Blog Archives
Aphorisms
Write your name outside the box;
Help your neighbor mend her socks.
If you use your white paint first,
Things will go from worse to worst.
Anything on page sixteen
Will remain, by Jove, unseen.
Sentences are like a thread
Leading to the living dead.
Letters written by one’s hand
Are most certain to withstand
All the ravages of time,
Quite unlike this awful rhyme.
Poems © 2018 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Sunday’s Whirligig #187
More Poetry Pantry #428 at Poets United
Weekend
Palo verde blossoms, Sonoran Desert, Southern Arizona
~~ 1 ~~
First weekend of spring—
an outcry from a boulder
startles the blind man.
~~ 2 ~~
First weekend of spring—
by reading classics aloud,
she consoles herself.
~~ 3 ~~
first weekend of spring—
beach boys beating their sandals
to rid them of sand
~~ 4 ~~
First weekend of spring—
exhausted, though the surf pounds,
she sleeps on the shore.
~~ 5 ~~
First weekend of spring—
she tries to name the birdsong
that disturbs her sleep.
~~ 6 ~~
First weekend of spring—
a flame in the eastern sky
makes the blind man flinch.
Haiku © 2017 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Macro Monday 2
More Sunday’s Whirligig #104
More Poetry Pantry #346 at Poets United
Name
Wellton Memorial Cemetery, Wellton, Arizona
a name carved in stone
only part of the story—
listening for more
Haiku © 2015 and photo © 2013 by Magical Mystical Teacher
Coming Up for Air
~~ 1 ~~
on my homeward way—
sunset pulsing vermilion
atop the mountains
~~ 2 ~~
A talkative guest—
powerless to quiet her,
I gulp my brandy.
~~ 3 ~~
graveyard at twilight
children rolling in the grass
near grandma’s headstone
~~ 4 ~~
up and down the field
a farmer and her husband
sowing dust from stars
~~ 5 ~~
into a furrow
dropping corn seeds at daybreak—
glint in the crow’s eye
~~ 6 ~~
toad in the bean row—
the way it moves at twilight
toward a hapless fly
~~ 7 ~~
a forgotten name
surfacing like a turtle
coming up for air
~~ 8 ~~
on a moonless night
burrowing into her box
the homeless woman
~~ 9 ~~
white eagle feather
floating earthward from a nest
hung where cliff meets sky
~~ 10 ~~
for the mongrel dog
a rub behind both his ears
then a tummy pat
~~ 11 ~~
timeless afternoon
hitchhiker by the highway
waiting for a ride
Poems © 2015 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Poetry Pantry #269
More Sunday’s Whirligig #24
Name
Desert willow (Chilopsis linearis), Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Southern California
no sign of tears
to prove your name
weeping willow
perhaps the wind has dried them
or a hundred days of sun
*Opening gambit © by Adjei Agyei-Baah
Final two lines © 2015 and photo © 2013 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Carpe Diem Special #157: “Adjei Agyei-Baah’s Haiku”
Glow
Morning glow, Sonoran Desert, Southern Arizona
ordinary earth
basking in a twilight glow
holy is its name
Text and photo © 2014 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Our World Tuesday
More Carpe Diem: “Sacred Earth”
Whirling with Rumi
Each vignette begins with a phrase culled from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks.
~~ 1 ~~
The orchard in spring—
apple blossoms fly away
when the old men call.
~~ 2 ~~
Come to the orchard—
it is time to name the fruit
clinging to the trees.
~~ 3 ~~
From the other world
comes one whose speech grows orchards
hung with tempting fruit.
~~ 4 ~~
where the two worlds touch—
faint signs of degradation
smudging leaf and light
~~ 5 ~~
a grain of barley
doing double duty as
an earthy poem
~~ 6 ~~
the speechless full moon
filling ten thousand goblets
with unuttered words
~~ 7 ~~
the one who brings light
this frosty autumn morning
broken in his chains
~~ 8 ~~
puddle that freezes
making no sense to the drunk
sloshing his vodka
~~ 9 ~~
For what needs no food
there are no sheets of music
to help guide the dance.
~~ 10 ~~
little hanging lamps
connected to the plum trees
with frayed bungee cords
~~ 11 ~~
ancient manuscripts
with vital information
cast into the flames
~~ 12 ~~
a sugarcane flute
wrapped in strips of red and gold
for the nuptial feast
© 2014 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Poetry Pantry #221
More The Sunday Whirl, Wordle 181
Whispering
View through a ruined window, El Charco del Ingenio conservation area, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, México
through the south window
the desiccated grasses
whispering my name
Text and photo © 2014 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Our World Tuesday
More Carpe Diem: “Basho’s “My Dreams Start to Wander'”
Staining
Fallen chuparosa (Beloperone californica) blossom, Yuma Conservation Garden, Yuma, Arizona
Staining the desert—
what shall I call the blossom
that bleeds out its name?
Text and photo © 2014 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Macro Monday 2
More Ruby Tuesday Too
More Carpe Diem: “Ghost Writer #15”
More I Heart Macro at Shine the Divine
Grotesqueries
Each grotesquerie begins with a phrase purloined from One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, the Colombian novelist who died 17 April 2014.
~~ 1 ~~
dusty almond trees
all the fruit turns into glass
bitter little shards
~~ 2 ~~
hand-painted flowers
remnants of the midget’s dreams
tossed to the bridesmaids
~~ 3 ~~
box of dominoes—
two pieces rub each other
in just the wrong way
~~ 4 ~~
place of burial
the earth begins to settle
after three amens
~~ 5 ~~
a wicker basket
hides a broken battle axe
under cloth of gold
~~ 6 ~~
houses with zinc roofs
shattering expectations
rusting overnight
~~ 7 ~~
glass beads for macaws
flung into the April sky
snatched by hungry beaks
~~ 8 ~~
a bulging suitcase—
the clumsy woman drops it
on the railroad track
~~ 9 ~~
clocks made of carved wood
vanish just before midnight
tick again at dawn
~~ 10 ~~
invisible paths
some on land, some on sea
Moses knows the game
~~ 11 ~~
clothing left behind—
an old man without a name
tries on the trousers
~~ 12 ~~
sticks of balsa wood
listen as the cotton string
tightens on a kite
© 2014 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Poetry Pantry #201
More The Sunday Whirl, Wordle 160
