Notes from the Gean · 2016. 1. 22. · Notes from the Gean: No. 14, December, 2012 Page 12 BOUNDARIES daisy chains Lucy doesn't bother with 'he loves me not' Once a year there is

Notes from the Gean: No. 14, December, 2012 Page 1

no.14

December 2012


Welcome to Notes from the Gean:Monthly Haiku Journal

Brought to you by Gean Tree Press

featuring haiku, tanka, haiga, haibun, linked forms & more.

For details on how to submit to Notes from the Gean please check our

SUBMISSIONS page.

Disclaimer:

Though different schools of thought may be expressed herein the views of

contributors are not necessarily those of Notes from the Gean or Gean Tree Press.

Editor: Colin Stewart Jones

Cover image: Colin Stewart Jones

Overall content copyright © 2012 Gean Tree Press. All Rights Reserved.

Individual works copyright © the named artist/s.

http://www.geantreepress.com/

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CONTENTS:

Who’s Who p.4

Trophy Wife p.5

Haiku & Tanka p.6

Haiku p.7

Dead Swan p.8

The rains came p.9

Haiku p.10

Tanka & Haiku p.11

BOUNDARIES p.12

Breath p.13

Acid Reflux p.14

Poised p.15

Haiku p.16

Haiku p.17

Uneven Steps p.18

Tilted sky p.19

Haiku & Tanka p.20

Haiku p.21

The Diviner p.22

Intimacy p.23

Haiku & Tanka p.24

Tanka & Haiku p.25

Vivaldi p.26

Perfumed night p.27

Haiku & Tanka p.28

Haiku p.29

Agriculture p.30

Tanka p.31

Haiku p.32

Haiku p.33

Frog p.34

Back Page p.35


Who’s Who

Senator Ray and his opponent the Former Senator Ray faced each other

face to face when they faced off in the 100th International Bottom

Feeders Face To Face Face Off and Jamboree in Vicksburg Mississippi.

Both candidates baited their hooks with reduced taxes, seduced morals,

misused values, excused ethics, and a dog named god, all of which

were shaped and crafted out of pure bullshit gathered from the dust

draped fields of failed farms strung across the chronic, drought stricken

states of their minds from coast to coast.

At the end of the day the candidates disciples couldn’t decide if Former

Senator Ray was Senator Ray or if Senator Ray was Former Senator Ray.

Nor could the candidates. After both men loosened their ties, shook hands,

waved to the crowd, and kissed the same baby, they raised a toast to

each other . . .

Senator Ray began, “ To the health and happiness of my incredibly pathetic,

dishonest, manipulative, idiotic, sociopathic, patriotic opponent Senator Ray, “

and the Former Senator Ray concluded, “ To the health and happiness of my

incredibly pathetic, dishonest, manipulative, idiotic, sociopathic, and patriotic

opponent the Former Senator Ray. “

reflecting pond

minnows and thoughts

cloud the picture

Ed Markowski - USA


Sheila Windsor - England


down the street

her plywood tongue

follows me

Orrin PreJean - USA

tomorrow

an illusion painting

shadows . . .

on a street corner

sipping brandy

Robert D. Wilson - Philippines


black rainbows?

mark her clock out

in cherries

Alan Summers - England

unable to remember

what was in the dream

what was in life

Owen Bullock - New Zealand


Dead Swan

one door becomes two and doubles again hard rain

a narrow escape I was a fly in 1000 bottles

blurred vision I hand someone my pants and keys

snowing now I blow into a tube

cocky I tell jokes at the edge of hell

spinning room a fly stays still in mid-air

the smell of disinfectants is that a hint?

