and something more...
in my brush.
the first noble truth
- Michael Ketchek
I, who
have almost nothing,
want little
beyond freedom from this
freedom from that
- Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
The huge reservoir
beyond the dam
thinking of my wife
I realize the great value
of holding back my words
- Michael Ketchek
semester's last class
and his twenty-two students
end their stiff questions-
the moment comes like a winged bird
like a Prometheus unbound
- Sanford Goldstein
barefoot
on warm sand
my toes
inches from the whole
Atlantic Ocean
- Art Stein
wondering for years
what would be
my life's defining moment
an egret staring at me
me staring back
- Jeanne Emerich
brick factory building
abandoned twenty year-
the small town boys
still haven't broken
every window
- Michael Ketchek
Clouds gather
and part, gather and part.
So will we.
Even now, it seems,
we're gathering, parting
- Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
dry seeds scatter
from my hand into the wind-
one clings
as if to say there is in me
something yet to be
- Jeanne Emerich
I walk fast
as if far is not
far enough
as if these loved fields
were not gift enough
- Caroline Gourlay
Come quickly- as soon as
these blossoms open
they fall
this world exists
as a sheen of dew on flowers
- Lady Izumi Shikibu
She waits
in purple- lidded privacy
ignoring the tea
with a sweep of one hand
sends the waitress away
- Patricia Prime
they say the moon
little by little each day
moves away
I confess to no one
what strangers we have become
- Marjorie Buettner
How afraid
so many of us are of life-
not wanting
to leave behind the known
not knowing whats ahead
- Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
an old photograph
of my parents
young and happy,
of all the things I own
that is the saddest
- Michael McClintock
how will I know you
on the Internet-
in Cyberspace-
without the warmth of your voice
the touch of your hand
- Pat Shelley
Here in the desert,
spring is over just like that,
Our lives, too, are short.
Who knows whether you and I
will meet in the next world?
- Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
writing
on the back of the letter
she wrote to me
a poem about windows
and distance
- Leatrice Lifshitz
Thinking about it,
what else is there but this—
birth, death,
and something in between
of uncertain duration?
- Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
walking
the railroad tracks
alone-
more and more we live
our parallel lives
- Larry Kimmel
parting with
my telescope
and with it
a certain way
of seeing myself
- John Stevenson
Department meeting:
while the mouths utter business
the eyes ripple with
someone sailing, someone fishing
someone drowning
- George Swede
long after she's left
the garden she tended
weeds reclaim the flowerbeds
my heart too
has grown wild
- Brian Tasker
invited at last
to meet his parents
i find myself
wondering which me
i should wear
- Doris Kasson
you climb
a speck on the rockface
of the mountain-
waiting here below it is
I who am exposed
- Caroline Gourlay
vacation's end
the highway still unraveling
when I close my eyes
how many parts of myself
have I left homeless behind
- Marjorie Buettner
he's traveled
these highways most of his life
yet today
somewhere between anger and tears
old man admits he is lost
- Jean Jorgensen
I tell my guardian angel
I'll happily die
in April
alas, each April comes
and I tell her I'm not ready
- Pat Shelley
I had read
your love poems
and now,
having met you,
read them again
- John Stevenson
far down the valley
she waves and calls to me
I love her more
in the time it takes
her voice to arrive
- John Sheirer
sleeping
on my lap
the cat
becomes a book-rest
for my other world
- Carolyn Thomas
her plane disappears
into starlight...
and somewhere
in her luggage
my love poem
- Michael Dylan Welch
watching
the storm tossed trees
through glass
afraid to let myself go
where the wind would take me
- Alison Williams
in the curve of light
the crash and spray
of the full-moon tide;
for a moment with arms crossed
the power of my youth
- Jeff Witkin
the wind-blown clouds
lighten and darken
lighten and darken
the room
in which we argue
- Brian Tasker
A subway train,
traveling beside ours,
veers up and away.
