Thousand: One Hundred Five

mix had been the first one to the ewe, the lamb she was birthing still stretching out the wet birthsack. The dlgs mix grabbed the lamb by one hind leg, while his buddy got hold of the other, and, not wanting to share, each pulled in his own direction. The ewe wailed. The farmer was on watch as he knew the ewe was sure to drop any day. He’d even patrolled the fence, but the feral dogs found a hole hidden under a shrub, and the farmer came running too late to save the lamb who hadn’t opened one eye.

Thousand: One Hundred Four

seemed impossible to the dlgs mix, yet you could not deny that all around there were trees. Packs of them. And that appealed to the social animal. A forest is the most faithful of packs. Only in death does your neighbor abandon you. The dog imagined a tree doesn’t feel the pangs of hunger the way a dog does. A dog feels the pangs of hunger pretty darn pangily, let me tell you. So it was both dogs were given opportunity to cash in their karma on a new go-round by a sheep farmer and the sheep farmer’s shotgun. The

Thousand: One Hundred Three

a deep admiration for patience, not having much himself. There were dogs with patience, he knew, dogs who could wait hours, even days, for the beloved to return, and wait without complaint, patiently, gazing off into a future so assured nothing made them nervous. The dlgs mix knew he could never be like that. A tree, however, was patience. It was essential tree nature. No matter the species, if it was a tree it was patient. A tree planned for the long term, reaching deep for the resources that stayed put, spreading wide to catch the resources more fleeting. That

Thousand: One Hundred Two

pal, a doberman-labrador-greyhound-schnauzer mix, liked the idea of tree, having peed on many a tree during his time, pee for a dog being no insult but rather a prime component of the communication repertoire. Dogs have real respect for trees. The dlgs mix was also tired of having to run around all day, sniffing, biting, scratching. It’s not that there weren’t satisfactions to a good gnaw or to the tingle in the nose brought on by a whiff of dog butt gland, indeed, it was hard to imagine a life that didn’t include such wonders, but the dlgs mix had

party?

“Thousand” has just exceeded 10,000 words. Seems like that should call for a party. Anybody want to set up a surprise party for me?

Thousand: One Hundred One

available), a gnat (brief turnaround time could be an advantage), a basilisk (tempting for the vengeful but may not actually exist), a tree (you are not allowed to specify a species), or a Catholic. The dog, upon its death, chose Catholic. The child did not know he had been a dog in a previous life, although during communion a priest did get bitten. The Catholic position rotates with Hindu, Muslim, Animist, and Zoroastrian. Many dogs go for gnat. Gnat is not as low a rung on the karma wheel as you may think. Plus, there’s little waiting. The dog’s best

Thousand: One Hundred

up the tomato beds. And biting off all the squash blossoms. This was not a good beginning to the dog’s story. However, after it was dropped off at the crossroads in the middle of the night, the dog learned the ways of the country dogs, which was to chase sheep, tear open the hutches of tame rabbits in order to eat them, and steal food from the bowls of cowering poodles, that and rack up karma points for their next lifetime when they would be (and here they were given a choice) wolves (a very limited number of wolf slots

Thousand: Ninety-Nine

drink order the bartender reaches up and plucks from the tree’s branches one of its fine fat fruits. The bartender puts the plum to her mouth and bites. Plum juice sluices down her chin and, as she chews and bites and bites and chews, working her way through the slippery, softening plum, the juice drips from her chin, and the juice runs down her bare arm to the elbow where sweet golden drops gather and fall. “I’ll have what they’re having,” says the tree. Once upon a time there was a dog. The dog had begun its story by digging

Thousand: Ninety-Eight

An elm, a citrus fir, and a summer plum walk into a bar. The bartender says, “What’ll you have?” The elm says, “Water.” “OK,” says the bartender. “Water it is.” Then, turning to the citrus fir, the bartender asks the same question, “What will you have?” The citrus fir thinks for a moment as though it hadn’t anticipated having to answer exactly that question. “Water,” after due consideration the citrus fir says. “Great!” says the bartender. “We have very fine water here.” Now it’s the turn of the summer plum. But before the plum has a chance to place its

Thousand: Ninety-Seven

that might be the better choice, really, considering the unappetizing sway of dried kidneys on a string. A dilapidated cottage in dark woods or that distant thing that might be something. The wear of the paths suggests a preference. Although it could be more travelers than not are lost and a house of that sort encourages one to keep going. Not to say the less traveled path comes to a stop at the stoop. It goes on beyond, too. Above your head evergreens drag needled crowns in a fog. Down in the bushes birds rustle and mice build toothpick houses.

Thousand: Ninety-Six

to breathe, although, frankly, not everyone would. The other road leads to the beginning of something. It will get there eventually, which is why this road is used. The way, however, is roundabout. It wanders, its destination is its determination not to get any particular where any particular soon, and it’s pretty good about making that destination in good time. There are those who like that. Maybe more than like to be healed or who think they are ailing, alone in the woods, with the option of an ugly old woman to save them, or going forward toward the place

no nod

Got the news about the second batch of haiku I sent out at the end of July. (Fast turnaround!) “Though there are some interesting observations here,” said the editor, leading with the positive, “they tend to tell all and thus leave the reader little to discover.” Then she recommends an essay on contemporary poetry, the same one linked from the haiku magazine’s website, so, yeah, I done read it, right. Whatever.

