Blog Archives
Thorns
Ocotillo thorns, Robert J. Moody Demonstration Garden, Yuma, Arizona
Even the new moon
shrinks from the ocotillo
and its deadly thorns.
Haiku and photo © 2017 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Haiku My Heart at Recuerda Mi Corazon
More Midweek Motif at Poets United: “New Moon”
Sorrows
Juvenile ironwood tree armed with thorns, Sonoran Desert, Southern Arizona
the pilgrims’ pathway
littered with thorns and sorrows—
still they stumble on
Haiku and photo © 2017 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More SkyWatch Friday
More Haiku My Heart at Recuerda Mi Corazon
Desolate
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Southern California
desolate places—
choosing my way carefully
through the deadly thorns
Haiku and photo © 2016 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Blue Monday
More SkyWatch Friday
More Haiku Horizons: “Choose”
Imagine
~~ 1 ~~
imagine
red roses growing
in tar pits
among loathsome bones
with rotting sinews
~~ 2 ~~
The bowl of water
does not sense its own wetness,
nor the twig its bud.
Mud knows not its sliminess,
nor do thorns their prickliness.
~~ 3 ~~
When the ship I love
leaves the harbor without me,
seagulls lose their voice,
their little silvery tongues
weighed down by loathsome cankers.
~~ 4 ~~
heaped in the temple
ten thousand desperate pleas
unanswered by God—
perhaps a thief in the night
will snatch the sweet ones away
~~ 5 ~~
last downpour of spring—
even the woman who sins
murmurs prayers of thanks
Tanka and haiku © 2016 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Poetry Pantry #307
More Sunday’s Whirligig #64
Thorns
Fallen ocotillo blossoms lodged in cholla cactus spines, March 2016, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Southern California
some thorns, a blossom—
surely one small bird will come
with a morning song
Haiku and photo © 2016 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Haiku My Heart at Recuerda Mi Corazon
Celebrating
Statue of a young child in the Huichol exhibit, Museo Zacatecano, Zacatecas, México
At the festival
celebrating girls and boys
no one waters thorns.
Haiku © 2015 and photo © 2012 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Carpe Diem: “Children’s Day”
More Haiku My Heart at Recuerda Mi Corazon
Crow
Sunrise glimpsed through the branches of an ironwood tree, Sonoran Desert, Southern Arizona
the way to my house
bestrewn with thorns and sorrows—
crow on the mountain
his tedious yammering
smearing the sun in the east
~~ ~~ ~~
the way to my house
bestrewn with thorns and sorrows—
the eyes of a crow
reflect the burning mountain
just before sunrise
~~ ~~ ~~
the way to my house
bestrewn with thorns and sorrows—
at the sunrise hour
a crow with its mocking song
lays waste the mountain
Tanka and photo © 2015 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Carpe Diem: “Sunrise…Mountaintop”
More Three Word Wednesday: “Reflect, Tedious, Waste”
Far
Iron wheel on farm equipment, Rancho Los Alamitos, Long Beach, California
How far we have come
from the land of stones and thorns—
how far yet to go!
Text and photo © 2015 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Haiku Horizons: “Thorn”
More Carpe Diem: “Adjei Agyei Baah’s ‘Stones'”
House
Sunrise glimpsed through the branches of an ironwood tree, Sonoran Desert, Southern Arizona
the way to my house
bestrewn with thorns and sorrows—
crow on the mountain
Text and photo © 2015 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More SkyWatch Friday
More Carpe Diem: “House”
Suicide Note
She scribbles her suicide note with fervor,
envisioning birds and thorns, and her
arrival at a crossroads in the night.
She tells of a thread, stitching
rose and crocus and
chrysanthemum together in a
crazy-quilt of seasons out of joint.
She sings of a great horned owl
with the shine of moonlight
in its left eye, but not its right.
She curses the mud
from whose ravenous sucking
not even the strongest foot
can pull free. Then,
in mid-sentence
Magical Mystical Teacher 