The dawn breaks with the prayer call
In the woods nearby
walking on the Earth's breast is the farmer
whose sweat would now kiss the harvest, the crops; the Earth
what more could she have asked for; when every afternoon,
she gets a drop of gift from her son,
in the form of gratitude and love
she was thirsty
for the rain
when the bosom of the sky
cleft asunder and tear drops fell down
it was all the result of her son's cry; for his mother was in pain; she had not seen rain for a time
her son smiles with joy
the sky reverted to his prayer

Beneath the pale moonlight,
his shadow disappeared out in the lurking woods a few miles from here.

He ventured out towards the mainland, 
only to never make it back or so I had thought.

For I could've sworn that I made him out to be at his own funeral, a couple of years ago, from a distance behind a tree
before vanishing once again.

Nonetheless, years have passed and never have I laid eyes on him again, but a few days ago I did discover his music box from years ago underneath that same bridge,
beneath the pale moonlight.

The shovel stalks me
rocking forward left-right
on its blade, persistent.

I wear disguises
and dodge into doorways.
Sometimes shovel passes,
sometimes waits.

I hire clippers, rake, and fork
to spy on shovel.
They report nothing.

I suspect shovel wants to kill me
with one hard whack on my occiput.

I’m jealous of those who use shovels
to plant daffodils.

My shovel is sinister,
rusty, patient.

On rainy nights, I dream
shovel deepens my grave.
My dream fork says dig.

Bureaucratic neighborhood-watch pigeons
issue parking tickets,
report unlicensed lemonade stands.


(First published in Star*Line)

I've lost a friend
To suicide today.

I know I am
Supposed to understand
And mourn in silence

For which I don't understand
And as I am sad I am angry
For why would all of my friends
Choose death over me. 

I wake a full hour early
for the rare gift
of a walk in the woods
with my father.

He is a silent giant
among misty ghost gums.
I tell him, Watch!
See how fast I can run.

He doesn’t yell when I trip
and fall, but lifts me
with unfamiliar,
calloused hands.

At the end of the trail
I study my grazes—jagged
and bloody. He tells me
he’s leaving my mum.

On the walk home
I gaze at the gum trees
and fragmented clouds, thinking
they should look different somehow.

Your fine blond hair
falls on the back of my hand
like splinters of light
or sand bleached by two summers' sun
or specks of gold glitter.
As I tilt your head
back towards my chest
the trimmings slip
from my wrist to the floor
to be swept away.
In shifting your familiar weight
on my knees,
a tiny strand finds its way to my mouth;
I push it to my lips
and lick it to my thumb.
Depending on how I look at it,
this residual shard
is a selfish “I,” a hurried dash –
the first stroke of a kiss.

(First published in ESME, 27 December 2017.)

fingers of sunlight
stroke the wrinkled highland hills
as shadows lengthen
a Border Collie chases
melancholy from my heart

~Glen Coe, Scotland

First published in Atlas Poetica 30: A Journal of World Tanka (Nov. 2017): 26. Edited by M. Kei. Perryville, MD: Keibooks. Print.

Our hearts are parched Lips sealed Souls speaking of the wrong done Voices not heard Whispers so feeble Cries so unheard We suffer together For our hearts are parched Lips sealed We hear not the cries We see not the tears The broken bangles Speaking of last night The torn books Stifling her in home She speaks not Of the room She was kept in She speaks not Of the man Who had kept her in She speaks not Of the man who sent her in For we hear not For we see not For our hearts are parched Lips sealed We see not the dragging by hair We hear not the slaps We see not the wounds on her back, neck