Uncle Mike's
Autumn Views
By Michael P. Garofalo
The last seed
falls from the sunflower—
empty pond.
The long awaited
rattle of rain on rooftops—
Thanksgiving Day.
mums flowering,
zinnias flowering—
me wondering
Carrying home
her baby sister—
a sermon walking.
In the gentle breeze,
shimmering mulberry leaves—
oblique sun.
All the cabbages in our garden are robust green to the core;
All the peppers are dead black,
not red anymore.
The onions are thriving,
the tomatoes all gone,
The lettuce is rising,
the pecans all stored—
It’s wet now in Red Bluff,
Winter’s knocking at the door.
Flagpole lanyard clanking
in the brisk breeze—
News of War.
angry men
ranting—
barking dogs
Broken by strokes,
Fragments of Mind gone awry—
Lost in his own home.
a jay
perched on a branch—
misty December morn
Faces in the rolling clouds;
Thinking out loud,
nothing strange,
Always Mind at its Game.
bowls, plates, cups, chopsticks,
glasses of Sapporo beer—
fine Saba Maki
hot, hot
nostrils flared—
wasabi
little white duck
floating alone—
grand-children playing
In the cold pond
Breathing slowly
Horsetail roots.
Withered horsetail leaves
drooping into pond scum—
Seedpods bursting white.
Ripe brown horsetails split,
Spewing cottony seedlings
Onto the wind's back.
The murky still pond
mirrors the cloudy skies—
horsetail seeds float by ...
a hint of winter
off the wind—
split pomegranates
Overhead, galaxies retreat,
Below, bubbling red lava holds;
Between, the voices of the night
bouncing between my ears
disappear into dying campfires.
Some philosophers enjoy
the rush of mental masochism,
the bondage to fashionable ideas,
the titillations of traditions,
the painful flagellation with
keen, clear, sharp
cutting words,
the humiliation of utter confusion,
the euphoria of the games,
the charms of the fantastic
alluring theaters of thought,
the submisssion to
non-experiential concepts,
the fetishes of errors and illusions.
Stone Lagoon and sky
become one—
deepening fog.
Carcass smells;
vultures ripping up
a beached whale.
The Other-Fulfilling Prophesy
comes true:
What you never thought
you'd become, you do.
The tule fog
fills the sky—
Yuletide.
November
a bold zero
inked on the scroll—
fancies of one hand clapping
My breath follows
the chill wind—
a morning walk.
The blinded
following the blind—
not listening.
Wide-eyed
smiling-child—
Christmas
Uncle Mike's Cellphone Poetry Series
November - Quotations & Poetry
Gardens are demanding pets.
A garden is made up of stories,
not things.
You are given Today - make it matter.
A callused palm and dirty fingernails
precede a Green Thumb.
To garden is the reward.
Absolutes squirm beneath realities.
Your garden will do for you in
proportion to what you do for it.
thankfully
repeated
generosity
October
Flooded rice fields
full of ducks—
Christmas Eve.
Yesterday, I was thinking
about the "Absolute"
(whatever that is,
or means, or creates,
or controls, or becomes).
Absolute Zero - Death!
Clearly, a deep shivering Super-Conducting
Absolute No.
Then,
The Past: a second ago, a century ago...
Dead Time—
Absolutely kaputt!
Newton's Absolute Time—
Tilted over by Einstein's Mind,
his equations, the tested finds.
The arrow of Time never rests,
moving forward unrelenting
irreversible
from hot towards cold
from organized to disorganized
from past to future
from moving towards stillness
from life towards death.
Or,
so it seems,
to us,
with our little particulars in view
and our social habits a must.
The spiderwebs of Time are legion
multitudes of nows of heres;
Uncountable heres and theres
unhitched
from any eternal present everywhere.
Facing off, fists up,
eyeballs to eyeballs;
two boys gather a crowd.
Short Poems by Michael P. Garofalo
Behind the iron Buddha's
straight back—
a cricket chirping.
my eyes
trace her figure—
the dog sniffs
Traffic halted
to clear a rockslide—
the scent of cedars.
Pulling up
twisted tomato vines—
long autumn shadows.
Cuddling his great-grandson
before the baptism—
New Year's Eve.
Last day of Autumn;
clothes in a closet,
next year's calendar—
Form is emptiness.
First day of Winter;
all trees are leafless,
kitchen table bare—
Emptiness is form.
Uncle Mike's Cellphone Poetry Series
Cuttings: Haiku and Short Poems
Pulling Onions: Over 1,000 One-Liners
Green Way Research Subject Index
Uncle Mike's Cellphone Poetry Series #5
Text, graphics, and webpage design
by Michael P. Garofalo.
Most photographs by Karen Garofalo,
a few by Michael Garofalo.
Updated: June 13, 2022
© Green Way Research
All Rights Reserved