witness

seven senryu

1

The cold falls, heavy
as the president’s men plot -
stifling breath, hope, thought.


2

Paying for bread,
the money slips from my hand.
I apologize.


3

Shivering, homeless,
he counts the coins in his cap.
Oddly, I thank him.


4

Lingering scent of burnt oil...
Memory of a dustbin
in the Colonels’ Greece.


5

A haze of booze
and a twisted car -
We now return to Friends -



6

Birds circling the sun.
On a broken wall there lies
a body, broken.


7

Water, broken glass...
his life’s become a senryu -
seventeen pink pills.



two tankas

1

Cold tightens round her
- the photo stares, unblinking -
she pulls up her scarf.
As the bus finally arrives
the news blows under the wheels.


2

I’ve lived my whole life
within the chronology
of science fiction.
Yet the future’s no closer
than the absence of hunger.