight work tedium, the men from Chicago are fine asf woman in a lavender shirt, rereading Lady Murasaki's Genji waka  making midnight coffee, perhaps i should selfpublish my own books books of senryu :: the word 'genuflect' grabs my attention  story on 'Golden State Killer' a stationary car just sits there  geneology :: a woman finds her life's work  unfinished coffee in the lobby praying and talking to myself  who was 'lavender doe' thumbing through another file from '18 tedium tedium, after juxtaposition what else  dispicable: a woman with no name a town with no peace  within the night, wondering if darkness offers up prayers to God larkspur :: retrieving the remains of my broken self-esteem  balmy balmy night, Sumitaku's haiku book arrives 

it's summer, waiting for my new cologne to arrive 

 scrubbing my hands      just one more  trip to the john

 men's bathhouse      eyes taking in  every one i see 

 arguing loudly     in front of scarlet dahlias... deep blush of red

monmon  don't come to my dreams... not in 5 yrs 

 edge of a cliff...     my train of thought crashes

 at this point wanting to climb inside my yawn ...sleep 

 running night audit     pot of decaf  brewing 

 throughout the day  polishing each lens .... damn glasses 

 another nameless john              undressing quietly  my dog's weird look 

 this shift trudges slowly        trying my best to yawwwwnnnnnnn

 no wrinkles      in the Bishop's red robes  glancing at my shirt 

 Inoue Kenkabō (井上剣花坊), Sakai Kuraki, and Nishida Tohyaku helped to revitalize #senryu that had devolved into being called #kyoku (madcap, crazy verse). 

 it is often said that the ku of the ¨Mutamagawa¨ really arent that different than the haiku in the ¨Ḧuman Affairs¨ section of haiku. A lot of the ku in the ¨Mutamagawa¨ would eventually serve as precursors to what would be known as ´senryu´

 a quick stretching routine       before work... quick puff on a joint 

 another overnight shift bending myself in a  yoga pose

 #senryu in Edo city, were often written in third person and they were based on stereotypes and/or ´stock characters´ of the Edo town scene, like the Doctor, the Tea Shop owner, The mirror seller, the chambermaid, the Shogun, the Samurai, the Monk etc. you´d... ...read many many pieces exploring the various facets of people. all the psychological impulses of regular, everyday folks--some humorous, some tragic, some funny, some beautiful, some ugly etc. exploring the whole range of life, emotions, in and outside of self/people.

 drunk on swill ´don´t criticize my senryu´

 looking into a mirror       each time  new wrinkle. discoloration 

 trudging to work  through balmy darkness    smoking a blunt