"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…

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.” 

― Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

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

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.