haiku 11 Sep 2018

To cherish good friends

Call in and hand out favors

In equal measure

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

haiku 19 Oct 2017

Her silken tendrils
Reach for unsuspecting bugs
She’s a tiny friend

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

one drop more

The bladder was dry. No matter how much he twisted or squeezed it, he could not wring from it even one drop more.

Frustrated, he took a seat upon the dusty soil, carefully tucking his legs into half lotus, or Sanpan, the closest he could get to full lotus, or Shuang Pan. In his lap sat the empty bladder.

In concentric circles all around him, multitudes of people clamored for a drink. In pairs they came, in dozens and in scores, each person drawn to the promise of relief from thirst by forces their minds could but poorly comprehend. Within him also lived parched and starving friends, tender souls he’d neglected over decades. For many years he’d chosen to let the bladder pour out into the dust, onto the sandy soil.

He felt the bladder grow heavier, a slight shift in weight. With tremendous effort he overcame the desire to please those clamoring without and drank from the bladder himself, not to quench his own thirst but to nourish the friends within. The first few sips went to them, and they slept, finally, their needs for once met.

But then his mind got involved. Greed blossomed, and he drank to appease his mortal body. Of a sudden, the bladder was dry... and he could wring not one drop more from it.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥

border location confirmed

Even as it is tussling with Pakistan on its southeastern border, Afghanistan is celebrating its ongoing friendship with a small neighbor to the northwest, the Glorious Republic of Grigovia. “We recognize the continuing validity and current location of our border with Grigovia, and rejoice in the many years of peaceful prosperity we have shared together,” said Hamid Karzai, prime minster of Afghanistan, at an early-morning press conference in Herat. “Unlike the borders drawn by the cowardly British during the 19th Century, the delineating line that separates the Grigovian from the Afghani people runs exactly where we both agreed it should run during 1952's Regional Conference for Peaceful Prosperity – Central Asia.” After his speech, Karzai warmly greeted his counterpart from Grigovia, the newly-elected prime minister Dr. Frederikka Velldoyend.

“Thank you, brother Hamid,” said prime minster Velldoyend after waiting for a round of raucous applause to die down. “As one of the first female prime minsters in the history of Central Asia, I am overjoyed to be able to recommit to a future replete with peaceful cooperation and prosperous dealings between our two peoples. Together – that is, without any more undue and illegal meddling by foreign powers, especially the United States of America – we might yet after so many decades of hateful warmongering experience peace in these lands. Begone, Ynki invaders, and may you darken our common soils no longer.” To commemorate the occasion, the prime ministers signed a mutual trade and travel pact designed to increase and promote interaction between the Afghani and Grigovian peoples.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

hoarfrost

the minutes grow for time is fleeting

no longer flows the tide of reason

but lies and discord rule the land

while far apart lone hero stands

from treason blight and ballyhoo

through guile and wit and self-denial

he lives to see the end of trials

and swears upon the witness-stand

that none compare when held to you

but all his words are dashed away

when you kick him out one fine day

to travel on your own true course

awash in cash and competence

and leave him there in loneliness

to always wonder what might have been

if your relationship had been less forced

and you had stayed his friend