Dru Philippou: Sanctum

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lions of Apollo
guard his Delian temple
among bursts
of wild poppies
clambering for the heavens

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I run the color red over Father’s free-floating columns drawn on paper, shading the emptiness between them green, compromising purity of shape. With a pencil, I taper the columns with shallow flutes, setting them onto stylobates. I sketch the abacuses and place them on capitals. Standing back, I gaze at the towering pillars, imagine them pulling loads. I reach for another pencil, thicken the walls around me and slowly tilt back my head.

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by Dru Philippou

Taos, New Mexico

originally published in Modern English Tanka, Spring 2009

Benita Kape: Linen Clouds

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Behind me the house which has a life of its own. Perhaps young children lie abed. One may be reading, the very young sleeping, the father listening to the radio. Perhaps the father has directed the older of the children to attend to after dinner chores.

.

But I, the woman of the house with but a month until the next expected baby arrives in spring, am seated here on the veranda. I have left the busy day's activities behind me. I have lowered my tiny frame and my big rounded ball of a belly into a deep chair. I look into a row of trees in a park across the road and claim it to be a forest in my mind's eye.

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But beyond my little forest a forest of children loom large; children who play in the kindergarten on the edge of the small park. I muse in the present, drift back to the future; the times when grandchildren took up the tea-towels after a family meal; argued over who would wash and who would dry and who among them might be put on roster for another evening. Now great-grandchildren have reached an age to take their turn in the ritual of washing and drying dishes as I go take a seat in a quite corner.

.

They joke that I have no mechanical apparatus to do away with such a boring chore. Funny how quickly they learned to flick tea-towels. Funny how it does not remain boring for long.

.

linen clouds

a child

and a kitten

entertain their

sleeping audience

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by Benita Kape

Gisborne, New Zealand

Chen-ou Liu: Candle

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Every year, together, my parents light a candle on my birthday cake, giving thanks to their God for the blessings I’ve received. Then I close my eyes, make a wish, and blow out the candle with my own breath.

birthday cakes

one on top

of another

pushing me down

six feet under

by Chen-ou Liu

Ajax, Ontario, Canada

Stanley Pelter: service

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funeral service

is a contortion

of her harsh life

at last

a loud voice hushed.

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Nearly made 102. Nearly 2 weeks dead. She, we believe, lies nearby. To one side. The event inside this last-of-the-day is taking place in one section of a tiny chapel. 7 of the small congregation are Jewish. Some are frum. From Ireland, a grandson, his memorial a soft roll burr of mid-America. Timed to coincide, over there 3 more grandchildren make offerings. No one looks directly at her lily-topped coffin. A grand yet petite finale. Ageing son’s soliloquy, his own poem, balance emotion with sensible detachment. Some of the Jews murmur to a hymn, unclear how to retain their outsider status. Inside a silencing sonata, a curtain surrounds a final secret as it begins to disappear through a narrowing space.

.

inside the inside

of an acacia leaf

veins bulge

she passes into a realm

of invisibility

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We make our way to a village pub. Meet in circular talk. Discuss photos in albums. Look inside picture frames. See into her twenties. Admire elegant poses of thirties. Talk beyond wartime songs: white cliffs of Dover. lily marlene. underneath the arches. we’ll meet again.

.

in a back room

of b/w photographs

such swirls of limbs

vagrant images

dispel inside memory

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by Stanley Pelter

Claypole, Lincolnshire, England

Chen-ou Liu: Half-Past Tomorrow

Everything has passed me by; I yearn for unseized moments. I think more of what has passed than of what will be. High expectations of youth have given way to acceptance. My life has always been and will always be uneventful: a series of events.

tomorrow creeps in
day by day . . .
the joints
of my memory
age and ache

I'm not happy; yet I'm not looking for happiness.

.

.

by Chen-ou Liu
Ajax, Ontario, Canada

Owen Bullock: Roche

My first full-time job was in a pub kitchen. They did bar food and had a ‘posh’ restaurant upstairs for the evenings. I washed dishes, prepped ingredients, made sandwiches. I also became a shoulder to cry on for my bosses’ wife.

I was nineteen and wore a skimpy beard. The chef advised me to “shave it off and grow un again.” One of the visiting salesmen told me, “rub it in yer wife’s doo-dah.”

When I’d been there a few weeks, the chef left. He’d been mis-managing the accounts and all I remember is the boss saying “I’ll break his fucking legs!” I got shuffled into cooking the bar snacks, which I enjoyed—I didn’t have to do so many dishes.

