I see a small light green and glowing. It moves from side to side like the sagelampu I carried for you, Mama. You said, “Quick get the lamp, Tanouesan has a high fever.“ I held the lamp in front of us and the light would zig zag along the dirt path in rhythm with our…
Renshi Submission
Do You Know My Name?
It just irked her no end when she couldn’t pull out the name that should have matched the face in front of her. She had in the past been able to grab a sliver of a syllable, a letter like an “M“ that led to Martha or Milly or some clue that pulled out a…
Bamboo Shoots offshoot
WRITE WHATEVA!
Here is the poem created from today’s (Saturday) festival based on the lines provided by seven writers. Their original lines precede my poem.
Renshi Submission
He Feels his Tumor Grow
He Feels his Tumor Grow That’s what he calls it, that thing inside him he doesn’t know what. Surely, the naming will tame it: tumor, tumor. Then, it will stop growing, this feeling. In him, on him, by him, with him . . . he uses prepositions to make him think he knows. He doesn’t….
Renshi Submission
Faithless, Without Memory
He didn’t think about the after or the before for that matter, the time it didn’t work, the time all failed the time we said, no, no, no, never again. No, he didn’t think about that. He just meddled and muddled believing it would work without plan without knowledge without loss of our sons, our…
Renshi Submission
Jalousied Window
I see her look at you: she tilts her head ever so cutely and laughs so brightly. I close the slats against that look hers and yours, those half opened eyes taking in all that light from her white teeth. I close it shut, then open, she’s gone and you walk up the steps, coming…
Renshi Submission
A Few Words on Linked Poetry
From the classical Japanese tradition renga or renku This modern version, renshi Whether followed by the kanji for song (ga), verse (ku), or poetry (shi), Expression is always preceded by the ren. To link, connect, join, group. While specifically pertaining to the thing produced, it also pertains to the process. For it is not only…
Renshi Submission
No choice but to follow
No choice but to follow Certainly she was behind him, he thought, as he ascended the narrow ledge out of the unforgiving shadow. Naturally, spring follows winter, the full moon, the dark. No doubt she was there. Yet, he stopped, looked back. He just had to make sure.
Renshi Submission
How does bamboo ridge?
How does bamboo ridge? With lots of hands, lots of head, lots of heart And hours and days, and years—30—of time. What did bamboo ridge? Ninety-one issues, Eight hundred-fifty plus writers and artists of poems, stories, plays, and essays with plenty, plenty of words, some pictures, some photos To launch careers To help pass the…