Five Haikus calves on the pasture taking naps by their mom's side prime time for the cows upturned soil of field gets the nod of nearby oil pumps a rich cowboy's dream gas stations everywhere displays the high price of fuel games of useless war a new bouquet at the tombstone in the cemetery a raven on the bench guitar in the case sees the clumsy old fingers spring reverie ©Byung A Fallgren
At the Spring Dawn
Angelina Weld Grinke
I watched the dawn come,
Watched the spring dawn come,
And the red sun shouldered his way up
Through the gray, through the blue,
Through the lilac mists.
The quiet of it! The goodness of it!
And one bird awoke, sang, whirred
A blur moving black against the sun,
Sang again--a far off.
And I stretched my arms to the redness of the sun,
Stretched to my fingertips,
And I laughed.
Ah! It is good to be alive, good to love,
At the dawn,
At the spring dawn.
(At the Spring dawn appeared in Negro Poets and their
poems in 1923.) Angelina Grinke, born in Boston February 27,
1880, was a journalist and poet. Her work was collected in
several reviews and anthologies. She died October 1958.
Voices of the Night Air The night is still as the house in the painting, but many sounds eco in the ears; voices of wind; like the silent cry of the stars. Absent voices of sane dream, like the snow field in the calm winter nights. Or, is it still there but the ears? Why the vain search? Empty the ears, sing a song for the new door in the mist. A sudden voice: who? who? ©Byung A. Fallgren
Some Rich Person is me with some pennies in safe. A dying rich man offered me a gold, if I divorce and remarry after he's in heaven, which I stepped aside and let it pass, for I am rich with some pennies in safe, with my hubby who ends every spoken words with a chuckle, and pukes at a party. A distant sis says she'd share her fortune, if I 'pologized her and ask. Sorry blooms in my garden all season, but ask for more than a penny doesn't. You can throw a square line and choke me, but it would be vain; better toss a little silver you don't need; for me to find love and all. ©Byung A. Fallgren
from the roof melting snow drips grateful mind in the lawn pumpkin seeds sprout for spring only grandpa's favorite sitting in the back yard chair sun bask, naked baby rabbit hides behind the purple iris assuring sun ©Byung A. Fallgren
Exodus by Effie Lee Newsome Rank fennel and broom Grown wanly beside The cottage and room We once occupied, But sold for the snows! The dahoon berry weeps in blood, I know, Watched by crow-- I've seen both grow In those weird waters of Dixie! Exodus appeared in the Crisis XXIX, no. 3 (January 1925.) Effie Newsome, born January 19, 1885, in Philadelphia, was a poet from the Harlem Renaissance movement. She's the author of Gladiola Garden, Poems for Second Grade Readers, published many poems in the Crisis, and other leading journals from the Harlem Renaissance. She died in 1979.
The Angel Sun
(Granddaughter once said
sun must be an angel)
This morning
from my window view
you look different,
like a little girl
hiding something
she had done wrong.
Oh, I know.
You shined on the devil
with red hand
under the dark wings,
your warmth of pureness
touching it
as you do
on the children shivering
on the rubbles of the war.
You wished you drowned in
the lake but you let your shadow did,
for you must rise again,
like all the saints do.
©Byung A. Fallgren
Climate
by Meghann Plunkett
It felt familiar, your mouth moving
up my side like gale warning. My
arm calico-mammatus clouds--
Blood brought to the surface.
Now I understand my childhood
home. Releasing shingle after shingle
into brutal air. Our front door
torn and flat in the yard. Violent
gusts whipping through the marshes--
the back of your hand.
of what I have unlearned
this was the hardest.
One sandpiper singing
still, desire does not have to leave you ruined.
Ms. Plunkett is the winner of the Missouri Reviews Jeffery
E. Smith Editors' Prize and Third Coast Poetry prize.
She works as a television writer on various Trip the Lights
and Shondaland production.
what has no good eyes
nor has ears?
a dictator who is and a thing else
it dulls his sense of discerning
right from wrong
hot vain dream
what will he do
now all alone?
turn to a cat and yowl?
Beauty of human nature blooms in the ashes
thunder spirit-storm bellows
above the flame
burning forest of the cities
March snow piles
on the rubbles and ashes
cawing lone crow
©Byung A. Fallgren
Morning sun and the Lake they whisper to each other every morning of their tears all night long ©Byung A. Fallgren This was published in The Weekly Avocet #465, 10-31-2021.
Byung A. Fallgren 