When the new chef arrived, he taught me how to make white sauce and paté. He was a large man and liked to bang on the bench with a broad-heeled knife. He’d served on the QEII and cooked for the Queen. When the old marge tubs on the bench were full of waste, he’d ask me to “take out the gash.” He found a hunk of venison in the bottom of the freezer, which the previous chef hadn’t known what to do with, and made the most wonderful pies.

But somehow the job didn’t seem useful enough to me and I got work in a psychiatric hospital. When I left the pub, they gave me a St. Christopher’s medallion. I didn’t know what to do with it; I sold it as soon as I could.

I was her confidante
but when I left her employ
she said
there’s a lot of things
I could say

by Owen Bullock
Waihi, New Zealand

Jeffrey Woodward: Woodberry Tavern

wading into thick
cigarette smoke to the beat
of a jukebox
Brubeck and all that
old school jazz

The graying proprietor and his wife, too, were seated, more often than not, with a few aging cronies—familiar enough to extend an unending tab—around one circular table, a friendly lot, and cozying up in pairs for a night of Euchre or Canasta.

High ceilings of pressed, patterned tin and a long mahogany bar with a brass rail footrest from end-to-end, the taupe walls and beveled glass liquor cabinets of another era contrasted favorably with Mr. and Mrs. Woodberry—so much so, that after only a glass or two, one might penetrate that couple’s wrinkled exterior and perceive their hidden youth.
.

tequila straight
from the shot glass
with a little lemon
and salt for a chaser
our aqua vitae

One long and narrow room, with an entrance on Water Street and a door at the far back, the latter opening onto a screened wooden porch on stilts and a view of the river some 20 feet below—this is why our little band, barely legal, came to frequent the tavern that summer: to sit and watch the dark currents pass under our perch, there in our high nook and hideaway, to wake to life in that deliciously cool air of last light and to listen, in the silent intervals, to the bankside willows gather the wind.

a dark saying
of Hêrákleitos

is quoted
and thus translated floats
away with the river

the delicate girl
the brunette who wears
a flower in her hair
she is a bit mad perhaps

she looks like Ophelia

another round
of shot glasses stops
at our table
a chorus of mock-protest
from the girls in tight jeans

the Rokeby Venus
passionately praised
for line and color
we speak of Velásquez
as if he were of our crew

and so we drift along
pleasantly enough
no ferryman near

with his forbidding shadow

when we happily ship oars

by Jeffrey Woodward
Detroit, Michigan
first published in The Tanka Prose Anthology (2008)

Ralph Murre: Canvas

Route 31 buses pass like time in fog and the canvas waits, as I look at brushes and knives, put them back, squeeze a gob of payne’s grey and some pthalo blue on my palette, consider the quality of the ground, pour some turps, hold off on linseed oil, have a coffee. Look at that woman out the window. Stare at books I should read. Mix a touch of sienna into the too-bright blue. Go for a walk in a grey-wash afternoon, think of slicing into a tube of alizarin crimson, think of a friend whose crying-out-loud crimson slicing will someday end in another failure or, worse, success.

stretched canvas waits
for her pale body
the way I’ll paint her
the flake-white bed
from which she’ll rise

by Ralph Murre
Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin

Chen-ou Liu: My Bird of Youth Has Left

French dramatist Victor Hugo once said that forty is the old age of youth. I wholeheartedly agree with his words. After passing the age of forty, I have become more anxious about growing old. I used to be the black cloud; now, I'm turning gray. Time slips away, hair whitens, hands age, veins emerge, and wrinkles stamp the brows. The back begins to ache, teeth become loose, and the voice gets hoarse, a charming quality to some and the roughness of age to others. Furthermore, the body grows dry and liable to fracture, and one day it will no longer respond.
.

looking out
bare maple branches
in the breeze—
mortally wounded
waving goodbye

by Chen-ou Liu
Ajax, Ontario, Canada

Bob Lucky: Night Market

The Ningxia Street night market is a jumble of hawkers and customers, the hum of propane burners, the clack-clack of spatulas in woks, and a thousand conversations.

legs dangling
from a plastic stool
a little girl
concentrates on her skewer
of candied tomatoes

Making our way through the crowd, we buy various types of flatbreads, oyster mushrooms breaded and deep-fried, kebabs and sausages.

on the altar
of a local shrine
an egg tart—
at last a god
to my liking

by Bob Lucky
Hangzhou, China

Dru Philippou: Nostos

Open the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and enter the Nysian meadow, naming roses, crocuses, and beautiful violets . . . irises too, and hyacinths. Avoid narcissus, that sweet temptation, unless you want a seat at Haides’ banquet. If you have time, pass by the olive-trees bearing their splendid fruits, and you’ll hear Persephone’s echoing cries.

he clasps the maiden
tightly in his chariot
the four black steeds
gallop back to the palace
of dust and ashes

growing used
to his ways, and
his three-headed hound,
she stokes the flickering
fires of oblivion

the dark-haired lord,
on an ebony throne,
polishes his helmet
while Demeter braids
a wreath for his door

the taste
of the seed seals
Persephone’s fate:
misty darkness
and vines of the earth

.

