Drifting Sands: A Journal of 21st Century English-Language Haibun and Tanka Prose, November 2022

I'm honoured that Pravat Kumar Padhy included the following micro tanka prose in his essay, Micro Tanka Prose: A Novel Experiment, in the Features and Essays section of the November issue: 

Nearly There

I told them I was dead, but not a single person there believed me...

the sign said

turn back, road ends here

I waken

from a brief sojourn

in another realm

Atlas Poetica, Number 23, 2015

Commentary:

Ellipses mark in the one-line prose infers a possible continuation. This is a personal experience of life and near-death metaphorically portrayed through the signpost indicating the close of the road. The truth of life is reflected at the threshold of happening. It infers a brief halt and recovering back to usher in a new journey. The brief expression evokes a sense of awakening. The tanka embodies a sort of mystical manifestation (yugen tei) expanding the essence of the prose.

—Pravat Kumar Padhy

 

Burnt Diary: Memoir in Haibun and Tanka Prose, Moth Orchid Press, 2022

My thanks to the editor for including the following haibun and tanka prose in this lovely anthology:

Coming Undone

She always wore the same sweater. I've kept it all these years, and I wear it whenever my memories of her start to fade. Today, the last button came off, and I put it in the sweater's frayed pocket for safekeeping. When it slipped through a hole, and dropped between the floorboards, I finally realized that she was never coming home.

heirloom quilt

sparrow prints embossed

on new snow 

2nd Publisher's Choice Award

KYSO Flash Haibun and Tanka Prose Contest, 2016

Totems

When I live on the prairie, I long for the sea. When I live by the water, I yearn for the land. I am always living either half-empty or half-full, my totem selves pulling me in opposite directions.

my weathered skin

crusted with salt and dirt

the aftertaste

of this life and the last

where do I go from here

Skylark 3:2, 2015

Otoroshi Journal, Volume 1, Issue 2, Summer 2021

Ghoulishly excited to have my first horror tanka prose featured in this new horror-themed journal. My thanks to editor Lori Minor and Joshua Gage!

Bodement

I feel a frisson of fear as she unpins the emergency button from my bed. The intravenous needle tears a hole through my skin and blood spurts from the wound. My bedding becomes drenched with urine and stomach acid as the catheter and feeding tubes are yanked out. Taking my brittle hands in hers, she kisses the tip of each finger before breaking them, one by one. I am without oxygen, but conscious enough to understand that this is what I deserve. With a final gasp, I beg for her forgiveness.

the sin-eater

consuming

transgressions

consuming

the sin-eater

 

Atlas Poetica, Number 24, March 2016

newly planted
evening-scented stock
at the end
of this careworn day
the sweetness of night


late harvest
the roar of combines
all night long
looming through grain dust
there be dragons


how we longed
for the circus to come
one last chance
to hang by our heels
from the high-wire moon


white-tailed deer
between tamaracks
our past
e l o n g a t i n g
with each golden hour


a black dog
slavers at the edges
of my mind
is there no escaping
this inevitable defeat


drum circle
my heart pounding
in my mouth
these words that taste of blood
and sound like thunder


she is small-boned
with beautiful plumage
this tanka bird
whose every short song
lifts us into glory

(for Kathabela Wilson)


Midnight Shift


Winter nights are never quiet when I spend them alone, brooding in bed like an egg in a nest of down.

A plane drones overhead. In rising winds, evergreen branches scratch messages against the windowpane.

Our clock chimes on the hour. The dog's nails tap dance across hardwood before she settles down with a sigh. The furnace grumbles through its cycles, struggling to keep bone-rattling temperatures at bay. My body tenses as a sharp crack splits the air. This old house speaks its own language, and the strings of my guitar respond with sympathetic vibrations.

the sound of tires
squeaking on new snow
a winter bird
rises from her rest
fluffing up her feathers


Note: This issue also contains a lovely review of Warp and Weft, Tanka Threads by Maxianne Berger which may be accessed via the "Books and Reviews" page of this blog.

