Thursday, July 12, 2012

Robert Demaree- A Poem


INVENTORY OF UNUSED HAIKU AND TANKA LINES

Five-syllable lines:
Gulls on the buoy
Rain, wine-sweet evening
Halcyon day trips
Scent of linseed oil
Named rocks on the shore
Pantomime of joy.
These have seven syllables:
Ocean, lead-gray, almost flat
Concrete marked to look like brick
At two hundred bucks a night,
You’d think the plumbing would work
Canadian strawberries
Irremediable loss
Without further evidence,
He assumes they are in love.
More five-syllable:
White glow on the pond
Nineteen-fifty Ford
Refrigerator
Fading August light
A long way from Maine.
But then three:
Memory
Abandoned
Childhood dream
Their tree house.

“Inventory of Unused Haiku and Tanka Lines” appeared in Foliate Oak, November 2010



Robert Demaree is the author of four collections of poems, including Fathers and Teachers (2007) and Mileposts (2009), both published by Beech River Books. The winner of the 2007 Conway, N.H. Library Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. He has had over 550 poems published or accepted by 125 periodicals in the U.S., Australia, Canada and U.K., including Bolts of Silk, Cold Mountain Review, Dead Snakes, MediaVirus, miller’s pond and Louisville Review, and in four anthologies including the 2008 and 2010 editions of Poet’s Guide to New Hampshire and Celebrating Poets over 70. For further information, see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com

No comments:

Post a Comment