Haibun 137

just my imagination running away with me

i feel like i will live forever. i am not looking for or anticipating the end. i think i will just keep listening to the music of the clouds and pick a few stars from the sky for dinner later on…

at the waterfall
the pace of my life

Haibun 134

locked tight in the universe

the best experience in the world is when you think yourself right into a tight corner and then blow right through the walls. freedom is afterall only an experience and you can have it at will once you learn the trick. it cant be given to others and it cant be stolen from you once you have it. it is your original self.
a day lily
to a bee

Haibun 133

non sequitur as art

sometimes you are just sitting there listening to dry conversation. if you want it to change course just do what I do. say something totally and entirely off point. whatever happens next will be better for everyone even if the others just ask you to leave. i have data on this that proves my theory completely.

the still
of lilies
the sound of a frog

Haibun 132

when i was young just yesterday

as a kid i valued my bag of cats eye marbles more than anything. when i grew up i valued paper with paintings of queens and kings and revolutionaries on it. today i would give a bag of gold for my cats eye marbles that are long gone. my view of the past is much clearer today than it was when i lived it.

the impulses
of youth
exploding the sun
with my thumb

Haibun 131

ghost in the shell

looking over my life there is a peaceful disorder to it all. done a lot. been a lot of places. met a lot of people. in all the activity i have found nothing missing. if i have a secret it is that i didnt expect anything. one time i quit my job. a well paying one too. i took a month off and just flew and drove around to see friends. it is a memory without context which is the best kind. it is too bad that i cannot share this memory with all of you.

just a new moon
and i

Haibun 130

late night jazz

when i was in college in the sixties in east lansing michigan there was a late night jazz show on one of the local fm stations. the dj always began his show with the words ‘this is rockwell and these are records’. one night my roommates had all gone home for christmas and i stayed behind to watch a peaceful snowfall blanket and shut down the city. there were three rooms on the second floor of the old house and the landlady was a sweet old southern bell in her eighties. her husband had been an engineering professor and had died years earlier and she had taught in the art department and now rented out rooms to lazy hippies. she did not hear that well so we enjoyed the music of the day as loud as we wanted.

not quite alone that night with ‘rockwell’ and his ‘records’. but he was teaching me jazz and a new ramsey lewis trio album was out. i had ‘borrowed’ my roommates stereo (which he never let us use) and cranked up the sound. they were playing a beatles song and suddenly the music stopped. and ‘rockwell’ told me to listen hard and check out the way this trio played into each other. my god. they were handing off the riffs to one another while they played right on with their own. amazing……..

wonderful when you can be in tune with another that way isnt it. to this day it makes me smile to remember that snowy night.

a hard days night
catching my breath
on a g string

Haibun 129

i defy any cloud to appear in the sky

when is a little kid my grandfather bought a brand new cadillac every year. he was a boss at general motors so he knew what they would look like. what the colors would be. and he picked it up the morning of the first day they were introduced to the public. he let his young grandchildren pick out the colors. my sister was the youngest and when she was four grandpa said she could pick the color. now my grandpa was a tall handsome german man with grey hair who wore impeccable suits and shoes and looked like a million dollars. so. my sister chose pink. and so it was for a whole year with not a word of complaint. that was the last year the grandchildren picked the color of grandpas cadillac.

nothing on netflix
the complex nature
of butterflies

Haibun 128

if my last breath is this one…

it was an epiphany like no other. I was sitting in the sand meditating. no breeze and the water like fresh blown glass. it was so quiet that i suspected i had left the body. i guess that is when i heard that steady sound. i thought to myself. it is so quiet what is that sound. it was the sound of my blood in my ears. not so subtle either. that is when great discoveries can be made. just me alone or the sound of the sixth avenue el. the same thing really. left for everyone to see.

with everything
the holy nature
of loss