Having read & written haiku off & on over the last 25 years I’m not going to claim I have nothing to learn – there’s always something to learn, isn’t there – but my process is for my purposes. Not pleasing the editors of haiku magazines, while disappointing, is a matter of incidental importance. 20 years ago I subscribed to Modern Haiku and sent work to the editor who was friendly and tried to be helpful. It was then I learned how fussy the idea of haiku can be. Still, I’ve read a lot of haiku I’ve loved. I don’t know that the proportion of haiku loved to haiku bored by is greater than the proportion of other contemporary poetry loved/bored by, but the haiku goes by faster.

Thousand: Ninety-Five

indifferent drummer just off the altiplano. There are so many ways to go. Perhaps you should let a coin choose your path. The road less traveled, though not much less traveled, really, as neither’s been traveled much at all to judge by the grass growth, presents the attraction of being a shortcut to the ancient healer in the woods, a hag of withered countenance and prominent physiognomy, with two cats of dubious manufacture, a haint, as well as several organs and oranges drying on strings next to the gleaming ropes of peppers on her verandah. You are bleeding. You continue

Thousand: Ninety-Four

What metal could prove itself, clean as mercury, toothsome as gold? What joy has been cut to accentuate its facets? But just then, the heroic anthem strikes up and a banner unfurls over a castle just stormed. The rain is falling on a drought-stricken postage stamp. And the sinecure provided an aged actuary proves just slightly inadequate such that he must downgrade his trip to the French Rivera to a trip to the Balkan Riviera, Montenegro’s Adriatic which, he tells his youthful protégé, Elizabeth Taylor thought was worth an afternoon or two. Meanwhile, you hear a different drummer chasing an

Thousand: Ninety-Three

of fate until it hits the sun, sweeps just shy of the heel and touches venus’ mount, before turning back up the life. Oh, what a tickle! And it so knows you. This little bead has bobbed about your ankle and cycled up and down the inside of your nose. This little bead’s been squeezed through the left ventricle of your twisting heart and lingered in a lung to exchange some gases. It knows your prefrontal lobe and your middle frontal gyrus. And, yes, it’s helped warm your hairy genitals. This bead knows you. What gem could be so intimate?

Thousand: Ninety-Two

setting in the silver dust, untie from the stone the ready pink thread, and begin to add to it the beads of your inner darkness, one by one, to make a necklace? Are you a do-it-yourself type who would snag a curl of cloud and twist it between your fingers into the thread that would pass through the needle’s hungry eye? What better spine for the bead of secrets? You catch one of these ruby beads as it drops from your arm. You roll it around in your palm. It scurries over your girdle of venus then follows the line

Thousand: Ninety-One

you prick your thumb? A trail of blood leads down to your elbow from which two drops have already leapt the gap between your flesh and the earth. It was the rose you fondled. So pretty. It was as though the world, swaddled in its soft red petals, were a sleepy bee. That’s when the thorn gets you, dips its fang into your sap, and draws the poison out. The darkness is drawn to the beckoning needle of the rose. It emerges in beads. You forgot the thread. Thread? Do you lean over now and pluck the stone from its

seeking the nod

Of the two batches of haiku I sent out this past week, I got a response to the one sent Saturday. Two days ago. The response was NO. “While your work is engaging,” said the editor kindly, “it does not quite meet all of our criteria …” Ah, haiku criteria. Yes. The haiku purists have a pile of criteria that have to be met in order for a little poem to be a haiku. Some Japanese are quite contemptuous of Western versions of haiku. The editor did suggest I try again next reading period. If he’d thought me totally off track surely he would have defended himself against further time wasting by fending me off more brusquely!

So I might. If I stick to my haiku-writing regimen I’ll have scads of rejectables seeking someone to say NO to them.

Thousand: Ninety

from his foot, had offered in exchange a limp. Around your feet are the bread crumbs that lead off to the left. Tied to a stone is a pink thread that zigzags away over the rubble, circles a tree, then disappears into a hole. The stars, as usual, have been aligned into a northward pointing arrow. There is an envelope pinned to your collar. Breathe, remember? It’s not the sort of thing one remembers. Breathing. If one were to remember every breath the memory would have room for what else? The action. Breathing. That’s what you have to remember. Did

Thousand: Eighty-Nine

Sighs? “You hurt me,” said the man who traveled across stones hot as tears, who had beaten his camels with a switch cut from a tree that all the time weeps, its sobs shaking it to the hollow. They would not go faster. They would scream, raising their ululations to the camel god who seemed to be taking a mercy fast. “I didn’t hurt you,” you want to say, but where is he? He limped off into the maze, leaning on a silver crutch that had a toe of sore flesh, the hurt man’s own toe, the one that, torn