#thirteen ways

🍁 a set of 13 Red Leaf Haiku by © John Clark Helzer 

I 

By chance, the one thing 

God and Satan agree on 

is quantum physics. 

II 

If there were no one 

looking, all of it would look 

not at all the same. 

III 

A cat both alive 

and dead is two cats who can’t 

talk to each other. 

IV 

Photons resent their 

watchers for precluding them 

from their figure eights. 

V 

A truly secure 

password takes literally 

forever to type. 

VI 

Even the sun has 

a shadow. It is here that 

nothing can be seen. 

VII 

Were the universe 

condensed to just one word, it 

would be this: maybe. 

VIII 

The longest-running 

joke is time, in that time is 

not running at all. 

IX

How many times, in 

some train station, has she passed 

herself and not known? 

X 

Your entangled hair 

evokes distant photons bound 

by one quantum state. 

XI 

Measuring makes the 

observer the field’s ruler, 

but also its slave. 

XII 

Careful with that axe, 

Eugene. Especially one 

as tiny as that. 

XIII 

Reality does 

not make sense. It is sense that 

Thirteen ways to count your chickens: written for the YeahWrite #472 Fiction|Poetry grid

I Five hens scurry around the yard, scratching and preening, dust baths and dust ups

(more…)

Thirteen ways of looking at Leaves

By Duke Sullivan

I In the mouth of the river, The only life left was in the leaves of broken trees.

  II My skin flawed, Like the dried branches   In which the leaves sway.

  III The Leaves cried, cracked with promise. Wrinkles show lasting remorse.

  IV A bird swoops down with water

as drops of rain beat down the

drifting leafs into dirt.

  V A couple ponders on the bench in the breeze. A damp leaf meshed

against his wool coat. 

  VI

An old women sits

The lines in her skin accentuate

the age of the leaf tattooed on her shoulder.

  VII

The clouds peeking down

a child falls back

into a lake of leaves.

  VIII The whirlwinds

toss the glistening leafs,

a story is now left in the forest

as the blood of past murders

sprinkle the earth as they fall.

IX When all the trees were cut down,

no leaving creature could ever

see the beauty of leaves again.  

  X A squirrel is perched high in the clouds

nibbling on the burnt beauty of orange leaves, as a giraffe stretches to grasp it.

  XI A leaf hangs by its veins

awakened  by one last push of wind

and pull by gravity.

XII Generations have passed,

a young boy discovers a diary in the attic.

Tucked inside the plastic barriers

was a leaf, untouched by age

time itself couldn’t steal the colors of its skin.    

  XIII Out of the corner of my eye

I see leaves racing against the fog, the water rushes down the creak, and

I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird.

II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds.

III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman and a blackbird Are one.

V I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after.

VI Icicles filled the long window With barbaric glass. The shadow of the blackbird Crossed it, to and fro. The mood Traced in the shadow An indecipherable cause.

VII O thin men of Haddam, Why do you imagine golden birds? Do you not see how the blackbird Walks around the feet Of the women about you?

VIII I know noble accents And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too, That the blackbird is involved In what I know.

IX When the blackbird flew out of sight, It marked the edge Of one of many circles.

X At the sight of blackbirds Flying in a green light, Even the bawds of euphony Would cry out sharply.

XI He rode over Connecticut In a glass coach. Once, a fear pierced him, In that he mistook The shadow of his equipage For blackbirds.

XII The river is moving. The blackbird must be flying.

XIII It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat In the cedar-limbs.