4 beds

on this

ward

filled with

sweating

darkness

cellular exchange escape for blood

now nameless bones solidify in my flesh

no romance the touch is clinical she counts

barred windows a dead swan on the frozen lake

48 hours 47 of them like eternities I'm told

Christmas carols someone is talking to (their) ghosts

a snow globe will things settle and I be me?

shake

baby, shake

a has-been

rock star

falls

beside me

36 hours when is my blood blood?

trying coffee another wreck wears my face

every hour I'm asked my name … what a faint sunrise

all I have a stained pillow and an excess of heartbeats

thermometer there's a measure for falling and rising

merciful sleep? rubber men and women melt dreams

”jingle bells” the shadows are in good spirits

shape shifting it's Wednesday again outside

Johannes S. H. Bjerg - Denmark


an’ya - USA

Tanka Entry Judged as Excellent in The 7th International Tanka Festival Competition, 2012

By Japan Tanka Poets’ Society, artwork unpublished.


red nails

shredding the night

into dawn

S. M. Abeles - USA

morning glory . . .

not knowing about

names

Kathabela Wilson - USA


knots on a log

glow sharply in the grate

then fade . . .

I don't always speak

of our stillborn son

Sonam Chhoki - Bhutan

murmuring river:

a poet listened to

every day

John McDonald - Scotland


BOUNDARIES

daisy chains

Lucy doesn't bother

with 'he loves me not'

Once a year there is a cricket match at a hospital caring for people whose brains

have let them down. All the residents, perhaps as many as two hundred of them,

come out to sit on the grass around the boundaries. They clap a lot, sometimes at

the 'wrong' moments, for their enjoyment does not depend on understanding the

intricate rules of the game.

One of their number, Michael, has taken on a special role. He puts the tin numbers

up on the scoreboard. Only in tens. Numbers like thirteen and eighteen confuse

him. Sometimes a visiting scorer has not been made aware of this and calls out

some awkward score, like twenty-seven for three, last man five. Michael flies into a

paddy and throws one of the tin plate numbers into the ground.

Sometimes it takes quite a while for ten runs to be scored. The score rises slowly

from thirty to forty, say, and meanwhile Michael has idle time to fill. Picking on

supporters of the visiting team, such as batsmen waiting their turn to bat, he hands

them a copy of Hymns Ancient & Modern.

'Say me a number,' he bids them. And that person leafs through the little book and

chooses number 336.

'Above the clear blue sky!' cries Michael triumphantly. 'Now say me a line.'

'There is a land of pure delight,' the next-man-in ventures, adjusting one of his

pads.

'536!' shouts Michael, almost peeing himself for joy. Nobody ever catches him out,

for he knows every hymn in the book by number and first line. The pleasure never

wears thin, even though he may now have brought the trick off thousands upon

thousands of times.

over the white line

the disappearing ball

up Lucy's skirt

David Cobb - England


Brendan Slater - England


Acid Reflux

Six months into the pastel pink delusions of that

lurid summer dream, we watched our loving selves drip

black neon drop by black neon drop into the arms and embrace

of a luminous sugar devil from the coal country of West Virginia

who entered into death at the very moment he drew his first breath .

Tattoo Parlor

On The Tattooist’s Right Cheek

Scars Form A Crucifix

Ed Markowski - USA


Susan Shand - England


bound

in a shoestring—

winter's chill

Don Baird - USA

in silence

stitching pieces of me

against guitar winds

Orrin PreJean - USA


dusty road—

where handsome parted

from this stranger

S.M. Abeles - USA

flat tire moon viewing

Johnny Baranski - USA


Uneven Steps

owl's call broken

by the telephone—a whiff

of antiseptic

the uneven footsteps

of someone passing by

children's ward . . .

how long will the plastic

jack-o-lantern remain?

slow drip

near the youngest smile,

midnight whispers

fly.... fly....

the sated spider sleeps

dream catcher—

a trolley car echoes

through the room


Don Baird - USA


Alegria Imperial - Canada


map on the wardrobe

we wait for our Dad's

return

Helen Buckingham - England

under peeling bark

of my childhood tree

find me there

with my caterpillar

words

Kath Abela Wilson - USA


twig

by

twig

fall

drizzle

Alegria Imperial - Canada

clouds until there is nothing but

Alan S. Bridges - USA


The Diviner

light on the water

before the minnow

its shadow

He knows me this man. He doesn’t claim to, but he does. Not that I’m going to

alert him to that fact, despite the uncanny knack he has of being able to read me

long before I’ve taken up my pen. Let him continue to believe I am the insoluble

conundrum, an uncrackable code.

