Hatagoya's Desk

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Expressionism

by Sneha Subramanian Kanta

how you eat the fallen figs
your body full of soil scents –
arm clutched to my side,
bare bodies of autumn’s pride.

your fingers, opening a map –
nail pointing eastward
moving subtly, then all at once
over the body of the large Pacific.

how your mouth, partly open
devours my mouth, in exploration –
then, like ancient forest-dwellers
sing ourselves to sleep, meditating.

how chants, escape your tongue,
lick my senses into molten clay –
how, in a world of immigrants,
we find – a land unknown, to stay.


Repeater

by Denny E. Marshall

Dust bowl of the 30’s
After hundred years
Of raping Nebraska aquifer
Dust bowl of the 30’s

Nightly Eye Shine

by Suzanne Cottrell

Night
cold grass
green eye shine,
Carolina Wolf Spiders
hunting crickets.

a small end
(for Martha Landman)

by James Bell

see the red click beetle
crawl over a log      choose
that one for the wood stove
instead of others on the stack
sit to feel some heat
with a modicum of guilt
about what made you make
that choice      listen for a pop
some kind of     cry
only the regular    click
of  the stove as it warms
the log bursts into flames

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Feeding

by Subhra Bhattacharya

The school of fish
feed on the dead baby octopus
one leg at a time
in bites and chunks
till all that is left
is a gelatinous blob
shaking in the water.

You didn't get there on time
to grill it
serve it on a platter.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Listening to a Crow Lecture

by Don Thompson

Clinging to the old oak
as if tenured, a crow
has been holding a seminar.

Three or four students listen,
compelled, powerless to resist
nihilism: Nothing is good,

according to that harsh caw,
not at all hard to translate
into human sentiments.

I’d take notes myself,
but keep being distracted by
how eager the leaves seem,

motionless in dead air, to dance
as soon as the breeze comes up.
And it will.

Sunday, December 4, 2016

Lines

by Marilyn Ward

shadows
in the orange orange pyracantha
blackbirds

Lines

by Nancy Scott McBride

glow behind the mountain
full moon rising