Poems | Peter Galen Massey

Posts Tagged ‘Poems’

Haiku | “the city walks on”

Posted in Haiku, tagged haiku, modern haiku, Poems on August 26, 2018| Leave a Comment »

sprawled on the sidewalk / the blue-gloved cop takes her pulse / the city walks on

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Haiku | “love you little beast”

Posted in Haiku, tagged haiku, modern haiku, Poems on August 19, 2018| Leave a Comment »

daemon of chaos / dumping your smashed peas again / love you little beast

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“Evensong, King’s College Chapel” | Poem

Posted in Poems, tagged Poems on July 22, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Evensong, King’s College Chapel

Our days are longer than glass, longer than
Stone, longer than light and air, longer than
The waters of this softly flowing river that will
Pass, rise, fall, and pass again while we speak
These words, sing these words. Our days are
Longer than prayer or scholarship, than ambition
Or boasting or riot or sleeping or waking or food
Or kisses or the bright exalting summer of youth.
They are longer than sorrow or rejoicing or love
Or bones turned to powder. Our steps trace and
Retrace the paths of echoing generations, and
We are indistinguishable among them. For a
Thousand years has the black-haired girl sat in
Choir and stared black-eyed, and for a thousand
More will she sit and stare. We will speak these
Words, sing these words. For centuries the man
Has sat dry in his faith, and for centuries more
Will he sit. We will speak these words, sing these
Words. The dry man will find his faith and the
Black-eyed girl will look up. We have no need
For rushing. With our words and our singing
We make this glass and this stone the great
Still center of creation. The long grass moves
From the breath of our words. The trailing
Willows sway from the breath of our singing.
The river flows softly while we speak and we
Sing. These words and this singing pass from
Mouth to mouth and their living is continuous.
We do not matter at all. Our broken ineluctable
Particulars are translated into these words and
This singing, and we are made whole by them.
When the windows are blank cold darkness we
Speak. When the stones glow skin warm we sing.
There is confidence in our words and endurance
In our singing. The softly flowing river passes.
We speak and we sing.

Thanks to Philadelphia Stories for publishing Evensong, King’s College Chapel in their Summer 2018 issue.

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Haiku | “with a thousand sighs”

Posted in Haiku, tagged haiku, modern haiku, Poems on July 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »

with a thousand sighs / the storm hushes through the trees / rain begins to fall

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Haiku | “between particle and wave”

Posted in Haiku, tagged haiku, modern haiku, Poems on May 4, 2018| Leave a Comment »

on the field of time / between particle and wave / there the soul dances

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Poem | “Just Sayin”

Posted in Haiku, tagged Poems, poetry on February 28, 2018| 2 Comments »

an / INSPIRATIONAL / {!!!} / quote with / line- / breaks / IS NOT / a / poem / (and adding a [picture] doesn’t help) [frowny face]

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Haiku | “we the beautiful unknowns”

Posted in Haiku, tagged haiku, Poems on January 28, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Haiku 173 We The Beautiful Unknowns

we the mysteries / we the beautiful unknowns / even to ourselves

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Haiku About Love

Posted in Haiku, tagged haiku, modern haiku, Poems on October 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »

beguiling motion / thrum and fire of my life / your supple machine

i am warm honey / i am sweet cream and cherries / lick me like candy

today we woke up / to a hundred yellow suns / on the blooming tree

my heart is dark and / dramatic. my body aches / for you. be impressed

see me as i am / every woman has the right / to be beautiful

that shimmering sea / that blue day when our hearts burned / brighter than the sun

our love was a map / to a better world. so how / did we wind up here?

no gold more precious / than this light, no pearl’s luster / warmer than your skin

no one will know how / i walked these rooms and hungered / for your smell like food

so bright is love we / see the shadows of the dead / even in the dark

i heard no music / until the music was you / all love songs are true

These haiku about love are the seventh garden of my haiku collection, seven gardens. Haiku in English are unrhymed, three-line poems which are often in a 5-7-5 format of five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second, and five syllables in the third. Haiku are especially distinguished by cutting (“kiru” in Japanese) in which the poem is cut into two sections which juxtapose two elements, which can be an image, an idea, a mood, an emotion, or an experience. I follow the 5-7-5 format but ignore cutting as I please which is different from many modern haiku poets, who do the opposite.

Readers of this collection of haiku about love will notice they tell a story and the haiku speak in two voices. This was not my original intention. These haiku were written separately, over a period of years, and not in the order presented. I discovered the love story and the voices that speak it while arranging this “garden” of haiku and in the process discovered … as the well worn phrase goes … that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

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