Cuttings: May
Haiku, Quintains, Short Poems, Tercets, Tankas
Spring Season
1998 - 2025
By Mike Garofalo
Place, Setting, Location:
Vancouver, Clark County,
Columbia River Valley,
Washington, 2017-2025
in-breath
out-breath
unconsciously
enables me
to Consciously Be
shirtless
sun bath—
old man squints
Eskimos have many words
for snow—
falling from my lips
many words for electricity.
Places dictate vocabulary.
Jehovah's Witnesses
at the door—
Bible soldiers on patrol.
communication
broken in half
by ignorance
noon sun—
climbing Reedsport dunes
aching knees
50th Reunion,
I did not go.
Can't lie.
tedious editing—
meanings
juggled
The Supreme Being thing
a theological dream
compared to Billions of Things—
Taking a bite of Reality
spitting out the seeds.
Seashell in hand—
salesman
won't reduce the price.
green leaves Spring
red leaves Fall—
keeping her vows
squirrels
store nuts—
holes in the lawn
About the Greeks and Chinese
I eagerly read
their writings from 550 BCE;
nothing interesting for me in
the falling walls of Jericho.
May Day—
Republican's reject
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
crickets chirp—
carrying trash
in the dark
Leaking sink—
easy money,
the plumber thinks.
May gale—
flags ripped off
broken post
Yaquina lighthouse
disappears—
heavy spring fog
Sagebrush songs
by cowboy poets—
coyotes sang along.
campfire
spits sparks
stiff wind...
motionless
mind shut down
dreamless sleep
Place, Setting, Loacation:
Red Bluff, Tehama County,
North Sacramento Valley,
California, 1998-2016
Walls of red
bougainvillea bracts,
lasting and scentless.
Dirty hand, callused palm,
black fingernails:
Green Thumb.
wide-eyed cows
taken in a trailer—
fruit in a basket
The cows have vanished down the road,
and the last clouds have floated away.
We sit together, the valley and me,
until only the valley remains.
(Thanks to the Taoist poet Li Po.)
cottonwood fluff
stuck to dry weeds—
silent wind chimes
Under our floor,
Spider families.
Two Worlds—
an inch apart.
The Mind is a vast Bodhi forest,
The body a Bodhi tree.
Dirt is in every cranny,
Flowers blossom, leaves fall.
The Bodhi Trees have been
cut down,
The Bright Mirrors shattered.
Beginning with nothing,
Replant the trees,
remake the mirrors.
Make one's mind like a mirror,
One's body like the Giving tree.
Reflect accurately and impartially.
Give fruit and shade.
soothing hum
twirling ceiling fan—
we doze on the cool tile
Mother's Day—
an old man
hugs his granddaughter.
A killdeer fans its tail and peeps,
luring us away
from the nest she keeps.
Lathhouse shade—
the scent of honeysuckle
filling the shadows.
Bittersweet vines
bounce in the breeze—
a peacock shrieks.
pilgrimage over—
their home
is sacred now
dead mouse
in my dog's mouth—
dark clouds
The force of Spring—
mysterious,
fecund,
powerful beyond measure.
studying a tree—
my dog and I
pause and pee
odd frog
crawls out of hole—
CrOaK!
Sunday—
quiet
hours
no
holiness
dark
and dirty
pond
at dawn—
white
ducks dip
a
thorn
almost
invisible—
still
stinging
after watering ....
the Swiss chard
drips
A flurry of gnats
on sunset breezes—
splattered windshield.
Squeezing my hand,
she said goodbye,
one last time.
Dusty cream ceiling—
bowlegged black spider
plodding upside-down
Rising early,
Long I Ponder
Decades gone.
often
Wide mind, deep feelings ...
poemless
Good weather all the week, but come the weekend
the weather stinks.
Springtime for birth, Summertime for growth; and all Seasons for dying.
Ripening grapes in the summer sun - reason enough to plod ahead.
Springtime flows in our veins.
Beauty is the Mistress, the gardener Her slave.
A soul is colored Spring green.
Complexity is closer to the truth.
All metaphors aside - only living beings rise up in the Springtime; dead beings
stay quite lie down dead.
Winter does not turn into Summer; ash does not turn into firewood - on
the chopping block of time.
Fresh fruit from the tree - sweet summertime!
Gardens are demanding pets.
Shade was the first shelter.
When the Divine knocks, don't send a prophet to the door.
One spring and one summer to know life's hope; one autumn and one winter to know
life's fate.
Somehow, someway, everything gets eaten up, someday.
Relax and be still around the bees.
Paradise and shade are close relatives on a summer day.
Absolutes squirm beneath realities.
The spiders, grasshoppers, mantis, and moth larva are all back: the summer
crowd has returned!
To garden is to open your heart to the sky.
