My Dear Friends:
Two of my tanka prose about Israel's war on Gaza are included in Contemporary Haibun Anthology 20, an "annual anthology showcasing a state-of-the-art selection of haibun, tanka prose, and haiga from journals around the world."
The Smell of Sorrow
all day rain ...
the puddles outside
and inside
these ripped plastic shelters
at the edge of Rafah
After the rain, at a camp located roughly a mile away from sandy terrain, strewn with rubbish and debris, men, women and children carry buckets of sand back and forth, back and forth, between their tents and the sandy area. A girl suddenly drops her bucket, then sits on the muddy groud, crying. For a moment, she stares up at the sky as if someone were listening.
Ribbons, 20:1, Winter 2024
(also nominated for the Pushcart Prize by the Tanka Society of America)
it’s peaceful now
M-16 rifles are blooming, 2000-pound bombs singing, and Merkava tanks sweeping the streets.
Gaza is cleaner than ever, clean of blood-covered children. Yet, somewhere among the rubble the only moving thing is a boy’s eyes that look up to Heaven.
a mural
on the separation wall
of the West Bank:
in midair a girl grasps
a bunch of rainbow balloons
Chen-ou
