Art: Crazon 1984 by Alex Duensing
TURTLES, BIRDS, AND OTHERS
(OBSERVATIONAL HAIKU)
- Turtles
9/10/16
a big turtle crawls
on the base of the river,
a school of small fish
9/23/16
the big turtle sits
on a rock in the river
as the water flows
3/29/17
the big old turtle
rests in the warm noonday sun
on the riverbank
7/8/17
the big turtle walks
against the current of the
slow moving river
- Birds
10/11/16
a crow sits in the
persimmon tree, amid the
green leaves, orange fruit
2/8/17
a kingfisher sits
on a branch in the river
as the cars go by
2/9/17
three plastic bottles
in the river and a bird
that flies far away
4/1/17
have you ever seen
two little sparrows mating
on a windowsill?
- Others
9/10/16
brown snake slithering
on the shoal, did you know that
snakes slither on shoals?
9/23/16
the spider dances
under the neon sign light
in the rural town
10/17/16
it floated away,
the little red robot on
the green river-reeds
1/24/17
little crab crawling
on the bed of the river,
the water flows, flows
About the author:
Alzo David-West is a writer, poet, and academic. His creative writing appears in Antimatter, Cha, Eastlit, Grief Diaries, K’in, Missing Slate, Offcourse, Star*Line, StepAway Magazine, Tower Journal, Transnational Literature, and 365 Tomorrows. He is also the editor of scifaiku and tanka translations in Silver Blade and Star*Line.
Art: Crazon 1984 by Alex Duensing
In the artist’s words:
According to the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Physics, the version of Alex Duensing that you meet may have successfully utilized a combination of politics, theater, and poetry to create anti-time, bodily free-energy, and a Gordian Knot-Type solution to all Zen koans. You may also encounter him as pure money or as a recent thought.