I’ve lost count of the times I've been met with a flash-bulb grin and a nudge-nudge-

wink-wink proclamation along the lines of: “I know what makes you tick . . .” (I’m

not a clock); “I know what pulls your string . . .” (I’m not a kite); “I know what floats

your boat . . .” (I’m not a marina) & &

one kiss

and you think you know me . . .

peony buds

Where is it located, this Me, this I? Can it be pinpointed on a map; is there a

symbol in the key that denotes me? Perhaps I’m the human equivalent of a little

known tumulus, or a spring, long dried up, still whispering its secrets to a 1970s

tower block. Could it be that my mystery remains intact, but I’m uniquely traceable,

situated on some well-documented maternal leyline? No matter. This me, whatever

it is, wherever it resides, is known, somehow, by this man.

scent of rain . . .

the winter hazel

stirs

Claire Everett - England


Pris Campbell - USA


the ship in the bottle

admires its trophy . . .

a me in the house

John W. Sexton - Ireland

Tornado rips the roof

off my home and sucks me

into the sky

in the coming down

I live the rest of my life

Bruce England - USA


my home

is a low-hanging moon

tonight

as I become older

than my father

Chen-ou Liu - Canada

Child to man,

now I know the direction

of my face

Bruce England - USA


Vivaldi

in raindrops

with no colour of their own

the garden - myself

a lean-to shed,

the seasons come and go

Vivaldi

from the cutting room

these days always spring

as ever, in between

the scent of orange


John Edmund Carley - England


Violette Rose-Jones - Australia


past her nails

a truth worth

hanging on to

Stella Pierides - Germany

tonight,

beyond the stars

we dream . . .

a poet pretending

to be a calliope

Robert D. Wilson - Philippines


clocks go back

the nightmare comes

early

Rachel Sutcliffe - England

spinning

in the hub caps . . .

autumn's voice

Don Baird - USA


Agriculture

Mango trees lined the road at the Northern edge of the village

Not a lick of wind yet mango leaves shimmied thirty - five feet

above our top hats on our left flank Wicked Willie from Saint

Augustine looked up and whistled a carbine kiss into a cluster

of leaves not one thread of black pajama floated down in the

village proper a few chickens scrambled four goats roamed six

pigs waddled monkeys ranted from a bamboo grove an amplified

crack one shot took the Beach Bum’s head off in the center

of the village in dust we dove and ducked then worked our

way over to the bamboo grove took a look nothing there

on our way out we did our Zippo & The Magicians routine

old men watched women wailed children aged thirty years

in ten seconds we took a bow we tipped our hats at the

South end of the village more mango trees fly covered ant

covered mangos mashed in the road oozing juice looking

back I saw a streak of flaming feathers pinball off the

Beach Bum and through the legs of a smoldering goat

and with the exception of the Beach Bum I watched

myself and every other guy in our squad turn to ash.

A

T R

S S

Our

Eyes

Wander

Down

The

Trail

Of

A

Madman

Ed Markowski - USA


A parade of ghosts

march along the train tracks

from Bergen-Belsen

back to Hanover

for knockwurst

Jack Galmitz - USA

summer dusk

touching the poppies’

red silk throats . . .

what need have I

of opium?

Jenny Ward Angyal - USA


the childing autumn

I forget heartbreak

stains to violets

Alan Summers - England

60s snapshot

analogue children

bob for apples

Helen Buckingham - England


dust remains the perfume of books

Susan Shand - England


Linda Papanicolaou - USA


Back Page

Colin Stewart Jones - Scotland

Documents

Notes from the Gean · 2016. 1. 22. · Notes from the Gean: No. 14, December, 2012 Page 12 BOUNDARIES daisy chains Lucy doesn't bother with 'he loves me not' Once a year there is