.
Matter in italics is borrowed from “The Homeric Hymns” by A. N. Athanassakis

by Dru Philippou
Taos, New Mexico

Bob Lucky: The Shuffling Blues

This morning I roll out of bed with sore hips and limp to the toilet. Surely I’m not as old as I feel, though a glance in the mirror is inconclusive.

the older I get
the weaker my sense
of immortality—
the heart carved in the trunk
stretched to the bursting point

No pension to speak of, no money sense, no hope of a hefty inheritance—I will die in harness like an old workhorse. To my wife, I’ll leave a mixed bag of memories; to my son, shoes that I pray do not fit.

by Bob Lucky
Hangzhou, China

Gary LeBel: The Stars Misplaced

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“...I wanna hear and see / everything...”

Jimi Hendrix, Up from the Skies

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The rainy scent of the Tennessee Mountains on a May evening floods the interstate—the traffic is light, the pace unhurried and leisurely, a drive I’ve made at least a hundred times.

.

A late eighties station wagon, a Dodge I think, pulls out in front of me. There’s something odd about this car: it’s transporting a body.

.

But the surprise of a body bag in full view doesn’t immediately sink in. What fascinates me even more is the driver.

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He has a full head of thick white hair, slicked back and shining, not a strand out of place, late middle age, a dapper man, like the one who never talks in film noire. Though his window’s down, the hair doesn’t budge. His hands are long and slender, feminine. His taut pink skin looks shrink-wrapped over his high forehead and prominent cheekbones; his crisp white dress shirt matches his hair. This man doesn’t nail boards together on his days off. I’ll call him Charon, after the Greek underworld’s infamous chauffeur.

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He looks straight ahead, leaning forward into the steering wheel with a grip that would put the Ancient Mariner’s to shame. The head of the corpse is less than six inches from his lap. To picture this fully you must imagine an old green station wagon, mostly windows. A juryrigged, makeshift stretcher lies in the center where the middle seats should be. I had always thought these kinds of ‘deliveries’ were shielded from the public eye behind pleated gray curtains but every day’s an education.

.

I watch the wind blow eerily through the bag, alternately expanding and deflating, rippling at times from head to toe. When it collapses, the nose and feet protrude.

.

In fact, I’m chasing them, increasing my speed as Charon does, passing when he passes, pulling in again right behind him, though I keep my distance. I can’t take my eyes off that immaculate hair, the resolute, forward gaze or the rippling body bag foreshortening feet-first a few yards in front of me like Mantegna's Dead Christ.

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But not for a second do I feel the slightest morbidity in this game. To me there’s no one else on the highway; I’m welded to this moment by curiosity alone. It’s death and its business-as-usual aftermath I’m seeing, as plain as a cinderblock: no tears, no flowers, no hearts being weighed by Thoth, just someone’s fate and another’s job. What coin beneath the eyes, I wonder, nickel, peso, drachma?

.

After miles of this close pursuit, Charon shoots abruptly off the interstate toward one of those small Tennessee towns with a Native American name, his taillights swallowed by the exit ramp and the hips of crouching mountains. In truth, I could have turned off and followed him.

.

Their faces tonight

............after thirty odd years in the bellies of ships,

some who met the ‘blue-eyed boy’

............and those

who followed Jonah.

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by Gary LeBel

Cumming, Georgia

first published in Abacus (2008)

Dru Philippou: Hipólito, the Herder

with his crook
he navigates
the rough terrain
early bluegrass
and white clover

villagers liken
the shepherd to
ruddy-limbed Pan
piping to nymphs
nearby a spring

rustic viands
for his fare
and tinkling bells
the heavenly sleep
of the herder

Go down from the trail over the matted dried grass up along the fence; pass the long oblong water trough to the cedar in the distance, shading the grave with a red and yellow tulip. “I planted the bulbs last year!” says a friend. The sheepherder, Hipólito, is buried here. I can still read his name and dates, 1912-1971, carved on the cross. Nothing else is known about him, but hikers are often told, “Go by Hipólito’s grave.”

by Dru Philippou
Tao, New Mexico
first published in Modern English Tanka V3, N 4 (2009)

Gary LeBel: Curve

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Today in the North Georgia mountains the sun’s straight up, school’s out—boarded-up shops and broken soda machines, filling stations with no tanks or recent calendars: all wait their turn to disappear under the great sleepy eyelids of kudzu and cicadas.

.

