An announcement

My Muse seems to have fled to a Drawing room somewhere in Victorian England, and my metaphysical self has gone off in search of her. I'm not sure when they'll be back. There's not much point in posting until they do, so there will be a hiatus of indeterminate length, beginning now. Ta ta for now!

Heh...

So, today, when I was preparing to update, I dutifully whipped out my little haiku pad. Imagine my shock and horror when I found that there were only three haiku in it! Three! For an entire week! Then I realized that this was not the case. One of them was from two weeks ago.

Woe! What's a poet to do?

I suppose I shall have to go off into the wilds of Modern Poetry Land and see what strange fantastic beast I encounter. If what I'm plotting in my head makes its way down to paper, some of the imagery will have come from the shed at Tanglewood and the Choat's house at Naumkeag.

The haiku:

through the summer window,
the sound of rain
..........
she snores
in time with
the orchestra
..........

Crazy modern stream-of-consciousness prose-poem!

I

Mood lighting. The paneled ceiling catches it, reflects it, intensifies it. It draws attention. Not screaming, as a brass fanfare, but quiet, seductive. It has all the secrets in the world, if you will just take a moment to look. But the stage is empty. A performance is a bout to begin. Or has it just ended? In the mind, figures dance across it, playing rolls. Acting.

Everyone acts. Even those who despise the Bard, even those who would never pick up a script. We all act. Acting is just lying without words. We turn a face to the world that is happy, serene, okay with everything. It doesn't matter what's inside. We may be crying, bleeding, to ourselves in the dark, but we'll still pretend to the world that we're happy. Acting. In some ways, you may become who you act, but only a part of you, a part that will war with other parts until the pain is too much and the mask falls off completely, allowing a brief window into who we really are. Acting.

II

An old house, standing on ancient grounds. The rich, the wealthy. This was their home. A guided tour. This, the dining room, set for an elaborate dessert. This the study, where Mister rich-and-famous himself would come to get away from the family. The butler worked here, the maids, there.

You can see them, if you look hard enough. They're still there. Imagine...The old lady, sitting in that chair--that chair!--reading to her two youngest grandchildren, who crouched there and there--those two spots on the carpet--that carpet!-- on either side of the chair--that chair!. Picture them! Sitting there. Nineteen fifty-seven: The president visiting. Not some idealized portrait, sitting on the wall in the social studies classroom, but a real man. A real man, about yea high, who stood in this very hall, perhaps even where you are standing now. Just that. An important man, but nothing more than a man. Just as frail and fragile as you or I.

III

The clock in the room ticks. An old grandfather clock, taller than the old lady who sits in a nearby chair. Bedecked in black, the picture of Victorian mourning. The clock doesn't know that someone just died. I just tells time. The endless well-wishers, the doctors, the nurses, shuffling about. They didn't notice the clock, and it didn't notice them.

The room is finally empty, save the old lady, finally left alone with her own grief. Tension leaves it, and it sags, no longer high-strung. She sags, tired of holding here ageing frame erect. Does she cry? Is she stolid, too wrapped up in other things to care for the passing of one so dear? Is the stage set for some eerie modern drama, a confrontation with more unsaid than scripted? Everything waits. It stands on the point of a pin, perfectly balanced, as we slowly fade to grey.

Summertime...

...and the livin' is easy...
I apologize for the lateness of this entry; things got a little out of hand. (Power outages were involved...) The sumer arts camp has finally got the creative miasma percolating, and haiku are condensing like mad!
..........
ac exhaust:
hot air
on a hot day
..........
old sousaphone
rusts
on the wall
..........
wheel-throwing.
one with the clay;
one with myself
..........
book of haiku...
distracted
by the font
..........
I notice
an unexpected
watermark
..........
moving furniture...
suddenly:
thunder
..........
thrift store scarves.
untangling
the endless knot
..........

Radio Voices

Driving. Endless fields of withering corn. The voice on the car radio the same as it always has been, droning on, as it always has. Now audible, now just a murmur, covered up by the noise of the bumpy dirt road.

There is no destination. The journey itself is its own end. The sun is alone in the endless sky, shining down on endless fields of endless crops. The only moving air is that which comes through the windows bearing dust.

meditating:
an eternal moment
of thoughtlessness

Rainsong Defiant

You know what? I really don't have anything to say here. Let the poems speak for themselves!
..........
charred ruins.
only a listing torii
remains
..........
both brain
and page
empty
..........
a field of umbrellas.
rainy independence day
..........
rain.
even the faucet
drips
..........

Rainsong Defiant

Rain. Down from the sky in sheets it falls, blustery, black, and grim. The morning's brilliant sun engulfed by noontime clouds. The city huddles beneath its rainy shawl, weathering the storm as best it can.

But on the field, there is life. There has to be. Certain celebrations will not wait. A tent stands at one end, faint strains of Sousa drifting over the small, determined crowd. A "sunshine march", so ironic, water spilling over the edge and onto the conductor. The trio of El Capitan, so reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan, is lost in a fresh onset. Finally, with a last gush of bombast, Stars and Stripes moves to its inevitable close. Behind them, the fireworks start.

birds fly south,
unaware.
their home is gone

Ingenium loci

The latest edition of Modern Haiku has arrived, and with it, a flood of inspiration. In addition to this, the summer day camp I'm currently in has bounced me all around the region where I live, and I've been gathering impressions from all the places we've visited to work into a haibun later on. Isn't summer wonderful?
.........
making cairns.
the stream bubbles
happily
..........
after the fact,
my words
vanish
..........
after many beautiful days,
there is no river
..........
the car passes.
its dust
lingers
..........
once the fireworks start,
no one
hears the band
..........
they sing
Requiem,
the music,
Gloria
..........
the dove of peace
visits
a funeral
..........
someone
lets off fireworks
early
..........

Ingenium Loci
(The spirit of Place)

Coming up the valley, a stone wall looms. Something out of a distant time, covered in moss and ferns, a testament to some forgotten might. Rubble around it fills the gorge, boulders strewn in a frozen flood. Only mosquitoes disturb the lichen's slow growth, competing with moss for dominance of the rock. To disturb this peace is sacrilege.

a butterfly
lands
on the old grave

Trees arch their bows over this still scene. Not pale imitations, but mighty and massive, carrying the memory of the world forest down to today. This place is theirs. People may come and go, but they are eternal.

It is not a nice peace. We are invaders. There is power beneath the trees, but it is not ours for the taking. Their majesty is best observed briefly, and from a distance. It is dangerous beneath their branches. Not a danger to one's body, but the danger of being changed, of losing something not worth the immaterial gain. To lose oneself in the endless mossy passageways between their trunks; to disappear forever from the hearts and minds of friends. To fade with the forest when the unstoppable wave of humanity bears down with saw and torch to take the land that was never theirs.

a flake of ash:
rising...
falling