New Poems

   On Dedicating The Elaine Massacre Memorial

They will end; all of them will end: 
Words to flare a conflagration.

They will end; all of them will end:
The plots setting hue against hue.
Yes, they will end.

But time and the river shall 
Never end; for they begin
To begin, again and over again,
As time and the river wash
Through the land, and over
Its dreams, schemes,
And lauded and unlauded past. 

We’ve told our stories here 
While others listened,
Thinking mainly of their own:
Of those who died killing,
Or of those who found
No finding of an escape
From onslaught upon onslaught.

Now, we gaze on the Memorial,
Which tells of days
That went unclaimed,
Which tells things a hundred years
Of the Elaine Race Massacre
Did not care to hear: that 
All history is a struggle
Between what we must end
And what we must begin;

As time and the river ever
Flow between now and then
And delay for neither those
We honor here nor those
Who have or will come here.

Of time and the river,
Beckoning no escape,
Leaves no choice:
So, we shall no longer wait
For more light that we may
Better see light, nor wait
For other dreams that we
May better inspire dreams.

 

Triple Haiku Poems

Below are five examples of the triple haiku, a new, poetic form I have used for several years. This form is derivative of the original haiku, which Japanese poets have employed for centuries. American poets – initially, the Imagists, such as Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, and John Gould Fletcher – began writing haiku in the early part of the 20th century. Toward the end of his life, W. H. Auden frequently wrote in the haiku mode, but not as I have formulated it (i.e., three haiku in a poem with each haiku being the equivalent of a stanza, and each stanza being based on the normal, haiku format: three lines with five syllables for the first and last lines and seven syllables for the middle line).

 

WINTER

(triple haiku)

The jaws of the cliff
Stood square against the soft hands 
Of a first snowfall.

Yet children do not
Cry out nor do they plead once; 
Snow dampens the wood.

You had said one thing,
And someone else another;
Outside, winter waits.

YOU, A Love Poem

(triple haiku)

From many places
To many voices I hear, 
I sought only one.

I am who I am
Where you are, and I'll be who 
I'll be where you've been.

You were there before
We were, before there, before 
I knew you would be.

CANCER

(triple haiku)

They call it cancer,
Crab, or flesh-eater. It ate 
Dad; it tasted me...

While Dad slept with it
And still unanswered questions, 
Crab enjoyed last bites.

Now, there’s memory
Or monument for bearing
The long arm of chance.

I AM

(triple haiku)

We shall not be who
We are, for we are who we’re
Ever becoming. . .

I am not the one
They claim I am, nor am I
Who I say I am.

What of self-knowledge?
Those who have a little don’t
Seem the worse for it.

SPRING

(triple haiku)

It bounded again
Across the April wind as
A story of hope. . .

While it held wishes
Of the young in rapture, spring
Hid other seasons.

The sun shines fairly
For the sake of it; not for
Concept nor conceit.