Hey Putin

The poets in droves

Lick their pens

Succumbing to poems

Demanding to be heard.

This must be April,

National Poetry Month.

*******

Hey  Putin,

Sit back a week or two

With your Russian predecessors  

Etched in the world with admiration and honor

Unlike tyrants, murderers, war criminals

Covered with ashes and human blood,

On dusty back shelves of Russian history.

Listen to Tchaikovsky’s symphonies –

Spend an evening with Swan Lake –

Get on your yacht with Leo Tolstoy

With War and Peace.

You  wish to be the most admired?

The most honored statue in all of Russia?

Be amongst the true greats in your history books?

Pick up your pen, Putin.

Poets were feared more than the KGB

During days of famine and war.

Pick up your pen, Putin,

Write a poem or two or more.

On the shelves of  891.71,

Between Tsvetaeva and Pushkin

There is space for you.

A statue of  Putin?

In St. Petersburg ?

Putin: Poet of Peace

Covered white

From Birds of Peace

Soaring above.

  ©frances kakugawa

(Written after seeing images in Ukraine)

Dem not weeds, dem is flowers

To make a prairie/

It takes a clover and a bee/

A clover and a bee/

And reverie/

The reverie alone will do/

If bees are few.

            Emily Dickinson

A Matter of Perception

The weeds have been crying for a weeder for weeks.

Still frozen in my winter lazy bones, I thought surely I can find a way to get out of this…a little boy came to mind.

When I was a student in College of Educ, the professor demonstrated “how to read a story to 4 year olds.” Before she could begin, a little boy asked, “Teacher, why is your hair all white?”

Before she could respond, another boy turned toward the little boy and said, “Her hair not grey, her hair silver.”

So I took off my garden gloves and walked away, “Dem weeds not weeds, dem weeds flowers.”

Who’s Next, Oh America

I wrote this poem after reading Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong.

Oh America

Our living Democracy.

First it was the black

Whose color was wrong.

Then the Japanese whose faces

Wore  the enemy’s.

After 9/11, it was the Moslems.

All Asians after Covid-19

Since we all look alike.

Oh America,

Hear this, before you etch

Another on your list:

The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Oh America,

Who’s next on your list?

frances h kakugawa

2023

May the year of the Rabbit

Bring Joy, Gratitude, Peace –

And continue our paying Human Kindness forward

In the Spirit of Aloha.

Thank you, my Blog friends.

frances

A living Haiku

Mr. Basho, you saw a frog leap into a pond but did you ever see a live haiku like this:

A natural haiku

Five, seven, five birds on line

On a wintry day.

My photos are weak but I waited until I saw five, then seven, then five birds rest on the line over a neighbor’s roof from where I stood.

Wordsworth Musical:

Wordsworth’s Long Road to the Stage

Lead Story – WORDSWORTH THE POET GOES ON STAGE

Wayne Harada on Wordsworth Musical

WORDSWORTH: FROM POEMS TO PLAY

Wordsworth the Musical

This scene is created for one of the poems called Hawaiian Rainbow.

Come support the University of Hawaii Performing Arts Center, Hilo.

On Banned Books

At Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento I saw this sign in the showcase of a clothes shop that sold other items: Banned books sold here. There was a small display of banned books. I stood and had to fight my tears. I plan to donate other banned books to the shop to support their efforts.