A Long Perspective

Tag: poem

  • Haiku, Japanese Garden

    Haiku, Japanese Garden

    img_6803

    The shrine within me.

    Dew on the blades of grass

    shines on my dream lake.

     

    A feather drifts by,

    aimless wanderer stop here.

    Oh, it is a moth!

     

    The koi opens his mouth,

    all the colors of his vest

    feed the tourists well.

     

    Bench next to the hedge,

    how I long to sleep on it.

    Please, stay on the path!

     

    The jets overhead,

    the river of cars flows by,

    the silence within.

     

    While in the garden,

    I think of wine to buy guests

    who may never come.

     

    The ground is too full.

    The roots of the cedar now

    must pierce the surface.

     

    Endless wandering,

    door of anticipation,

    beauty cleanses all.

     

    The breeze on the face.

    The freeway by the garden:

    don’t listen to me.

     

    F.E.Walls

  • Famine

    Famine

    img_2666Even desperate for water in the desert

    the dead must be washed, every part,

    to stand before God clean.

     

    Hands bound, feet bound,

    the child lies on the ground,

    the skull too big for stick-bones.

     

    Quiet the child, so quiet

    as if she were already

    listening to God comfort her.

     

    FEWalls

  • New life in dying Aleppo

    New life in dying Aleppo

    2010 2011 056The newborn, screaming, red-faced,

    held by his feet, upside-down,

    slapped, pinched into that first

    cry, his first breath angry, the mother

    unconscious, gutted on the table, her leg

    broken, her arm broken, hauled in 9-months

    pregnant, shrapnel in her belly,

    the house blown to smithereens around her.

    All that death. The baby’s

    heart silent, the dust, the rubble,

    the bombs, almost the last

    doctor in ancient Aleppo

    saying to a nurse,

    “Hand me the scalpel.”

     

    FEWalls

     

  • Shrine for Don

    Paris Two 2010 054Crowned

    “king of the gods” in high school,

    caped with scepter in hand, a gentle smile,

    the basketball star in our tiny world,

    at 21, a lieutenant in Vietnam.

    Bombs

    fell on the green villages

    perimeters strafed and over-run

    maimed bodies,

    youth,

    sanity,

    all sacked up together like shades of rice

    before the boiling pot.

    Carved

    your name

    on marble,

    held in place

    by those who died before

    and after you,

    carved on black

    marble reflecting back the twisted mouths

    holding grief high and tight,

    hands offering medals,

    roses,

    poems

    to names on a wailing wall.

     

    FEWalls

  • Giant Pacific Octopus

    IMG_0325_1If this octopus escapes an open tank,

    look carefully around, then worry.

    It can scuttle over land.

     

    Longer than a car,

    it squeezes  through an orange-size

    hole.  The beak?  In its crotch or armpit,

    take your pick.  Ignore the venom

    that dissolves flesh.  Stronger than

    a body-builder.  Truly its suckers, shape,

    ink, brain: Unique.  Not a vertebrate.

    Breathes water!

     

    If you see it,

    vibrate in your boots,

    then scoot.

     

    FEWalls  April 8, 2016

    Source:  Sy Montgomery  Soul of an Octopus