My feelings for you
go where they go
- John Stevenson
hair clean and long
sun-dried in the wind
my face
searches the blue sky
for its final destination
- Jane Reichhold
this road
connecting to another
that to another
until reaching the spot
where i will turn cold
- William Ramsey
Not to disturb
the spider in her web
between two trees
I take
the other path
- Pat Shelley
Writing a poem
of longing for her
I'm irritated
by the interruption
of her phone call
- George Swede
dawn
and you open
your deep-green eyes-
blackbirds stir
somewhere in the conifers
- John Barlow
with a man
who was once
the center of my universe
I discuss
interest rates
- Fay Aoyagi
not a single star
out of place in the
milky way-
the garden gate
left ajar all night
- Pamela Babusci
just five minutes
pressed against a stranger
on a crowded train
so why do I spend my day
dreaming of a life with her?
- John Barlow
on the night train
through that foreign land
I waver once
glimpsing
a lit farm kitchen
- Marianne Bluger
Ice in the corners
of my bedroom window
reminds me
how long it's been
since I saw her last.
- Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
Almost invisible
the zero
I traced
only last week
in the mantle dust...
- Marianne Bluger
in the dark
a tawny owl calls
unanswered
I pour out my last drop
of whiskey
- John Barlow
late spring hike
the trail still full of snow
on the north slope
we take turns walking
in each other's footsteps
- David Rice
weeding in the garden
humming to myself
suddenly a mourning dove
calls from me some sadness
I can't quite name
- Mary Lou Bittle-DeLapa
Several languages
and a thousand theorems
safe in his cranium
how serene my father
looks in death
- Marianne Bluger
all day at my desk
to glance up
at sunset
the housebricks
a deeper red
- Brian Tasker
in the ship's wake
a pair of sea gulls
follow, then tail off
in different directions
the words I meant to say
- Carlos Colon
I'm never happier
than at dawn, walking down
a mountain trail,
the day ahead an empty bowl
waiting to be filled
- Karma Tenzing Wangchuk ( for Marian Olson )
thinking of my wife
I accidentally say
I love you
to a stranger's
answering machine
- John Sheirer
it takes
this thick snowfall
to remind me
how thin and more thin
is my desire
- Sanford Goldstein
overlooking the moor
it came to me here;
a feeling of loneliness
brought by the wind
the warmth of the sun
- Brian Tasker
in morning fog
we ship our oars and drift
between loon calls
all that's left of this world
the warmth of our bodies
- Christopher Herold
a sudden loud noise
all the pigeons of Venice
at once fill the sky
that is how it felt when your hand
accidentally touched mine
- Ruby Spriggs
the spirit again
as a crab in a shell
able to walk
sideways into the sea
and back to you
- Werner Reichhold
Snow on the peaks
of the far mountains
faintly blue...
packing my few things
for the winter road
- Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
Dressing
for a meal I'll eat
alone
I decide to let loose
my hair.
- Pamela Miller Ness
after the long night
near my dying mother's bed
I turn from her face
to watch the gathering light
in another morning sky
- Jerry Kilbride
one derelict boat
lost in a maze of mudflats
in the setting sun
automatically I think
of my life- nothing like that!
David Steele
a wintry evening
all the way back to the car;
hardly knowing her
yet so intimately
her perfume remains
- Brian Tasker
suddenly
caught:
the emptiness
in that girl's
yawn
- Sanford Goldstein
when I think
we may never
meet again...
this hillside of aspens
endlessly fluttering
- Larry Kimmel
listening to you
talk about him, about you,
about them, about me,
and now, here it is, somehow
the dinner I made for us
- Christopher Herold
like receipts
of a business
gone bankrupt
I keep
these old love letters
- Kenneth Tanemura
Wind, do not tease me
do not muss my hair
My joy is too large for the house
and I cannot go in
to await his coming
- Pat Shelley
these hands
slicing onions for dinner...
but my heart has gone
to wherever it is
that you are
- Christopher Herold
warm in bed-
I wonder
where the birds
are weathering
the storm
- Kenneth Tanemura
This is a selection of some of my favorite tanka from Takuboku, whose tanka honesty I find refreshing and inspiring.
It was his tanka that sparked my interest in tanka after discovering them in his book titled : Poems to Eat.