Two young boys are following railroad tracks between mountains, one of them short, the other taller by a foot. It’s all there on four legs, their youth and friendship, the boundless summer stretching out ahead of them somewhere down the tracks as the tall one leans over the shorter who tilts his head to cock an ear.

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‘Whither do they go,’

...............vanishing side-by-side,

...........................train rails

...............and the bend

...........................of a river?

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by Gary LeBel

Cumming, Georgia

first published in Abacus (2008)

Patricia Prime: The Hand Press

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My fiancé kept a hand printing press in his bedroom. He was a printer by trade and bought the press to make extra money. Two nights a week were spent printing invitations, business cards and letterheads.

.

The moveable metal type was kept in small boxes, each letter taken out individually and arranged into lines to form text, headings, captions. After the type was set and tightened, it was tapped into place. The paper was fed into the machine and rollers spread the ink under the pressure of the press. Several proofs had to be "run off" to ensure even coverage, clean print and correct order of type, which was positioned in a "mirror image"—something a skilled compositor could do in minutes.

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winter evening

the smell of chemicals

drifts from the window

the cat is stirred

from her sleep on the tiles

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My task was to clean and "break" the type after the job was completed. Each letter had to be cleaned and placed back in the correct tray which was a lengthy and tedious process.

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My future mother-in-law kept a wary eye on us. She'd interrupt every half-hour or so, with tea, a plate of biscuits, or a stern warning it was time for me to go. All this subterfuge to mask her worry over what—disguised by the clunk of heavy machinery—might be taking place in the bedroom.

.

up and down the stairs

weathered floorboards

thud beneath the press

as she retrieves

cups and plates

.

After washing with industrial soap it was time to leave the room smelling of chemicals and ink. Cards laid out on the drying stacks. We walked home hand-in-hand.

.
low in the sky

a crescent moon

bright and shiny

like the letter 'C'

in the compositor's tray

.

.
by Patricia Prime
Auckland, New Zealand
first published in Modern English Tanka V3, N1 (Autumn 2008)

Giselle Maya: Summer Breeze

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at noon

it rises out of thin air

and glides

from afar

into the garden

.

through the valley wind sifts pollen

from the vessels of daylilies

and ruffles the cat’s tigered fur

white roses sigh near yellow evening primroses

corn leaves tremble and grow by leaps and bounds

zucchini blossoms of orange-yellow

cradle within green

.

where

does the glaucous

summer breeze

come from

where will it go

.

beans with white and violet blossoms tousled by wind’s fingertips

bow again and again how do they spin tiny beans out of blossoms

.

the tall borage with prickly leaves etches blue stars

the rose called ‘Joseph’s Coat’ is painted in shades

from lemon to wine-red

the feathers of nightingales are brushed

they lift their voices

in the high willow

.

in a hammock

the gardener closes her eyes

soothed

after sifting dark earth

to nourish growing plants

.

blue-green silk

noon wind

ripples water

content

to be alive

.

by Giselle Maya

Saint Martin de Castillon, France

Katherine Samuelowicz: How Is She I Wonder

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travelling to work on the dew-washed morning by bus on the route I never take by car I recognise this house now comfortably nesting among grownup trees lush green feeding on the recent rains fitting so well into the neighbourhood that grew around it

.

how is she

I wonder

this other me

living with my ex-husband

in this house we never bought

.

by Katherine Samuelowicz

Brisbane, Qld., Australia

Dru Philippou: WIND POWER

On the Beaufort Scale of 2, a light breeze forms wavelets, rustles palms. On the scale of 4, a moderate breeze wipes footprints from the sand, blows a sailboat out to sea—

And on 8, a gale of 40 knots, I paddle my surfboard out in the ocean; make it to the lineup, sit-up, and wait for the sets. A swell approaches. Turning the nose of my board shoreward, I start to paddle then stand. I ride towards those palm branches snapping, and breakers crashing against rock; my mother’s voice gone.

a deep-sea
anglerfish slams
its mouth shut—
for a limpet,
an unknown universe.
.

by Dru Philippou
Taos, New Mexico
first published in Modern English Tanka, V3 N2 (Winter 2008)

Jeffrey Harpeng: NIGHT JOURNEY

With her pillow and blanket she settles to sleep on her bedroom floor.

Later as I am heading off to bed, she is sleeping in her doorway, knees tucked under, bottom in the air, arms forward over her pillow. She is stretched, as in prayer, toward mummy’s bed in the room across the hall.

In the morning, on my way to breakfast, I find her on the floor just inside mummy’s room, still sleeping toward Mecca.

the long night journey
without wings
to morning
a chorus of crow
parrot and dove calls

by Jeffrey Harpeng
Macgregor, Qld., Australia