Gray and Chilled Series of Hours

New Year’s Day blooms as a gray and chilled series of hours. Without much concern, the boy plays upstairs— his jazzy laughter carries throughout the house despite the lack of color outside. A strong contrast of realities, perception. I still feel a lingering sensation of a low-grade cold— a mere frustration really, just enough mild discomfort to make me wish I could stay in bed all day, avoiding any responsibilities. The illness gathers in my joint and in my sinuses, resulting in numerous sneezes, the need for numerous tissues. In the background a slow Coletrane filters from the stereo: mellow, drawn-out rhythms.

Last week Bitter Oleander Press rejected a short series of my poems— however, on a positive side, the editors included a nice note encouraging a resubmission in the future, offering a sense that a connection was built— a slight understanding of our styles was achieved. At the close of the year, such statements carry a strong emphasis. They reinforce a commitment with the self to generally submit more material, more frequently. Stay on schedule.

Not surprisingly, keeping a steady schedule is not one of my strong points. After a brief hiatus from creating daily Tanka verses, I again have begun writing these terse poems. Like the Haiku Sentence Project, I will be displaying the tanka form in a linear form, less traditional, avoiding the showing of the stanzas within a rigid syllable count. Yet at the same time maintaining the full poem's 31 syllable-count.

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121 / a lamp left burning by the back window attracts pale luna moths—in morning sunlight, they scatter, a crowd of tipsy old men
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This experiment in presentation allows a different fashion of capturing a splinter of a moment— exposing a fraction of the full epiphany in the act of unfolding. In this sense, what I hope will happen, the now-moment gains a stronger potential to expand into the current reality of the reader as well— but through fragmented prose.

Over the next few months I will share the results of my instinctual world-play. I detect some benefits already within my longer poems.