Long Day lily Poems

Matsuo Basho English Translations of haiku about spring, birds, bats, butterflies, flowers, sun, cherry.

Seeing them naked
almost makes me caress
the wanton flowers.
—Matsuo Basho, translation by Michael R. Burch

As temple bells fade
flowers strike their fragrance
into the silence.
—Matsuo...

Read More

I sit and watch. 

Changes come so slowly. 
So, vigilance is required,
an attentiveness to minutia.
There are layers of wardings 
erected        between
the watch 	and I. 

Thoughts, which flit and...

Read More

What was, is gone and what is-   but a moment in time
I used to help mother in her lush green garden
but the pendulum stopped its lurching
and she was gone . . .
now I...

Read More

The-lit-wick-burnt-quick
I am the dipped stick
People are always referencing to

For two reasons:
One, is that I held on too long
Two, is because all but two fingers are gone

Lets look on the bright side, shall we...
I was a...

Read More

Hurry, hurry we are burning daylight,
      The flowers are wilting;
Mother was planting a cottage garden,
And we needed the right perennials;
Flowers durable, enduring, perpetual,
      Oh sweet...

Read More

How delightful is the softest sound of a clear and starry summer's night,
You may hear a moth bashing up against a cottage window pane near a lamp,
If you listen really hard you can hear him...

Read More

He avoided florists,
those over-cultivated blooms
in their overheated shops
seemed to be a perversion of nature.

He shunned all those floral gangsters;
the vainglorious gladioli,
eugenically forced greenhouse geraniums
with their large Shar-Pei heads.
Garish claustrophobic hosts of peonies
pressing-in and crowding his...

Read More

I avoid florists, not the people,
who generally speaking,
are polite and quite unremarkable.

I write of those floral gangsters;
the vainglorious gladioli,
eugenically forced greenhouse geraniums
with their large shar-pei heads.
Garish claustrophobic hosts 
pressing in.

My center inwardly trembles
when confronted with...

Read More

I avoid those floral gangsters,
vainglorious Gladioli,
eugenically forced greenhouse Geraniums
with their large Shar-pei heads.
Garish claustrophobic chromatic mobs,
their heavy menacing over-cultivated smells.

Charles Darwin, thought these latter-day
angiosperms as:
“an abominable mystery.”
They are life-forms born of missing links,
genetically modified to...

Read More

 
I love black cats and have had a few,
had one once with rare eyes of blue !

They have short or long velvety fur,
and sometimes will run around in a blur !

Black cats are friendly,...

Read More

Shall we be carried away like fish,
or a bird scooped up from a pond of sky?

Will winged creatures of mythical belief assemble
at one synaptic point, just for each sudden death?

Will we go hot and heavy,
or...

Read More

The bullfrog leads to a croaking sound. 
Haunting the summertime downpour. 
It's once entirely stumped in an emerald. 
Streams with a distorted side outdoor.

My angling bar is imploring for my name. 
Across the short zeniths...

Read More