Cool Announcement: A Freebie, Biding Time

My Dear Friends:

Here is the link to late NeverEnding Story contributor H. Gene Murtha's last online chapbook, titled Biding Time: Selected Poems 2001-2013.

Bio Sketch:

H. Gene Murtha, a naturalist and poet, sponsored and judged the first haiku contest for the inner city children of Camden, NJ., for the Virgilio Group, of which he was a lifetime member. He was widely published for his work in haikai literature from the USA to Japan.

Selected Haiku and Tanka:

twilight
a seahawk sinks
into the sound

winter dusk
an empty beer can
taps the dock

fishing
where my brother stood --
twilight chill

summer haze --
a crow flaps free
of the asphalt

dim light ...
in her nightstand drawer
a cold vibrator

morning dew
i trace my son's
              lifeline

spring mist --
a mallard paddles
through our stillborn's ashes

the sound
of a broken bottle swept
across asphalt
like the cry of a child
you have given away

nothing works
not even a smile
tonight
three women walk
thru my cigar smoke

how useless
these hospital gifts
for a stillborn ...
a withered leaf,
a fallen feather

thumbing thru
a romance novel
at a yard sale
i scan the sentences
highlighted in yellow

before i knew
a thing about war, or
of a bee's sting
i longed to be held
between your breasts

an iris
trapped in a vase
like love
there are things
we never wanted

Happy Reading

Chen-ou

Note: For more information about H. Gene Murtha's work, see my "Dark Wings of Night" post,  First Warm Day – H. Gene Murtha’s Bird Haiku by Jo McInerney.