Frank J. Tassone

Tag: photo

  • Clay Rooted: a #writephoto #haibun

    Princes and Kings call themselves “orphans, widowers, beggars,” to get themselves rooted in the dirt” Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way, Ursula K Le Guin, pg. 164 We were so dug in, we thought. Look how our shared experience intertwined us. How the gallows humor…

  • The Vanity of Our Theorizing

    I read Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I shuddered when Phaedrus articulated his theory of “quality,” only to experience a breakdown when he realizes that he simply rediscovered Laoxi’s insight–codified in the Tao Te Ching some 500 years before the birth of Christ: The way you can go isn’t the real…

  • Get Up: a #Quadrille #Haibun

    Yes, I’ve fallen. But I can get up. A thousand, thousand times I’ve kissed the ground. A thousand, thousand and one I’ve kissed the sky. I’m only a breath away from rising again. all of the years since “Eye of the tiger” cloud-piercing sun for dVerse Poets’ Quadrille #79 (pubtended by De Jackson, where she…

  • Star Wars Day ’19: Legacy of a Last Jedi: a #haibun chronicle of Luke Skywalker Redux

    Originally posted on Frank J. Tassone: (SPOILER ALERT: If you’re one of the handful that still hasn’t seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi, be warned!) How did it all go so wrong? I was the hero of the rebellion against the empire. I was the last hope of the Jedi. But when it was time…

  • Smuggs ’14 Chronicle, Day 6: July 30, 2014

    She serves from half-court. I return forearm. She backhands it over the net. I race into position and pivot, delivering the best backhand of our volley. Did she return it? Did I? Getting water later, I say, “We’ve progressed from terrible to rotten.” Tennis court bathed in sunlight slapping sounds We return from the country…

  • Of Stormriding and Picnicking (Again)

    The aches throb. Even the sensations of fatigue have tired. The sleepless night, the challenging day facing students that had a week off, the planning of a poetry jam: They were the breakers. I was the eroding shore. But the Irish song is right: I “weathered the storm” and came “out smiling in the end.”…

  • To Write a #Haibun / #TankaProse: an #Ekphrastic #MetaPoem

    See what you see: A river of starlight across the black, the sparkles of starlight across dark water. Experience the sight. Feel the awe that comes from perceiving the sheer immensity of the expanse. Marvel at the serene joy of light amidst darkness. Then imbed sight and intrepretation in language that evokes the musicality of…

  • Going Our Way

    O! that you were your self; but, love you areNo longer yours, than you your self here live: moonlight rippling on a pond the way we go I ceased to be myself when I loved you. I become someone more, as did you. Together, let our intertwined hands hold fast as long as they can!…