Tanka with the Theme of Misperception

Almost showed you plum blossoms
that were a light fall of snow.
--Akahito



The sea slips from the shore.
One white wave again stands fast.
A crane in the surf.
--The Emperor Uda

To the Dogs

The ravenous god who devours our flesh,
she always throws a bone to the dogs.

The Tenderloin, the Yoshiwara,
Sharon Terkel’s trailer, all gone to the dogs.

Feeling distant from him who lay close,
she crept downstairs alone to the dogs.

A misanthrope she now knew him to be,
for he’d never taken that tone with the dogs.

The parents, but not the sons,
feel most at home with the dogs.

Most say Ron, some Ronald, some Ronnie.
By scent I’m truly known to the dogs.

Two by Li Bai

Seeing Meng Haoran Off From Yellow Crane Tower


As flowers bloom and leaves unfold,
my friend sets out, west for Guanling.
His solitary sail recedes,
vanishing where river meets sky.
--Li Bai






To the Festival Plateau


Feeling oppressed toward evening,
I drive up to this ancient place.
The sun blazes a moment more
before the yellow dusk follows.
--Li Bai

A Whole Lot of Asylum

Whatever your view about whether we should have gotten into Afghanistan or whether we should get out now, most of us should be able to agree that if we leave and the Taliban takes over again, we'll be obliged to offer political asylum to the entire female half of the population. There could be a whole bunch of women trying to grab onto that last helicopter taking off from the roof of our embassy.

More Hoboes

Dead-These-Ten-Years Mitchell
Chester "Polka Down the Tracks" Trazewski
Mustard Sucking Rudy
The Beloved Word-Salad Sarah
Liver Lips Lenny, the Dollar-a-Kiss Man
Gimpy Jim with Kids in Columbus
Trilling Willy, the Mole Whisperer
Merkin-Lint Mavis Stumpel
Trevor from Guelph
Beardless Jane
Imelda, the Former Mrs. Burro
Defrocked Sandor

A Possible Answer

Meme theory is the notion that cognitive items--ideas, phrases,etc.--can be subject to evolutionary pressures. So let's say we have some dubious religious idea. What happens if we add to it provisos that it is absolute truth, that you are deep trouble if you don't truly believe it, and that it is known to be true by faith and is thus impervious to logical disproof? A dubious idea with these provisos would be more likely to be reproduced--maintained in your own mind and passed on to others--than a dubious idea without them. And then what would be the effect of making the idea not only dubious, but to a degree nonsensical or unintelligible? An idea you want to reproduce, remember, pass on to others, that is also not really intelligible, is more likely to be passed on verbatim. More likely to be passed on without mutation because paraphrasing something you don't really understand is difficult. Thus we stand up together reciting creeds.

A Renga Written by My Lonesome

32 COUNT NATURAL CASING LINKS


Waiting in twilight
for darkness deep enough
to light the yellow lamp.

When I was young, I didn’t
dance, and now I dance like this.

The catechism girls
wobble to first communion
on their new high heels.

Oldest memories are of
earlier recollections.

Dream or misty night.
Can you make out the song heard
only from the bridge?

Faintly violet in flight,
the blue and white butterfly.

One purple flower
betrays the bindweed, curled tight
around scrubby trees.

In its arms, the old maple
holds its leafless, broken limb.

I wake up thinking
Christ, my index finger’s numb:
Still holding your hand.

If it’s her perfume I smell
on you, whose scent is that?

As it propagates
throughout, can you say here
voice ends, record begins?

Choose: forgotten happiness
or false memory of joy.

Only now hearing
of a friend’s old hurt—what use
untimely comfort?

So, how much grief and longing
will this little art assuage?

All the workday long,
dogwood blossoms fall on cars
in the shaded lot.

Among all my employments,
please find some trace of my work.

The unheated house.
Back to back with my black dog,
lying in sunlight.

Boats drift apart, together
tug the stake on the night shore.

Recalls his words of
farewell more clearly than her
to whom they were said.

Now long past, the nights
that were to justify our whole lives.

Out front, my car parked
crooked on moonlit ice. Here
we are, warm and naked.

The trees crackle in the wind,
after hours of freezing rain.

Cold rain becomes snow.
We remember summer, though
it not come again.

Walk again in the same woods,
where we’ve always seen new birds.

Long unvisited,
this narrow space, here
between garages.

Note from an inside pocket.
Forgot what it said again.

Of the old photos,
the one remembered doesn’t
match its memory.

Neither so old and sick, dear,
yet, to have to lie alone.

Silver note. Our son
tings the ancient copper bell.
We age gracefully.

At my most garrulous, still
I am thought strangely silent.

The perfect poet,
for greatest effect, just once
in his life writes "fuck."

Shee-it—winter, spring, summer, fall—
beer stanza time, raht chere y’all.