A December Tanka

‘Winter’ … WHB – Pen & Ink 2017 

 

Bright the winter sun

Burns in the short day’s heaven

As each day goes by

I think of Bethlehem’s star

Wishing the year ‘Au Revoir’.

 

Tanka is a genre of classical Japanese poetry meaning a short poem, and one of the major genres of Japanese literature.

A Tanka consist of five units (often treated as separate lines when romanized or translated) usually with the pattern of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables per unit or line). Wikipedia.

I have again ended my Tanka with a rhyming couplet.

My Distant Star

Van Gogh – 1888: ‘Starry Night over the Rhone’ (detail) … Musee d’Orsay

MY DISTANT STAR

 

It’s not what I meant
by following my star
but that’s how it is
you’re so remote and afar.

so in my reflections
I make the connections
I’ve been living your life
I’ve laid siege to your mind
and fenced in your feelings
thinking your thoughts
and wishing your wants
your dreams I’ve been dreaming

 so what am I doing
with this surrogate presence?
what will I find
and what can I prove
amidst mist and fashion
by chasing each clue?
a sense of your passion
that essence of you?

I need to give you a meaning
to capture that feeling
of truly belonging
no longer just dreaming
no longer an adjunct
no remote stalker
given to stealing
your dreams, thoughts and wishes
your love and your kisses

 and then if I dare
all that I want
is your love to snare
rejoice in the glow
all else is despair

 

 

 

Wistful Erotica

ACROSTIC VERSE (Two related verses)

W hen our paths crossed those years ago
I n time long past and place afar
S o young and pure the afterglow
T hat kissing then ‘neath that bright star
F orever memories did bestow
U ntil that required au revoir
L ost us a life and let us go

E ach and every time I try,
R esolutely to be free,
O ver the air your soft words fly,
T ouching, teasing, tempting me,
I n a whisper and a sigh,
C hiding senses your charms to see;
A nd I’ll surrender by and by.

Sea Fever – by John Masefield

(No.56 of my favourite short poems)

‘Sea Fever’ . . . WHB: Pen & Wash – Sep., 2017

Sea Fever

 

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

 

By John Masefield

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‘Sea Fever’ is perhaps the best known of all the poetic works of John Masefield.  Born in Herefordshire, England, in 1878, he was the British poet laureate for 37 years in the middle of the 20th Century until his death in 1967.   As a young man he trained as a merchant seaman, but, in 1895, he deserted his ship when in New York City.  There he worked in a carpet factory before returning to London to write poems, in many of which he wrote about his experiences at sea.