CAMPUR (MALAY WORD FOR POTPOURRI

next-door professor

confesses it's more difficult

to teach three-year-olds



lone journey  - seeing myself

all the time in the opposite

passenger's sunglasses



old drawer

a lizard's egg jumps

from a bundle of love letters

  

over the snow

in the wind, a flock of cranes

land, flap their wings,

cry, their bills pointing

directly into sky



joe pees into roses

as granny says he can

help in watering garden



rooftop estacy dance -

the pigeon flaps in triumph

as its tail goes down to its mate



marriage candles

flicker to newly-wed's

red hot passions



chinatown

a red rose waves at me

from a flat's verandah



in the graveyard

crickets serendading

the dead

  

after the rain

playing a guessing game

over toad's and frog's croaks



dusk - we hug and kiss

below the palm trees

unwary that the beach

is all long shadows and

that ours hit the entrance of a house



comma-shaped leaves

rustle now and then--

the beauty of pauses



insecticide

the unschooled farmer

concocts a silent killer



united nations

formed specially to hear

human-rights abuses



election -

sincere promises

for the ears only



crossing the pacific

reading tomorrow's newspaper

in the sky



mid-autumn

at the redlight

all the full moons on windscreens



in Kelantan - peeping  through

bullet holes in coconut tree

at Japs' landing point



a war turns sweet

for Japanese general

advancing his love in human origins



superstitious mom

daughter reprimanded for

removing mole on nape



born out of wedlock

and down the toilet bowl

it goes cries and all



a dry patch

a bloom clings on to life

expecting the rain

  

barber asked about

his business replies:

"Well, do you see a lot of hair?"



Van Gogh's Sunflowers

His child laughs: "This looks like

my friend's work."



his warm saliva

lingering on my cheek

as he trails off

for the last time

the smart taps of his shoes



reciting rosary

in the chapel

the candles flicker to our verses



pouted lips -

stealing mom's lipsticks

for all the experiments










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Todd Pack's picture

Wow, this IS a potpourri! There's so much in here I could comment on. I'm going to have to bookmark your page so I can read all your haiku and tanka. A wonderful poet, Loren Kleinman, recently graced our venue with some of her works, and among them was a tanka that reminded me why I first fell in love with the Japanese form-poems . . . to some they would seem utterly simplistic, and yet it's possible to create a colossal impact into such small forms . . . you seem to work them all remarkably well!