Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

making coffee
tapping on black keys
the sky is colorless

shades of gray void of depth, a blanket of wet for all the commuters ,and I am here waiting for the plumber....sometimes tradesmen are like saviors, like when the toilet is backed up, or you have no running water....I don't mind that when I'm camping out at Greenridge....then I've adjusted my thinking , happy to "rough" it to be near the fish, happy to lie in the hammock, take an afternoon nap....me and the fish snoozing....and when they wake up hungry before the sun goes down, I wake up as well...make sure they have a tasty dinner....and I've I'm lucky and they aren't, I'll be having trout for my dinner

I thank the fish for their sacrifice
like the american indians did
respect is part of the arrangement

Went for a bike ride today. I have lots of backroad I can travel here. Traffic minimal. I call my bike rides 'ku hunts. I hunt haiku from the back of a bike. Sometimes it calls for a sharp eye. Sometimes it calls for being overwhelmed. Today was a productive hunt.

bird with a song
the passing traffic
cannot hear

Today I finally got to catch the train at one of it's many crossings around here. I heard the engine whistle as I topped a steep ridge, didn't know which crossing I was near - shifted to high gear and powered down the hill - T-bone intersection at the foot of the ridge - I didn't stop but hung a hard hard right fighting against the centrifugal motion of my wheels laying the bike over radical and there one hundred yards up the roads was the train - I coasted up to the crossing, came to a halt, pulled out my coffee, and watched the action & thunder go by - a fast freight heading south - many of the cars branded with graffiti - a rolling art exhibit - price of admission? Zero. All you had to do was show up.

a moment's sweetness
then
it is gone

Deciding to enter the village from a different direction I turned east. Saw a fallen bird on the edge of the asphalt - a sparrow - not a mark on him that I could see - passing car or truck probably and the sparrow suddenly surprised that it was not immortal - I saluted the body as I rolled by -

glued to
a steel ghost pony
with round legs
i travel
toward a
horizon

Many roads here were bisected decades ago when the interstate was pushed through to the east - they simply dead-ended the road on either side and let it go at that. I rode down one of these today. Sat on the dead-end barrier and listened to the steady roar of traffic up on the big road. This ancient landscape has not yet accepted the big road even though it has been seven decades since it was built. As I sat there I thought of the living. I thought of the dead. I heard the scream of a hawk overhead though I never did catch sight of him. I mounted up & headed out as wind rustled both this year's new grass and last year's dead stalks.

the road
curves to the left
then to the right
farther on goes
straight out of sight

Entered the village from the north. Past the old mill-dam, across the steel decked bridge. Up to what used to be the central crossroad where I stopped to wait traffic. A young woman there was crossing the street. She glanced at me but we were going in entirely different directions. Besides, I had dead people in my past and I'm certain she was yet unacquainted with that particular privilege.

the rise of sun
carving out of anything vertical
long shadows

I headed south from the village center turning west at the graveyard heading for home. In my back pocket the 2 & 1/2 inch by 3 inch notebook I carry my captures in. I can fit the biggest little poems in there. It always amazes me.
Now it's almost

midnight
i drink the last
of my tea
moon gone dark
unknowable

slice of haiku life, I truly enjoyed the read

Thx, Wireman - appreciate it - "haiku life" - i like that

bikeku....yeah !......great way to see the world....pedaling coasting stopping along the way...
thanks fer the ride, ....that steel ghost pony headin' toward the horizon....i see it

Thx saw -

doc took out some stuff
that didn't belong there
so now I wait on the pathology

and i have never felt better or more determined to stop wasting time, I guess you need to be scared shit-less to get the ass in gear sometimes...i see all the projects I want to do this summer into fall, and they might save me from ruin, or they might just be the projects a man needs to feel like he is contributing to the mix, don't worry I won't forget to balance in the fun, the walks in the woods, the staring at the clouds, the jamming with friends, the visits to see the kids, the silly conversations about nothing , the things that define human

c'mon doc what's taking so long
have you forgotten the needles and pins
that come with trying to forget

Well, shit - now you got me waiting too - and if ya don't post 'bout it when you find out whatever saw, don't worry 'bout any disease gettin' you because I will come find you like Hawkeye in the Last of the Mohicans and beat the shit outta ya first -

The waiting is the hardest part, like a tom petty song....hope the finger nails are still there....done gnawed mine down lately....feeling kinda numb in my later years.....slings and arrows surrounding me....time to circle the wagons ......where's that Calvary......

Suckin on a lifesaver
Chili dog clusterfuck
Still raining, still dreaming

feeling upbeat
the consultation is on the 27th
so I went to the afternoon Orioles game

nothing like an old fashioned Thursday afternoon ball game. and my oldest son Matthew came along and we sat in the sunshine and clouds talking about the state of the state of the state, keeping tabs
on the flight of the baseball, and digging the ten thousand kids that played hooky from school for WJZ's National Weather Day celebration at the park, and when the Jumbotron said Make Some Noise those kids shrieked like a gathering of loons on a lake at dusk, and my heart felt better hearing their young voices challenged by the scoreboard, their colorful shirts like flags flying in a the court of public appeal, what is better than a Thursday afternoon at Camden Yards ?

never once did I think 'bout
medical issues, not once....we all need
distractions from reality

I've been told tomorrow I'll be painting the inside of a cab of a stake truck while others will see if they can get the thing started. No way to tell what a day will bring up here. Landlord says he wants the inside painted white "so we can see things better" - there is a sense in it.

Yesterday while out riding I saw an Amish woman watching me from her garden. I waved to her.
She waved back. I rolled on. Over the railroad tracks and on east to the crossroads where I pulled up, dismounted the bike, drank some water,and listened to the wind in all the fresh foliage for awhile -

... took my time deciding what way to go - then I mounted up & went.

white star shapes
on black asphalt
birdshit in the road

I've been trying ever since i moved up here to catch sight of the freight trains at one of their many crossings in the area - only once has it happened and I only caught sight of part of that event - while out on the bike hunting 'ku today I got the passage of a whole train, engine to end. The first seven boxcars were a rolling wonder because of the graffiti they sported - they must have all been parked in the same area for awhile because all the writing on them was similar - bright, vivid, & shiny - recent work by the look - rest of the train was flatcars loaded up with truck trailers piggyback.
Still, the thunder & roar of all that weight in motion, heavy steel on heavy steel was enough to bring me to smile - I caught two 'ku while I stood there, one at the crossing with the thunder of passage in my ears:

people going by
their lives going
by with them

and then, after the train had passed, just beyond the crossing as I was pulling away gathering my own speed :

bird rising
from tall green summer grass
wings spreading open

... it all appeared & disappeared just that quick - at the next t-bone intersection I hung a right ...

enjoying the haibun - beautiful snapshots of life's humble moments

Thx, Sasha

I've been successfully logged in, here goes;

Outside my window a moth's body has been caught in a single stand of spider web for about three weeks now - since the moth has not been consumed I figure the spider is dead too and likely was dead before the moth got itself entangled in the web - Three weeks & counting & the wind has not been able to separate the body of the dead moth from the single strand of web that holds it captive -

Hell of a damn thing ...

I think I'll move off -
eat a small piece of bread
- sleep

... and now I've been successfully logged out