Friday, October 17, 2014

from my chapbook, Journeys : Getting Lost


obsessed 
with sky I wander
this road winds 
up the mountain 
my weed green hut



Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Moonbathing Tanka Journal Spring 2014


Moonbathing summer 2014 
Edited by Pamela Babusci

green elixir
mother’s “nerve medicine”
in a bottle
on the top kitchen shelf,
was it really my fault?

Tuesday, October 14, 2014


"The Journey Itself Is Home." - Basho

Chen Ou Liu's Review Of my poetry collection


Below is excerpted from my short review of Carole's forthcoming book, "Journeys: Getting Lost:"

In the poems, Carole Johnston shows a flair for tying emotions to arresting images and invites readers to become a fellow traveler.

time traveler
on the road with Basho
watching stars spin
fireflies disappearing
I fill my brush with ink

The thematic motifs explored in Journeys: Getting Lost remind me of the opening passage of Basho’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which is considered one of the most famous travelogues ever:

The moon and sun are eternal travelers. Even the years wander on. A lifetime adrift in a boat, or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. From the earliest times there have always been some who perished along the road. Still I have always been drawn by wind-blown clouds into dreams of a lifetime of wandering…

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Cloud Hidden


From "Journeys:Getting Lost," my poetry collection - Finishing Line Press


I asked the boy beneath the pines.
He said: the Master’s gone alone
herb picking somewhere on the mount,
cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.

Jia Dao (Chia Tao)(c.779-843)....Chinese Buddhist/Taoist poet from the Tang Dynasty....born near Beijing....a master of Ping Tan....the ordinary & the plain....






“Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.” 

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Some of my poems from Bright Stars 5 - Edited by M.Kei




rose moon rise
huge honey balloon
we chase it
like we’re still some kids
howling down the street

on my street
pot smoke rises  up
to full moon
dog and I shiver
startled by dark wings

once I was
(will be) a bag lady
busking poems
on the street for coffee
one haiku for a cup

always knew
someday I’d lose it
(losing it)
bags of amygdala
in a shopping cart

sedoka

no one ever
knew what to do with her
sneaking out
memorizing moonlight
rag doll in the dumpster
beneath the dead roses

Chevy Chase ladies
grace the green lawn party
like fireflies at dusk
toasting their excellent lives
one mint julep at a time





Wednesday, October 8, 2014

My Tanka from Undertow Magazine October 2014


Tanka Published in Undertow Online Magazine October 2014

was it absinthe                 
that green glass bottle
on the top shelf
did it swing my mother 
in the belly of the sea?

clairvoyant friend says
look for her in lunatic 
asylums but I think 
demon suicide took her
family bible stained by blood 


we'll take
the dog and the Malbec
we'll find
the highest hill for moonrise
enthralled in ancient magic


pink pearl
rising translucent 
enormous
butterfly moon
drunk on milkweed

didn't know
I was a hedgewitch
secluded
behind a creaking gate
whispering butterflies

ripe scent
of full dumpsters 
the night
before garbage day
super moon light


summer ending                
I'm still butterfly crazy
kaleidoscope 
all the colors of the sun
in my whirligig eyes


high summer
poems about butterflies
fluttering
across computer screens
we feel them touch our fingers

is this
the summer when
the world
incinerates itself
of just the beginning?


Merlin
stars shimmering on
his purple robe
I loved the runic picture
in that antique book



Hedgerow Poems published in the first issue of Hedgerow Online Mag October 2014



Hedgerow Poems

in my dreams
I find Merlin wandering
among the hedgerows
should have been born
inside a druid oak

once I was
a tree silvered
by the moon

you might find her
sleeping inside the yew hedge
that wild woman with
her rosary of berries
she’s the keeper in the green

Thanks to Caroline Skanne for publishing these.