Frank J. Tassone

Category: haikai

  • Prose to Haiku: a Meta-haibunic Dialogue

    I wonder at your brevity. So direct, and to the point. Short, then long, then short: always bending those two images into something new. But couldn’t you just elaborate a little more? Wouldn’t our readers benefit more from a Tik Tok than a snapshot? Look, I know you pride yourself on being the shortest form,…

  • Whose Line is it, Anyway?

    “… is a doormat with an attitude!” It’s one of her many copyrighted expressions. Yes, I live with a master of one-liners. The Bride is the Emma Bombeck of our generation–if I ever convince her to publish a weekly column. She’s also famous for this one (said the night of an Easter Vigil mass): “Skip…

  • Transient Serenade

    Barely past dawn on that wine-dark sea, I heard the sea shanty of distant sailors, on a ship I could not see… “Shiver me timbers this sea breeze so cold!” On, on, pull the line on “Will I see a rich port before I get old?” Give me a hand, and pull the line on…

  • A Crushing Encounter

    As if there were any other way, and yet, there is not… His quickness to turn over the keys, that telltale odor on his breath; his tongue in a flutter of release, conversing with an overtone of death. How his face locks up like struck flintlock or cringes up as he lets loose more tears.…

  • Long Day Journeys

    A leaf afloat on the river drowning A trombone cry of cold whispering among ripples Jamie Treveal On an Acer keyboard In Suffern typing out a leaf afloat not drowning beyond the current beside an inlet an oak gnarled roots penetrating softened, dampened earth wifies and shorties pull out handfuls of hair over one man…

  • Yet Another List

    Oh, yes: humanity definitely needs another list of the best Star Wars films. But what would be the point? Another squabble over the inadequacy of the sequels? More diatribes over how Disney kills the famous Intellectual property? And where would the various animation and live-action TV shows fall on such a list? Could an adequate…

  • Poesia

    poetry a heart-carving with language a son’s tears the weight of my hand on his shoulder this language so useless as salve for shattered hope yet starlight an illumination in the dark & memory a torch against forgetting inspired by Makoto Ooka’s Poezie, courtesy of Poetry International Day 6 of

  • The Last Laugh?

    a lion dying on the savannah a hyena’s laugh and a hunter’s scope suddenly turns away for day 5 of