Atlas Poetica, Number 23, October 2015

Nearly There


I told them I was dead, but not a single person there believed me . . .

the sign said
turn back, road ends here
I waken
from a brief sojourn
in another realm


Encrypted


Somehow, it seems that I am always the last to know . . .

a crow scrawls
asemic messages
between clouds
I could never read
the writing on your walls


Weapons of Mass Destruction


I was incredibly naive to think that you would be my only enemy . . .

how deadly
these red lily beetles
in my garden
after a swift attack
only fallen soldiers

Skylark, Vol 3, Number 2, Winter 2015

Totems


When I live on the prairie, I long for the sea. When I live by the water, I yearn for the land. I am always living either half-empty or half-full, my totem selves pulling me in opposite directions.


my weathered skin
crusted with salt and dirt
the aftertaste
of this life and the last
where do I go from here

Bright Stars Tanka Anthology, Vol. 3, June 2014

writing
a love song
for you
baiting the hook
reeling you in


beside
the endless highway
murdered
her twin's only son
and his girl


in the forest
ghostly Indian Pipe
e m e r g e s
out of moss and earth
older than I'll ever be


collecting flowers
to press inside my book of you
gathering words
of stone and feathers
acorn poems in my pocket


in the highlands
we are standing stones
leaning
toward each other
f r a g m e n t e d


in my pocket
an opened invitation
I already know
the name of his new wife
the name of my best friend


at the clinic
one pale woman
waiting
while they review
her mammogram


falling
snow stars
melting
in the grace notes
of your hair


you cradle
my stone sorrows
in the leaf
of your palm
sifting me into sand


she flew
from the tropics
to the prairies
carrying orchid leis
for her winter sisters


sitting
on Santa's lap
year after year
she asks for one thing:
a father who stays

come
fly with me
over the mountains
in the curve
of a magpie's black wing


preparing
a nest for you
plucking
blood-tipped raven feathers
from my brooding breast


antelope
dissolving into wind
over the prairie
ancestral bones
remember my name


pine needles
stitch my lips together
a silent vow
the forest has heard
so many broken promises


our breath
wispy quills of maroon
curling
a graceful ballet
in the sky


drawing
a heart in sand
i offer
my beloved's name
to the boundless sea


a fox
on the cabin steps
waiting
our dog asks
if she can go out


black ice
and snow angels
at twilight
we are riven
we are stone


sailing
into midnight
encircled
by stars upon stars
nothing but stars


your lips
a perfect storm
raining kisses
into the chipped bowls
of my unquiet hands


Mother

I see now
with my inner eye
that she always walked alone
beside the waters
that called her name
a small song rang out

a firestorm
is raging in her belly
she rends the heated cloth
and bares the scars
upon her naked breast
she is leaving, she is leaving

after she
is said and dead and done
we are earthbound
dust sparkles
on our wings though
we are still too singed to fly

mother, why
does the torment of your life
still haunt me
daughter, let go
you were never meant
to bear my cross of stone


O (No) Canada

shame on us
thousands of aboriginals
(ab)used
in nutritional experiments
and residential schools

now they search
the dump for bodies
hundreds of missing
and murdered Indigenous sisters
whose spirits wait for justice


Crocodile Tears

Oh, those crocodile tears. You painted your face with them every time you wanted something from me. All it took was a single tear quivering on the tip of your lash, and I would dissolve into a crush of bruised petals beneath your feet. You devoured me with lips dripping lies like honey. When you finally spit me out, I was nothing more than a shadow.

they said
I squandered my only life
on quarter moons
and pennies
for your thoughtlessness


New York Room

(After Edward Hopper, Room in New York, 1932)

Passing an open window on a sobbing afternoon, I catch a fleeting glimpse of you, reading. I wonder if the broken arrows of world news are piercing your conscience, or whether you are charting a new course on the unfolded map of your heart. Perhaps your mind's inward-looking eye is remembering the nothing and everything of me. Your woman in red presses the keys of the piano tenderly, as if they are recalling the song of your flesh, though there is no answering thrum. I avert my knowing gaze from the ache of her unsuspected future.

tableaux
through keyholes
all the things
we wish
we could unsee


1st Place
Writers' Collective/Winnipeg Free Press Short Fiction Contest, 2011


Winged

I came in off my land 20 years ago, weary and beaten down inside and outside. My man was gone. My kids were gone. Now I'm nearly gone. I'm brittle as bone, scarred by the sun, with furrows as deep as those on the land.

