George Swede
In the beside lamplight
a new topographic map
of my hands and arms
revealing even more
underground streams
sea breeze
my body just being
while my mind
vainly searches
for meaning
Awake from a
dream of being lost
I gaze at stars
that might still
be there
Another evening
with bare black branches
criss-crossing a sunset sky
and thoughts of what
lies beyond Sedna
A wide valley
between rolling hills
and jagged mountains
the forces that shaped
mother and father
When I had no one
a yellow evening sky
evoked despair
now fear of
impending loss
Barber shop mirror
more wrinkle and sag
than I thought
my hair invisible
on the white apron
Note: Simply Haiku no longer accepts non-traditional Japanese Short Form Poetry
_______________________________________________________________________________
His first collection of tanka, First Light, First Shadows, won the 2005 Snapshot Press Tanka Manuscript Competition and was published in 2006. His second collection of tanka, White Thoughts, Blue Mind, is forthcoming later this year from Inkling Press. In all, Swede has published 32 collections of poetry, 18 of them haiku. He is the current editor of Frogpond: The Journal of the Haiku Society of America.
__________________________________________________________________________________
