Tanka [construction cones]
Image: “Have you ever eaten breakfast here before?” by Barbara Gordon. “[construction cones]” was written by Cindy Guentherman for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
Petite Chanson de Démence
My father asks if Genji’s a girl or boy
over and over over family dinner.
It’s not his fault. He doesn’t mean to annoy
Poems Used to Rhyme
Poems used to rhyme.
In time, the couplets were dispensed.
Incensed, today’s poet rebels from rhyming schemes,
It seems. The writer, newly shedding the shackles of quatrains,
Refrains from even a modicum of lilt.
Ghazal of Bones
I’m fragile now, my heart can’t bear the weight of brokenness, those pains from fractured bones
Friend
He waits by the door
when I come to school.
At recess, he waits for me
on the playground
with a smile.