Sunday, January 27, 2013

the vagabonds


He never minded having her around. It was like setting a saucer of milk down on the brick stoop expecting a vagabond cat to show, watching from a hiding place not to scare it away. Despite her complaining that he never had any thing good to play, he could always fire off a paragraph or two on the typewriter just having her around. Just having her shoes at the door and the way she smelled. The cigarette taste when he kissed the girl.
'You don't have anything', she'd say, sorting through covers.
'You always like the one about the man and his dog', he'd say, dabbing the white-out.
'Play that one', he'd say, looking at her, her smiling then.
She'd fingertip the vinyl, dropping the needle.
He'd type with the downbeat, following her mournful eyes, the water streaking against the window, outside so, so cold.


photo: Charlotte Gainsbourg, AnOther
song: Dave Moore - Down To The River


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCxJkEBZ4Mc

Friday, January 25, 2013

haiku enough to travel


Heart light souvenirs
Hallowed sepia photos
Silk tied love letters

Travel over to
recuerda mi corazon,
exclusive home of
Haiku My Heart

Sunday, January 20, 2013

balance act


Traversing along a polished stone tableau
across a gurgling dark creek
or a melting deer-tracked stream

You're better off alone
avoiding the well-intentioned hand
assuredly knocking your balance askew

But there are worse things that can happen
besides small shoes and socks
weighted with frigid water.

Friday, January 18, 2013

white and blue haiku


Silent chilled hours
Campfire toasting two hearts
Calm sleigh riding breaths


Follow the bread crumbs to
recuerda mi corazon,
exclusive home of
Haiku My Heart

Sunday, January 13, 2013

gift return


'Next'.
'I would like to return this sweater'.
'By all means, Madam. Do you have a receipt?'.
'Why yes, yes I do'.
'And for our purposes only, why are you returning said item'?
She leaned in close. Whispering, 'Because it's too large. I cannot reach the straw'.
'Straw?'
'You see. Here', barely audible and pointing, 'I cannot reach the straw from this portal'.
'Oh, we can't have that', he whispered sarcastically. He pressed a large red button hidden behind the return counter's chromed edge with a fat calloused index finger and smiled a yellow toothy grin. The creaking floor gave way, a blur of heavy overcoat, leather purse, flashy jewelry, and knit-capped hair(she just had it done!), plunging and screaming into darkness, witnessed by a winding line of horrified gift reject whisperers. I dropped the ebook reader, snug in its styrofoam, and ran out with the other quiet people, single file and orderly, running straight home, breathless, to Tom Joad, Walter Mitty, Kilgore Trout, and all my other faithful friends.

photo by Vincent Fournier

Friday, January 11, 2013

homeward haiku


Light circling pulse
Whitewashed mortar's lonesome dance
Clarion land call


Lighted Haikus
await you across town at
recuerda mi corazon,
exclusive home of
Haiku My Heart

Split Rock Light
Thomas Kinkade

Sunday, January 6, 2013

the second hundred years


He had the notion to take her away as he began his second hundred years. At the round table, Tatyana sat north by northwest of him, and the soft white flame in the rose-colored center globe candle reflected in her eyes when she looked at him. And when her eyes met his, and she laughed at every whimsical thing he said, it lit his pilot-light of desire, for she was truly the embodiment of love. She was already his wife, he thought to himself, unconsciously rubbing his white whiskers when others spoke and he sipped water from a wine glass, noticing her small, white, ring-less hands. There would be no need to serenade her with his petrified six-string Martin.

He went too far when he claimed, jokingly, he could yank the luxurious tablecloth and leave the china and fragile glasses standing upright. No one was amused, and he felt the chill on his neck from the party's death-stare, forks pausing at mouths like a Rockwell holiday painting gone terribly wrong. He looked to Tatyana, and she was blushing, eyes downcast. He scooted his chair back before dinner ended, got up, whispered a nineteenth-century apology no one could understand before any cue of an uptight clearing of throats, then went out the door to his car and drove away, home to weep over the photo of his dead wife of his first one hundred years.

Tatyana stood at the door like a lost child, eyes unblinking, red lips parted, looking out for the endearing gentleman. She imagined he must be at least fifty years-old with that brown hair and white unshaven chin. Outside, ten below zero, a fragile bowing tree limb collapsed silently under the weight of blue ice, pierced the snow, then stood bolt upright in the mist like the neck of Buddy Holly’s guitar in a February-scorched barren wintry field of death.
“Gone,” she whispered. “Vanished,” she shuddered, shaking her head slowly.

image by Daniel Murtagh

Friday, January 4, 2013

January morning haiku


Sunlight awakened
Brilliant white church bell landscape
Coffee cup hours



New Year Haikus
await you across town at
recuerda mi corazon,
exclusive home of
Haiku My Heart

photo: Perth, Scotland from Bing Search

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