A Room of My Own: A Writer Blocked Inside

in a seaside cafe

alone, listening ...

summer night breeze

waiting for the Muse ...

the seaside cafe tables

fill and empty

from a sea of words

the Muse rises with breasts covered 

awake ...not yet awake

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, XCVI: "fireballs"

as if

there is no tomorrow ...

fireballs over Gaza

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, XCVII: "evacuation"

after Jane Reichhold

Gaza evacuation

bombed-out ruins

                             after

                                     bombed-out ruins

FYI: The prefatory note refers to the following classical haiku:

coming home

flower

           by

               flower

San Francisco Haiku Anthology, 1992

In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, "poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty." 

-- Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet, playwright and translator who received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. 

Added:

an old woman

claps her raised hands

twice ...

where the Shinto shrine

once stood ten years ago

Added: Game Show, 2024, LXVI

Presidential "Debate" 

this deafening, deadly sound

of spit-drop silence

Added:

this unseasonal heat ...

two motorcycles race past me

and weave through

the rush-hour traffic, later

a third... a sixth one speeds by

A Room of My Own: Imagine

surge upon surge

of this sultry loneliness 

washing ove me ...

quiet in a seaside room

one night before the deadline

the blank page

staring at me for hours ...

this drunken night

I glimpse the nude muse

rising from a sea of words

the muse and I

mouth on mouth, legs tangled with legs

become a single dream:

my book in the front window

at Barnes & Noble 

FYI: Barnes & Noble is the largest individual bookstore in the world measured by square footage.

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXXX: "wall of apartheid"

apartheid wall

only so far a child's eyes

can see beyond [his world]

FYI Israel describes the wall as a necessary security barrier against Palestinian political violence; whereas Palestinians describe it as an element of racial segregation and a representation of Israeli apartheid, who often call it "Wall of Apartheid".

And Human Rights Watch, July 19, 2024: World Court Finds Israel Responsible for Apartheid

The following quote can be attributed to Tirana Hassan, Human Rights Watch Executive Director:

"In a historic ruling the International Court of Justice has found multiple and serious international law violations by Israel towards Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including, for the first time, finding Israel responsible for apartheid. The court has placed responsibility with all states and the United Nations to end these violations of international law. The ruling should be yet another wake up call for the United States to end its egregious policy of defending Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and prompt a thorough reassessment in other countries as well."

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXXXI: "Gaza's rubble"

to Kamala Harris, 2024 Democratic presidential candidate

what can be

unburdened by what has been

this soundbite 

becomes cheap and louder ...

a hand out of Gaza's rubble

FYI: "What can be, unburdened by what has been" is a quote popularized and primarily used by Kamala Harris, the current vice president of the United States and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate. A supercut of Harris repeating the quote was first shared by the Republican National Committee on social media platform X, on April 30, 2023, after which it became viral (Wikipedia, "What can be, unburdened by what has been")

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXXXII: "war criminal"

written in response to Netanyahu's Congress speech

a state of dis/union:

pumping his fist in the air

the war criminal

opens, closes, opens... his mouth

to Congress for an hour

FYI: The Nation, July 25: Netanyahu’s Theater of the Grotesque

Mostly, though, the speech was notable for its lies. Netanyahu lied openly about his army’s ethics and conduct. He lied about starving civilians. He lied about the number of people he has killed. He lied about the antisemitism of American protesters. His only moment of deliberate truth-telling came when he declared his debt to his literal partner in crime, Joe Biden.

Added: Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XXIII

shouts from the beach,

go back where you came from ...

bubbles of memory

pop to the surface

of my immigrant life

FYI: This could be read as a prequel to my tanka below"

a kid trying

to kick sea foam back

where it came from

I remember the first time

a white man yelled at me

Runner-Up, Tanka Section, 2016 British Haiku Society Awards

Added: No More Fairy Tales, XXX

written in response to Jasper wildfires

smoky twilight

this wall

of fast-moving flame

Added: No More Fairy Tales, XXXI

sultry night alone

the long note

of a wildfire siren

A Room of My Own: Nothing New under the Sun

alone

on this rainy night

the muse

is my sounding board

for ideas and gossip

two colored truths

in the predawn sky:

one for the muse

the other for me

and my drunken shadow

clichés open

a prismatic window

on my soul

(another cliché, I know) …

killing time with my muse

Note: The title is taken from  "Ecclesiastes," 1:9 (NIV):

What has been will be again,

what has been done will be done again;

there is nothing new under the sun.

A Room of My Own: I must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy me

Alone in the darkness of this May Day morning, I can hear the droning of my muse's air-raid sirens. Waiting for the next explosion of words drives me crazy like a moth flying into the summer fire.

word-bombs
slash the alleyways
of my mind...
the feel of a black tip
moving across the page

A Room of My Own: Imagine for John Lennon

A long line of Calliopes clad in lily-white, waiting in the hallway. Each is enveloped in the darkness of her own, screaming. Drops of sweat stream down my forehead, falling past my eyes onto the floor. I yell, "Push, baby, push ...." The last words holding on to the inside of my muse's womb for hours.

I'm a dreamer ...
a twinge
in my heart

Politics/Poetics of Re-Homing, XXIV

new immigrant
to the land of hungry ghosts
of the Muse
I write love tanka
in crimson red 

Atlas Poetica, 15, July 2013

Notes:

1 You can read its preceding tanka or the whole sequence here.

A Room of My Own: Haunting Ghost

for Peter De Vries who claims that Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

in the attic

nostalgia is growing old

to keep

or not to keep her

the big question

upon knowing

I am going to send her

to a rest home

nostalgia stops talking

and starts a hunger strike

I shoot

nostalgia dead

my muse

condemned to the void

between the lines

this white night

an apparition

of nostalgia

corkscrews

my attic ceiling

A Room of My Own: Anything New under the Spring Sun?

a tanka sequence for the author of Ecclesiastes


I'm upstairs writing
my dog downstairs sleeping
silence
separates the worlds
between us

finally
I scratch an all-day itch
into a few words . . .
back-breaking wet snow
continues piling up

cliches in my poem
audible but muted...
a new round
of midnight peace talks
between the Muse and me

left behind
by Calliope, the thief
of my heart and mind:
winter moonlight
on a scribbled line

the Muse asks,
Does a grain of poetry
suffice
to season our day?
sand slipping through my fingers

another day
starts with cliched imagery
the Muse is gone
but her eyes that stared at me
remain in my glass of wine

wishing
I could bottle these feelings
for Calliope . . .
a few more words nibble
the edges of my night

this starless night
the Muse at loggerheads
with my shadow...
at daybreak, the first line
rage against the day

my muse listens
to the hum and strike
of my words...
that same old look
on her Tudor court face

these clichéd words
hauled out of their mansion
herded onto buses
crammed into the camp
        it's a dream, and yet...

first spring day...
distant sirens sharpen
the silence
I share with my old dog
and Calliope

book launch over
the Muse holding a scythe
walks me home...
this dream I have
on the first night of spring

I'm pregnant
with the 13th tanka ...
in twilight
my muse's ghost up the road
and around the bend