Tanka (same term for singular and plural) is a short poem of five lines in length, which engages the imagination. Good tanka suggests far more than it actually says. Tanka is a Japanese form, which predates haiku. Tanka is sometimes, but not always, a haiku with two lines added. Writers have much more flexibility in writing tanka than they do in writing haiku.   –K.S.




Each Breath
(A tanka sequence)
 

Mom
with her head in her hands
on the toilet
not bothering 
to close the door
 

trembling lips
grip a plastic tube…
she drags
each breath
up a steeper hill
 

minutes after
the breathing treatment
she falls asleep…
I  leave without waking her
For Dancing with the Stars
 

the family room
with no hospital bed
or oxygen tank…
a realtor calls it
an open space
                 -Red Lights 10.2 



Just as senyru is the lighter side of haiku, kyoka (same term for singular and plural) is the lighter side of tanka.  Like tanka, kyoka are five lines in length.  Sometimes called the anti-tanka, kyoka are usually humorous and employ parody and satire.  -K.S.



Ten Kyoka




sitting at last
in my new apartment
I realize
too late...
no toilet paper
                    -Prune Juice  April 2012



a frozen banana
falls to the floor
with a thud...
only in my dreams
could I get so hard
                    -Prune Juice  April 2012



never too old
to start something new
tonight
I have begun
drooling on my pillow
                    -Prune Juice   April 2012



my shadow
on the walk into work
I try 
to make my stride
more assertive
                   -Prune Juice   January 2013



running late 
I take the wrong exit 
and my grandson laughs - 
he hasn’t yet learned 
how to panic 
                    -Atlas Poetica Spring 2014



colleagues
studying smart phones
in the elevator
I break the silence
with a fart
                    -Atlas Poetica Spring 2014



this email
rewritten, revised
twenty times…
I find another clump
in the litter box
                    -Bright Stars 5



fifty miles
into our trip
on a toll road
I ask
did we check the stove?
                    -Bright Stars 5



my grandson
prancing around the room
naked -
too young to know
the meaning of shame
                    -Bright Stars 5



twenty one moves
for mind-blowing sex
hard enough
to bend over
and tie one shoe
                    -Lakeview Journal (India)





A Book Of Poems


I like to stroll down Sonnet Street
where love glows in iambic gardens

or sleep outside
in a haiku tent –
with all those stars and so few syllables

or sit on a front porch with Whitman
and watch as he whittles his metaphors.

My favorite, though, is a four stanza home
where a poem by William Stafford lives.

When I visit, he gives me a piece of heaven,
something he happened to save one morning
before the dawn flowed over the hedge.





September 11


After it happened
we all joined hands
in a church -
different races, different faiths  
singing loud

we shall overcome
some day. 

In conference rooms
and in dark caves
plans were already being made
to drown our music out
with one single,  relentless note -
the beating of the drums.



©2014 Kenneth Slaughter