thumbing history
through train track-stitched prairie
to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
and its mountain
of bleached skulls

I'm the town's school librarian now, and it's a comforting job having out-of-date, yellowing, and dog-eared books as my faithful companions. Books have always seduced me, and I gorge on them like some sweet pleasure that I will soon be denied. The library's fusty air and squeaking floorboards are both soothing and inspiring. This is where I began to work on the book that will bear my name.

at the library
aspiring writers
emerge
from inky cocoons
unfolding new wings

Accompanying each story in my manuscript is a photograph of a derelict building that will soon vanish from the face of the earth. The pictures help to breathe life into the tales told by those forlorn walls. A stately old farmhouse has taken root up on a nearby hill, with a vista of swaying golden wheat surrounding it. Defending the sagging front porch are two gnarled lilac trees that scarcely bloom. The front door dangles askew, and most of the windows are wounded. Inside the house, shreds of decayed curtains and patches of water-stained wallpaper are still visible, but nearly all the paint has peeled away. Lacy cobwebs float everywhere, while puffs of dust rise with each footfall.

dirty thirties
three million acres
d r i f t i n g
in a dust cloud of dreams
over the Atlantic

I'm wary while setting up my tripod. Hunting season is fast approaching, and I've been winged a time or two over the years. I guess I've always looked like something wild. My breathing is slow and easy as I frame the scene. Suddenly, the house on the hill is violently splitting asunder, creaking and groaning like a ship going aground. There is no time to capture the image of the crumpling veteran. As the house willingly surrenders its ghosts, a towering cloud of roiling dust rises over the hill.

wraiths
hover and moan
appearing
then disappearing
into smoke

In the dusk, as I am crawling over the pile of bleached bones that were once a home, white feathers begin to swirl like snowflakes over the wreckage. I look up at the silhouette of a whistling swan gliding across the face of the moon. Then, I put my hands in traces of something that looks and smells a lot like blood.


1st Place (prose excerpt)
Writers' Collective/Winnipeg Free Press Fiction Contest, 2012

Gnarled Oak, Issue 3, April 2015

These Hands


These hands cradled the window-stunned sparrow, and caressed the stiff hairs on the hide of the elephant.

These hands tended the garden, strummed the strings, and focused the lens on all things abandoned and broken.

These hands held the walking stick up the mountain, over the frozen river, and down the path of enlightenment.

These hands kneaded the dough, carried water from the well, and kindled the fire of longing . . .


bone-white
gnarled driftwood
these hands
no longer able to play
the soft notes of your skin

Atlas Poetica, Number 18, Summer 2014

Eleven Stones

Mother lies in a curtained hospital cell, a bloodstone on her tongue.

(she cradles the stone angel face of her infant daughter)

No one has time to feed her, and her gruel congeals into limestone.

(she carries fieldstones from dawning to dimming day)

She is intubated, tied to the bed, and my heavy heartstone sinks.

(she keens as hailstones grind the crops into dust)

Her tumbled thoughts are skipping stones, with neither echo nor ripple.

(she polishes the worrystone in her heart's torn pocket)

The cornerstone of her life has crumbled, but I am the one who falls.

(she is the hearthstone and the headstone)

she is 35

when her mother dies

and I am born

I am 35 when my mother dies

it takes 35 days for her to let go


Selkie Sisters


Three full maiden moons slipped into the darkling water—
selkie sisters astride galloping sea horses, their hands tangled
in spindrift manes . . .

skinny-dipping
with my sisters
washing moondust
from our hair
then braiding it with stars

Selkie Sisters was translated into Italian by Maristella Tagliaferro.

