Tanka – 20091115

 

beneath the moonlight
where romantic lovers play
light soft and silent
only eyes of the hearts can see
fingertips compose love songs

 

tanka – 20091108

 

early november
dawn racing the rising sun
a beautiful hour
frost painted vines and berries
hide from the hungry blue jays

Winter Rain Outdoors Tanka

winter rain outdoors
thinking of franconia notch
with thoughts of long ago
native american foot paths
on bright sunny autumn days

Tanka revisited

Tanka looks good married to an image.

Although it is the middle of September, beautiful flowers were blooming all around the Longfellow Statue on Longfellow Square Portland, Maine.

Looking down one of the streets from the square you see very old and new architecture in this old town nestled by the sea.

Tanka – have you ever tried Tanka?

Browsing my wife’s blog, I see her and her friends at One Deep Breath are exploring Japanese Poetry formats. Like Haiku, it is quite simplistic, but it stresses to follow a syllable format and allows you to give a more complete picture of an event or mood than Haiku. Tanka has been around for 1200 years or so, but relatively new to this country thanks to the Internet, Academia, and Individual Poets. I won’t go into the various degrees of how-to. Search Tanka on the web and you will find new information every day.

thirty-one syllables

line 1 – 5 syllables
line 2 – 7 syllables
line 3 – 5 syllables
line 4 – 7 syllables
line 5 – 7 syllables

my first try:

the poet statue
sits within the village square
year round tourist come
youthful memories inspire
journeys homeward quoting verse