TWO FOR MY SOON-TO-BE-EX-ROOMMIE

[Mandala courtesy of Zodiac Arts]

ONE: Seeds

The seeds my roommate plants in our tiny front yard are a variety of unknowns. It is fun to watch them sprout and see what they become. They take over the postage stamp-size yard, growing tall and wild. I rather enjoy them still, but they lean out over the sidewalk, and reach through the chain-link fence:

catching my skirt
dark-eyed blooms

I pull up the biggest offenders and try training the others to stay more circumspect, but to no avail. Still, neither my roommie nor I want to get rid of them totally. In their season, they die back, leaving tall, rigid stalks. My roommie pulls up the dry reminders:

surprise!
up the tall dry stalks
last season’s glories

One already has an open, lovely purple bloom. Although I harvested glory seeds last year, she had not planted them. She disentangles the little morning glory vines carefully from the tall dry stalks she pulls, and gently guides them up the chain link fence:

delicacy
after dense wild blooms:
morning glory

August 2004

TWO: Blossoms

My roommate of almost seven years is leaving to get married this coming April. She gave me flowers along with my birthday gift on January 4th. She told me at the time that the red roses were for me and that the white, feathery blooms were for Nena, a friend of mine who'd died at the end of December. The more than usually sweet smelling roses have long since expired, but not the tall white blooms:

long lasting gifts
bow above the vase
do you, too, hold on?

January 21, 2007
P.S. The day afer I wrote the above, the white blooms had finally "let go." Maybe they were waiting for me to get their message? :-)

* * * *

Resource: Tobacco Road Poet, a few really nice haibun, also haiku and haiga on other pages, by H. Curtis Dunlap.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.

SENRYU: Response to One Deep Breath Prompt of 1-23-07

subway serenade:
in his shiny guitar
my tired face*

* Note of 1-26-07: After asking in a comment below for opinions on two different line orders for this 'ku and getting some very helpful responses, I've gone back to the original line order. (The previous order I posted here was: subway serenade//my tired face//in his shiny guitar.)

The prompt this week at One Deep Breath is about “Process/Craft.” (Please visit the site to read the full prompt and to enjoy others’ responses.)

I immediately thought of the various processes involved in earning a living (adding to my fixed income has been much on my mind) and the craft involved in any art (with two blogs and all the exposure to others' art, this too, is on my mind a great deal). This senryu is about an old memory, from before my retirement, that has both these inquiries nestled within it.

I would always groan when someone got on a subway car carrying a musical instrument not in a case, as I knew we were probably in for some very bad and loud music. Although I always sympathized with the need to earn some money, all I ever wanted to do when on those loud, dirty, crowded trains was wool gather, either in preparation for the work day or in recovery from it. This particular young man stood directly in front of me where I sat in all my grouchiness. Oy! I closed my eyes, but to my utter delight he was a skilled guitarist and had a sweet heart-filled singing voice. My Spanish is extremely rusty, so my understanding of his ballad was at a gut, emotional level. Then, when I opened my eyes, it was to my own face in his guitar's reflective finish.

[The guitar graphic above is of a Gibson Hummingbird Acoustic.]

* * * *

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.

GREY (A Scifaiku String by Various Authors)

[Gray Dawn, by Jonathan Cummings, on webshots.com]

Back when I first started this blog, I did a post about scifaiku (scroll down to my post on scifaiku; see also "Resource" below for a scifaiku link). I've been writing in this haiku-based scifi/fantasy/horror form and taking part in a yahoo scifaiku group for years. I thought I'd share a recent string that I really enjoyed on this yahoo group.

For anyone not familiar with how a group like this works, someone makes a post. Then someone else appends a response, and so on. Sometimes the "Subject" topic is the guide for posts. At other times something in the last piece posted is the inspiration for the next responding (linking) scifaiku. The linking can be obvious or very subtle (puns are frequently made), but there is always some connection between each scifaiku in the string, from one to the other, and/or via the subject.

I'm not sure why the one below tickles me so. Maybe because I've been feeling like such an alien myself these days, even more than my usual wont. LOL! In any event, I share it here for you to enjoy. All authors have given their permission for their work to be posted here. Their names and contact information are listed at the end of this post in the order that the individual scifaiku appear.

Subject: Grey

the grey day blooms pale -
colour harvesters done with
the grey planet's dirt

another New Year
the greys' eyes
still haunt in dreams

it must be a Grey game--
one of us taken away
another given back

giving back
that grey sweater you bought me
in the spaceport gift shop

drove an awesome speedster
in some parallel dimension
winter-cloud gray

swallowed by light beams
he's one of the Disappeared
- the Greys go shopping

taken
aboard an alien craft
returned to myself

* * * *

And may we all be returned to ourselves by creativity and community when we are abducted by some life event, or wander too far away in sheer befuddlement.

AUTHORS:

Helen Patrice: helenpatrice@hotmail.com; http://sunstream10.tripod.com

Patricia (a/k/a Roswila)

oino sakai: oinosakai@yahoo.com

sakyu: sakyu_san@yahoo.com

David Kopaska-Merkel: jopnquog@Gmail.com

Helen Patrice: see above

sakyu: see above

* * * *

Resource: Scifaiku.com.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.