I’m oil, life is water.
I’m a stain on the tarmac,
a slick spot to catch fate unawares.
I’m not the doer, but the done;
not the message, but the voice,
modulated by frequency or amplitude,
not so much indifferent
as bemused, not unaware
but naked in a world of secrets.
For animals in the wild, spring can be a time of famine; winter nuts and seeds are growing scarce, and summer abundance is yet to come.
Sparrows in April
winter coats almost gone
pecking at promises
If I fail to contradict myself,
It’s because I’m small,
My multitudes have fled
For better quarters
Among the heebie-jeebies,
The great Coalition of the Willful,
Squabbling interminably
For the sheer joy of it.
These days it’s not enough
To be inconsistent, but it must
Be done with a vengeance,
With a truculence matched only
By contempt for all
That is reconcilable.
I’ve heard it said that
We are but shadows
Of some inescapable ambiguity,
And to pretend otherwise
Is pathetic.
So say the shadows.
This one’s a senryu.
We imagine we understand eternity
but haven’t a clue
about old age
“It’s a brutal world,”
says the hawk, who sees himself
as a realist.
“Everywhere I go, I see ruin,
hostility, violence.”
He shifts from one foot
to the other, spreads
his wide wings.
“I think this dove I’m eating
would have agreed.”
exiles child 