In the cavernous
maw of human endeavor,
I play with my dog.
(top: izquotes.com; bottom: pinterest.com)
Available now!
The audiobook is live!
White Ravens…And More Stories–New edition available now!
Visit Jim’s Author Page
Life O’Wryly Blog
Haiku–Maw and Paw
Posted in Haiku, Humans, Poem, Uncategorized
Tagged history, humanity, imagination, writing
3 Comments
Haiku–Moon Face
The face of the moon,
peeking from rumpled bedsheets;
I tuck myself in.
(top: everystockphoto.com; bottom: searchpp.com)
Magic
A lilt of breeze comes
into my instrument;
leaves beat the ground:
show me the rhythm.
Finding isn’t, seeking is.
I nudge where light
robs the darkness.
I arrive in a place that sings.
It is magic.
(fountain: shutterstock.com; wings: youtube.com)
Haiku–Drying Wrack
Standing in the rain
is different if you don’t
have a dry home place.
Haiku–Loosely, In the Sky with Diamonds
The sun lights the birds:
tight formation diamonds;
Loosely, in the sky.
(lovely bushtit: cindymcIntyre.wordpress.com)
In The Telling
My story moves around who’s
doing the telling; who’s listening
also forms the shape of it.
I don’t much care as long as
it’s all about me.
In the dark,
when I cannot see the ceiling,
it’s not all about me.
It’s all about everything.
I grasp the tenuous thread
of my story and imagine
it is all true, even though
I know it’s only in the telling.
(angel: eofdreams.com; mountains: funzug.com)
Soak and Marinate
The ocean curls over my feet:
whale pee, shark pee, my own.
If I held a Geiger counter down there
and it clicked hard and fast,
would it be my feet or Fukushima?
So many places washing my feet,
so many creatures I can’t even imagine
part of the vast marinade I stand in.
I am almost ready for soup.
(feet: rebloggy.com; creature: pinterest.com)
One Answer
You ask what I believe in,
the question hanging in the air
like a flock of Vaux swifts
poised to dive into a chimney.
Any answer I give will be
trampled beneath the boots of your dogma.
But I answer anyway
because there is a chance
my assumption is as astray as your question:
I believe in the universe,
of which humans are a shockingly
small aspect;
I am in utter awe,
buoyed in an abyss of gratitude
that I am able to behold what little I can;
everything together is
the only perfection I can imagine.
You turn in disgust, bitterly lamenting my lost soul.
I await the next question,
wondering how I can improve my answer.
(Vaux swifts: colleenpatriciawilliams.com; earth: wonderfulengineering.com)
Fishing
A flick of the wrist:
the spotted lure sails across
the stream and blurps
into the shadow under the far bank.
The current catches my flash.
Another flick of the wrist,
gentler this time, and the rod tip
aligns the spinner’s drift.
I am fishing this morning
from my chair where the spinning
finds a different catch and release:
a current of thoughts where
scales weigh my native language.
My lure is wet, my feet are dry,
beneath the surface is how I seek.
(top: azgfd.net; poem “on the fin”: tackletour.com)
Birthing a Day by Jim Stewart
Many thanks to Blue Hour for presenting my poem. I am grateful for such a gift to end this calendar year.
You can hear the ocean
early in the morning from here,
this house hunkered on the hill,
the back side of Soledad Mountain.
Mexico is way out there and
the lights of downtown muted
by salt air rising from Mission Bay.
This should feel like home.
The sun changes everything
as it scales the mountains,
spills down canyons,
and sets the clouds afire.
I watch the burn.
Traffic noise rises and
defeats the ocean as it will
again this time tomorrow.
My heart is steady.
There is comfort in birthing a day, but
internal combustion is loud,
as is making light and heating homes.
We drive through our days, never
considering how deafness burgeons.
We are too many and we miss hearing home,
the blood and ocean in our ears.
Jim’s work has appeared in The Alembic, The Licking River Review, Mostly Maine, Orange Willow Review, Orion Magazine, The Progenitor…
View original post 15 more words
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
Narble Furt Lives 