Dirty fingernails and a calloused palm precede a Green Thumb.
Time will tell, but we often fail
to listen.
Seeing with one eye and
feeling with the other does help bring things into focus.
Round things are very nice - fruit,
women, the earth.
Gardening is a passion to continue,
despite failure and uncertainty.
The empty garden is already
full.
Gardeners learn to live in worm
time, bee time, and seed time.
- Pulling
Onions, by Michael P. Garofalo
Memorial Day—
unpacking
summer clothes.
tiny green plums
nestled in the leaves
hiding from the sun
The shade moves
ever so slowly—
the heat crawls past noon.
her son
hears her last breath—
silence
lines of baled hay
yellowing in the sunshine—
dry May day
A few molecules awry, madness beckons:
Flooding visions, no mind that reckons.
Howling dog
over and again and on an on ...
Shaddup!!!!
Close to midnight—
the train
rumbles past.
Thunder shakes the schoolroom walls,
kids squeal, hail rattles outside the halls.
Rich or poor,
wise or foolish—
inevitable midnight.
Checking the drip lines
one by one, in the sun ...
my sweat drops ...
Purple and pale blue
vetch blossoms festoon the pond;
draped by the black sky.
Questionables:
two points on one needle;
speaking never listening.
Taking aim—
the First Precept
falls.
The gardens, fences,
pastures, foothills, mountains ...
All
disappear in the night.
the growl of trucks
edges off
the silence of night
Up and down, up and down, up and down;
two hummingbirds fussing round and round.
Pine
candles in the wind,
flickering greens.
Robust grape vines twine and climb
on the sagging fence
that never whines.
Paint splattered art room floor
scuffed and worn from desk to door.
The cat paused
on her path of destruction—
licking her paws.
shotgun blast—
his brain
drips down the wall
telling the story,
the empty
house stutters
over the sad
parts
Cloudless morning
pale blue sky—
single meadowlark's cry.
A curvy county road
turns past three white crosses—
both hands grip the wheel.
The ominous soundtrack
fills the room—
penetrating fear.
two roses
crawling under the fence
looking for the sun
dead cat
one leg up—
magpies hop closer
Basho's crow:
sketched with words
perched on a page.
Beneath the pond scum
deeper down,
the pebble drops away.
Thousands of leaves
shake in the breeze—
empty sky.
"A ha!" to you
may be "Ho hum" to me;
But, "A ha!" together is
true poetry.
Dead at forty five, we buried him;
Alcohol and vicodin, did him in.
Steve G. 1950-1995
Remebering Vietnam:
my cousin cried,
thinking of friends killed
by Vietcong.
Touch and run ...
Tag, your It!
Playing It is fun.
Flesh to flesh
mating—
May-flies
Night crew
closing up the restaurant—
tired faces.
Memorial Day
nitro boat races on the lake—
4000 horsepower Taps.
May the millions and millions and millions
of women, children, elders, and men
homes, farms, orchards, animals ...
who all perished
in the endless ugly wars
All be remembered and cherished.
No thanks to all
the lock-step soldiers, warrior zealots, drugged mercenaries,
heartless politicians, and duped sheep-folks
of Nations, Religions, and War Lords
who raised their bloody flags
who cheered themselves
who
called on the blessings of God and Allah and Country
who stole as they pleased
who murdered all in sight
then
bulldozed the dead into ditches, and
day-dreamed of building Memorials for themselves.
Are there heroes in all these tragic tales?
Where there decent, honorable and just men defending ...
Of course!
They are quiet now,
heads bowed,
reflective,
silent,
sad.
Fold up some flag, bury it deep,
Plant a tree over it today:
a living sign,
a growing reminder,
of the beauty
of the productivity
of the happiness
Of Peace!"
(Starting in the Spring of 1994,
more than 800,000
Tutsi tribespeople
were massacred by
Hutu tribespeople
in Rwanda,
Africa.)
He sliced off
her little hands—
cleaning up Rawanda.
Classrooms filled
with rotting corpses—
Hutu educational reforms.
Months and Seasons |
|||
25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works
At the Edges of the West, Volume 1
Highway 101 and Hwy 1: Pacific Coast
At the Edges of the West, Volume 2
Highway 99 and Interstate 5
Poetry Research by Mike Garofalo
Mike Garofalo lives in Vancouver,
Washington.
He worked for 50 years
in city and county
public
libraries,
and in elementary
schools. He
graduated with
degrees in
philosophy,
library science, and
education. He
has been
a web
publisher since 1998.
25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works
Cuttings: May, Spring
First Distributed on the Internet WWW in September 1999.
This document was last edited, revised,
reformatted, added to, relinked,
changed, improved, or modified
by Mike Garofalo
on May 1, 2025.