Category Archives: sedoka

Heartfelt

At double arms reach:

it’s how we’ll spend this Christmas

because we love each other.

                                                           AG

~

Our hearts reach beyond

our arms and in our hearts we

will hold each other.

                                                            JDG

Winter’s Harsh Rebuff

Did Autumn linger

too long, I wonder, or Spring

make an untimely visit?

Today Winter gave

a harsh rebuff to all such

intrusive, unseasoned guests.

                                                                                          JDG

Exotica – Variations On A Theme

No need to travel to far off

lands looking for

exotic stuff.

What’s right around

here is exotic enough. Once

I saw two dogs

licking a rabbit.

We started to

intervene, but they soon parted.

Who knows when they

first became friends

or how it started.

                                                                               JDG  (using the minute form)

Those two large dogs stood

licking a full-grown rabbit.

When did this strange friendship start?

                           ~

Who broke the ancient

rules of the animal world

first – the dogs or the rabbit?

                                                      JDG  (using the sedoka form)

A Way Beyond

Two golden creatures,

large and small, male and female,

dog and cat, sleep side by side.

~

These opposites have

found a way to move beyond

differences. What about us?

                                                                      JDG

Beauty On The Fly

Small, flying creatures,

not to be outdone by more

rooted loveliness, dine from

golden saucers, then,

sun shimmering on slant wings,

move on – beauty on the fly.

                                                                  JDG

Sedoka Version

small flying creatures

dine from golden saucers, then

move on in shimmering sun

~

beauty on the fly

gives more rooted loveliness

pause, before it hurries on

JDG

The sedoka (an ancient  Japanese poetic form)  is an unrhymed, six line poem whose structure is made up of two Katauta ( 5-7-7 syllables in each Katauta ). The first shows a scene and the second shows the same scene but from a different angle. The second may also show a reaction to the first scene.