RAW Poetry
Dove sta memora
You have not snared her,
Scarecrow Death:
She’s in my pulse,
My heart, my breath.
Eye sees only
Local hardware;
Brain conceives
Nonlocal software;
Brain knows more
Than eye can see:
Brain can scan
Eternity.
Green plants, alive, like
the stone Buddha — rock solid –
— as twilight descends
Old Man On A Balcony:
Views Of Monterey Bay
Haiku
Dogen saw thousands
of miracles each morning:
I see a dozen
The number of birds–
And of different bird songs–
Midwinter Mozart
Minor Mystery
Southern Pacific
train goes by an hour before
its usual time
Brother Raven, you
ain’t no song-bird. You wusser
than the kiss of death
Fractal Miracle
The lines of the beach,
the bay and the lowest cloud
All seem parallel!
Two For Bishop Berkeley
Clouds (visible) float
above hills (invisible);
Are the hills still there?
At this hour of night
I see more “dolphins” than at
Any other time.
Biggest damned raven
I ever saw flies howling
caw caw caw Lord Lord
A moon in the sky
After sunrise [a rare sight];
Seen it before, but —
A squiggly fractal–
the line of Monterrey’s hills–
floats above the fog
The cat licks its paws:
I watch, three floors above: it
Looks up straight at me
Gay flamingo sings:
“The sun rises and the world
Is ablaze with Dawn”
“Weep, weep!” cries a bird
Lost somewhere in fog and mist.
Sunrise with no sun.
Fire on the mountain?
No, the deer are still, tranquil:
It must be sunlight
The orange cloudbank:
One bright touch in the grey sky
Above a grey bay
Dolphins in the bay
Playing, sporting, having fun–
World without money!
The weather bureau
predicted a sunny day:
All I see is fog
After the fog lifts,
A naked beauty: blue sky
With buttermilk clouds
Bay ablaze with light–
Tin-flash; silver; clear as gin–
After weeks of fog!
Flock of gulls appears
And suddenly — disappears
Going God-knows-where…
White on white: bay lost,
Mountains lost, bleached into white:
A clean-cotton mist
Pre-dawn, silence, then –:
Out of unpulsating dark
An unknown bird chirps.
Bay like blackboard grey
Monterrey lost in white fog
Shortest day draws nigh
While I slept they came:
Two unexpected flowers
Sprouting on the vine.
Grey and pastel pink —
A water-color painting —
This light before dawn.
Midnight Haiku
Mottled blueblack sky.
A sudden moon — briefly! Then:
Blueblack mottled sky…
Midnight Haiku #2
Black darkness only:
I see nothing but I hear
Rain and wind and waves
Midnight Haiku #3
Dancing in the bay–
Dolphins again? No, better:
Reflected moonlight.
Gray sky and gray bay
No division between them
A dead dreary dawn
Misty mountain tops
Floating on nothing, it seems..
“Empty” space is full!
Midnight Haiku #4
Dark, dark: no waves splash,
no barking dogs, no wind. Just
the sound of no sound
No blue: just white-grey,
Like dirty ice, the bay sneaks
Out from under fog.
“Sweet! Sweet!” sings a bird–
Old Ez in Virginia
Heard one cry “Tulip!”
The stone Buddha sits
Still as the Eiger: silent…
The waves crash and splash
Lights across the bay
White jewels scattered, shattered
In a deep black box
Purple, vermilion:
Each part of the bay glitters
And none is just blue
“Chirp? Churp?” “Oot?” “Cheep!” “Oot!”
Birds unseen, bickering –“Sweep?” —
Above, on the roof.
I see just one tree
The bay is invisible
Fog, fog, endless fog
Some waves cry “Terror!”
Hitting the beach like boulders:
Dark night: darker thoughts.
Botticelli sky:
No fog, no Chinese touches–
A Rennaisance day
All is cloaked in fog
The world seems empty, until —
Far off, a gull shrieks.
Federal Crime
Clear blue bay at sunset
And I am stoned and placid–
Free of grief, almost.
New bud on the vine:
But three thousand miles due East
Wall Street still smoulders.
Calm and quiet here
No anthrax or mad bombers…
Yet. But tomorrow?
ESCAPE FROM CNN
No fakes or deceits:
Bay, clouds, birds, trees: All
Doing what they do.
Movie Haiku
Hannibal
Lecter, too, grows old
But remains quite amusing,
Quite terrifying
Tequila Sunrise
A major coke deal —
Treachery in sun-bright places;
One friendship survives
King Kong
Can’t blame the big ape:
I, too, went a bit goofy
Over Fay Wray once
Honky Tonk Man
Addictions killed him,
Too much booze and cigarettes.
They still sing his songs.
And Then There Were None
Unpleasantness and
Rash Actions: Even servants
Get drunk and murdered.
White Hunter, Black Heart
Arlen said it best:
“He had a good heart, really–
Just too much Ego.”
On A Clear Day You Can See Forever
“Witchcraft” not spoken
But still the best film ever
About Wise Women
Unforgiven
Drunk sociopath
Kills “guilty” and “innocent.”
Seemed like Justice, then.
Lady From Shanghai
Trial: Chinese drama:
Crazy house: Hall of mirrors:
A yacht called Circe
Stardust Memories
Woody’s rage breaks loose:
A comedy of terrors.
The girl goes nuts, too.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Voodoo and courtrooms
Both leave us undecided —
“There ain’t no answers!”
Intolerance
Those who would do good
Often do the worst evil–
If they have True Faith…
Bird
Did the junk ruin him
Or was it Whitey’s racism?
Don’t know. Bird is dead.
The Outlaw Josey Wales
The killing must stop —
And, guess what? this time it does:
No final shoot-out.
The Ghost and the Darkness
The whites see lions —
The blacks see devils from Hell –
You’ll wonder a bit….
The Maltese Falcon
Seventeen long years
And God-knows-how-many murders
Chasing a lead dream
Bus Stop
You can’t discount it,
You can’t forget it. It has
M*a*r*i*l*y*n M*o*n*ro*e.
Chimes at Midnight
Winter: Wind, snow, chill:
Merrie England’s dead and gone.
Falstaff, too, must die.
The Eiger Sanction
Three times the Eiger
Tried to kill him: And he looked
Into the abyss.
