Shards 45 Haiku & Other Short Poems by D. Arthur Watson Smashwords Edition * * * * * Published by: David A. Watson at Smashwords Shards 45 Haiku & Other Short Poems Copyright © 2012 by David A. Watson Credit for Cover: Photograph, mud cracks along the banks of the Powder River Bureau of Land Management Smashwords Edition License Notes This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. * * * * * 1 Wintry autumn rain. Last summer's dead leaves shiver. An old person cries. 2 Blizzard blurred street-lamps. Black waves pound the beach. So dark I can see the wind. 3 French Quarter, March night. Walking hand in hand. Even the moon is spellbound. 4 Empty wine bottle, cast off soul's memorial leaning in the snow. 5 Silver lightening strikes. Fields ripple in the wind, waves of a summer storm. 6 Red brown orange gold, flaming leaves flicker then fall. Fat pumpkin eyes glow. 7 In a sense innocence in essence is nonsense. 8 Stepping stones across the stream. Only one to go. A weed drifts by. 9 Not a rocket to my name. Marooned forever on the Planet Me. 10 A candlelit room. Uncle lies so still. He's gone? Then who's in that box? 11 April night sown with stars, seeds of worlds. 12 Speeding up the hill. White diamonds on black velvet. Oh. The moon is red. 13 An old juke box song — snow flurries, you, a diner's Formica and chrome. 14 Light from the full moon steps into the woods then walks through a ruined shack. 15 Welcome to his home, time-frozen dingy knickknacks, his mother's remains. 16 Boiling thunder clouds. A tree blossoms into flame. Big test tomorrow. 17 Bottomless black pond. Eyes stare up from the water. Subtle, sinuous. 18 Wonders of science. My old childhood haunts vanish in pictures from space. 19 Dazzling morning sun. An ice storm-plated forest sparkles in my mind. 20 Antique photographs, so many forgotten lives shrunk to images. 21 A new year, a new chance to do it all over all over again. 22 On the moon's dark side the whole earth is nothing more than a charming tale. 23 In the darkened room, gone for years, a Christmas tree still glows in my thoughts. 24 The crescent moon drifts through seas of stars, shattering in the pond's ripples. 25 On the lawn, after the rain, a mushroom circle, Stonehenge for the ants. 26 Not Being Here Wherever I am, I am not there, my mind takes me away to somewhere new. I’m not there too, so where am I today? I live like a ghost who haunts dim worlds of thoughts that I have spun from memories or fantasies of futures that won't come. I dream about problems, people, things, places I’d rather be. It’s all untrue and helps me to avoid reality. 27 Sun-washed sleeping cat, back arched, stretched out on the rug. Winter's summer dreams. 28 I've been up all night. Morning's first glow. Please hold back. I am not ready. 29 Iron-gray clouds. Winter's white seeds swirl down and then drape the calm, dreaming earth. 30 Driving in the night. Headlights, billboards wavering ... woosh ... woosh ... in the rain. 31 Umbrellas emerge from the city's morning mist, autumn's chilly veil. 32 Waiting for the snow, three crows on a barren branch, proud of their black wings. 33 An abandoned farm. June's relentless green covers even memories. 34 Country road at night. Through a dark tunnel of trees a lone figure walks. 35 I drove by a house being torn down today. I’d passed it before while on my way to work. I’m sure I had seen it when someone lived there. Now it was empty, exposed and bare to rain. The roof was half off, a side had been shed, revealing the stairs that once had led to a bed where dreamers had flown through the night’s cricket sounds and landed at dawn on hope and coffee grounds. In the car’s mirror as I watched the house fade I saw my own eyes looking back — afraid. 36 The pines are pierced by shafts of morning's red light. Cathedral of trees. 37 Lone tree in a field leaning, ancient life bent by the invisible. 38 Surfer in the curl, rejoicing in the great wave about to crush him. 39 Winter moon hanging in branches, a Christmas tree with one ornament. 40 Footprints in the snow. I look. I wonder — have I been this way before? 41 Spring evening. Crickets start chirping, more and more, one for each new star. 42 Moss covered log drifts closer. Suddenly, fiercely the log swims away. 43 Walking home he planned a nice lunch, but quietly died on the sidewalk. 44 Kingdoms of clouds pass below. What joy to ride the back of an eagle. 45 My garage is filled with once good ideas, but now it's become a tomb. # # # About the author: D. Arthur Watson and David A. Watson are the same person. He was born in Chicago but grew up in New Jersey. He graduated from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1965 with a BA in English Literature. His writing career began in 1968 as a copywriter for Prentice-Hall Publishers when it was located in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. In 1970, he began work as a copywriter in the Book Club Division of Doubleday & Company in Garden City, New York, where he later became Editor of the Science Fiction Book Club. In 1974 he moved to Alabama to work as a direct mail fundraising copywriter for a nonprofit organization. He retired in 2003 and has been in Alabama ever since. In 2010, Twitter reignited his interest in writing. The discipline of the 140-character limit is a marvelous teacher. His writing interests for the future include novels, flash fiction and poetry. Connect with D. Arthur Watson Online: Twitter: http://twitter.com/ - !/xunez Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/DAWatson