Blueline and Red Thread: Scream from the Shadows, I

In celebration of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tanka Society of America, I am pleased to announce a new publishing project, the first collection of sociopolitical tanka titled Blueline and Red Thread.

The following is the title tanka and it's dedicated to Krzysztof Kieślowski, film director of The Three Colors Trilogy (the collective title of three films, Blue, White, and Red, loosely based on one of the three political ideals in the motto of the French Republic: liberty, equality, fraternity)

I protest

with my mouth taped:

don't stain my poems

Blueline and Red Thread

with your snow-white kiss

This collection of sociopolitical tanka is divided into distinct themed sections. Below are two tanka from the first section, "Scream from the Shadows:"

the drunk

on top of his wife

as she screams

then becomes silent ...

snow falling on snow

a senate claims

women can block rape sperm

with willpower!

throughout the night, I hear

walnuts hitting the ground

Note: Blueline is the final stage of the design process of publications before going to print, and  red thread is a metaphor used in Germanic and Slavic languages to describe a common theme running through a story.