Accompaniment

 A Story In 100 Words (Online) July 2023

Almost every morning
it’s the same old ambient toss-up:
Susumu Yokota or Lazybatusu.

Some days, neither flips his switch;
some days: nothing but nothing. Silence.
(He neither needs nor wants either one.)

Some days—especially days he’s up early—
he just sits and types, humming his own theme:
he calls it Lazysusubatsumu Yakotoma.

He hums and writes and writes again
until everything comes out right,
or his fingers start to bleed.

Even then, though,
intent on his mission
he encourages the hemorrhage.

He’s stumbled onto something good;
he’s just got to keep at it
until it sings on its own.

The Calling

Tiny Seed Literary Journal (Online / Print anthology) July 2023

Blood-red hibiscus grew

further back from the riverbank
sun-dappled
where I dared not often go;
soft green breezes
in a periwinkle sky
now shimmered tiny bloomlets
now held them an instant in balance
calling

Foxglove and hyacinth mingled there
deeper in the forest, wild
heavy with scent and delicately swayed.

Songbirds by the waterfall
peering down at the pool
found its surface still:
unbroken but for two rootless blossoms
tossed gently to the current
from the hands of almost lovers below.