Old Woman Bearing Flowers

Black-clad,

White-haired octogenarian
Has just picked some

Purple lilac
And one red

Rose from the road-
Side a goodly way

Distant and is now
Bringing them back

Home to where
Who knows what

Memories await her.

Sweet Smell of Success

My, isn’t it pretty to think that

The stench men have made of
The world will one day

Dissipate and disappear,
And leave us smelling

Like a rose.

A Goner's Doggerel

Doggone it Doomsday,
I told you he was one

Poetic son of a bitch
Doomed to go all the way

Entombed in the worse of verse
To his dying day.

It Stands to Reason

Just as that fledgling starts
To leave, its branch begins

An imperceptible trembling.

Vagrancies

A bed

Of crimson mushrooms
In the forest

.

In the clearing, a sea
Of blue anemones

.

In the wind, a gleaming copper

.

Penny for your thoughts.

Stalker

Coming

Alive or dying, we sensed nothing
But the haunting thought that told us

Something was wanting.

Making It Anew

--after Ezra Pound

At sunset,
Confucius say

Nothing new
Under the sun

But old lunatic moon
Set in way.