Bright Stars Tanka Anthology, Volume 1, January 2014

black and bitter
the crow I have tasted
upon my feathered tongue
the caw-caw cacophony
of all my murdered words


at the moment
her twin sister died
she felt
their connection break
into the static of stones


fence posts
wearing prairie crows
and dust shrouds
we strum the rutted road
with barbed wire fingers


a fishing tree
cast its hand into night
and caught
the white-bellied moon
on hooked fingers


hollow eyes
look backward
as the walls
you built
become dust


you watch me
with flaming eyes
my skin sizzles
I am ashes
in your hands


the telegram
advised he was a P.O.W.
but she saw him
return in a waking dream
(he never ate turnips again)


in the library
we avert our eyes from
the homeless
expanding minds over
the matter of shrinking bellies


time
drips from my fingertips
slowly
in the honeyed moments
of a thousand bees


every poem holds my breath
until I exhale winged words
into cupped hands
and release them
into the open book of sky


I am driftwood
curves undulating
worn smooth
my windswept bones
the flute of tides


with a raven's feather
I wrote my shame on snow
then rolled the words
into a crystal ball
and flung them at the sun


padlocked to history
our skeleton key is lost
in this life's dwelling rooms
we are water-stained
with secret sorrow


tamarack and aspen
the mountain called our names
before your spark
became my flame
we laid our bodies down


my glacier heart
receded
when you shed
your avalanche skin into
the blue moan of echoing sky


waltzing
on the rotting dance floor
our father built
in the ash grove he planted
between rows of aching years


she sets sail
through oceans of grain
anchored to her father
trailing fingers in his wake
untangling beards of barley


after the divorce
we sisters in the back
of a pickup truck
vagabond wind stealing tears
from homeward-looking eyes


my grandfather
broke earth's crust
scattering
stone crumbs
behind his plough


last night
shadows in the yard
this morning
only stems remain
in my deer-proof garden


I see
lightning flash
though
my eyes are closed
and I am barely breathing


messages
in broken bottles
all those words
you didn't say
glinting in the sun


I carried
your stone heart
in my beak
until I lost
the will to fly


floating
on my back
in sky
my hair in clouds
my hands in fire


she picks
at the blanket
her food and skin
she picks at threads of memory
forgets how to pick flowers


she is a dried rose
in an empty vase
an untouched bed-tray
a ghost
no one visits


at the funeral
wearing a neon pink dress
I made in school
a conspicuous parrot
keeping the company of crows


her sad piano
plays an argument
anger's red curtain
billows out the window
not everything is black or white


on sagebrush prairie
the whirring grasshoppers
and trilling larks
sing a lamentation hymn
for my sister's stone ears


those silent
bones of words
that mean goodbye
the distance between us
further than the crow flies


etched against
the star-stamped sky
arthritic branches
scrawl the naked poetry
of old-growth forests


snow geese
scribe an ancient mystery
across the moon
their soft murmurs
catching winter's breath


migration
the last loon on the lake and I
ululating
our echoes vanish in that
sad impermanence of air


they called us
to collect her things
not knowing
what to do with her teeth
we left her smile in the trash


sky cauldron
roiling with funnel clouds
and rooks
we take shelter in a crowd
of broken shadows


in shadowland
where mist wraiths nestle
between hollows
a phantom owl spills my name
into the broken glass of night


a busker
plays cello at the market
his little dog
wears a sign
"will play for dog food"


Tanka Prose


Elemental

I am ignited by you
          (my paper to your fire)

I am polished by you
          (my stone to your water)

I am nourished by you
          (my seed to your earth)

I am lifted by you
          (my feather to your air)

we are
e l e m e n t a l
forged by
fire, water, earth and air
we soften into ourselves


Wandering

Kneeling beside the looking glass lake, we see ourselves reaching for the other side of knowing. We set our lantern boats afloat in the midnight sky and wait for the wind to show us the long way home.

we are
homeless clouds
w a n d e r i n g
a cardboard sky
begging bowls filled with stars


The Detritus of Dust

You are gone, and I am left with nothing but the bittersweet need to excavate the architecture of your past. Layer after layer of your thick life has been peeled away—exposed, excised, and exhibited for my perverse pleasure and pain. I thought I knew the very you of you, but I mistook your first mask for someone else's face. Even now, though my ruthless wrecking ball has demolished your facade and the sunlight has faded your untrue colours, I still yearn for your fingerprints to cover me in the sparkling detritus of your dust.

in my hope chest
a box of disillusions
the dust
of love letters
never meant for me