Robert Demaree- A Poem

INVENTORY OF UNUSED HAIKU AND TANKA LINES

Five-syllable lines:

Gulls on the buoy

Rain, wine-sweet evening

Halcyon day trips

Scent of linseed oil

Named rocks on the shore

Pantomime of joy.

These have seven syllables:

Ocean, lead-gray, almost flat

Concrete marked to look like brick

At two hundred bucks a night,

You’d think the plumbing would work

Canadian strawberries

Irremediable loss

Without further evidence,

He assumes they are in love.

More five-syllable:

White glow on the pond

Nineteen-fifty Ford

Refrigerator

Fading August light

A long way from Maine.

But then three:

Memory

Abandoned

Childhood dream

Their tree house.

“Inventory of Unused Haiku and Tanka Lines” appeared in Foliate Oak, November 2010

Robert Demaree is the author of four collections of poems, including Fathers and Teachers (2007) and Mileposts (2009), both published by Beech River Books. The winner of the 2007 Conway, N.H. Library Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. He has had over 550 poems published or accepted by 125 periodicals in the U.S., Australia, Canada and U.K., including Bolts of Silk, Cold Mountain Review, Dead Snakes, MediaVirus, miller’s pond and Louisville Review, and in four anthologies including the 2008 and 2010 editions of Poet’s Guide to New Hampshire and Celebrating Poets over 70. For further information, see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com