From: This Tanka World (1977)

I remain
in this about world
afraid to suck
the core
of now

this life
a cutting of paper forms
pasted
in scraps
and bits

Tamura out into the sea
Mishima with a sword
and others I could name with pills--
tonight
I count these ways of dying

From: Gaijin Aesthetics (1983)

the afternoon loneliness
grabs me
and I boil water
and break open
the delight

tonight's
Van Gogh
shoes
damp through
by the kitchen door

From: At The Hut Of The Small Mind (1992)

at least
Mother Teresa
smiles at me
from the mud wall
in my Hut of the Small Mind

my body
unmasks
in candleglow
the rain
down down

From: This Tanka Whirl (200l)

Ann Frank,
how you scribbled,
endured,
and now I tramp up these stairs
they hurried you down

I never carried
a mirror placed Toulouse-like
in my battered cap--
and still from my tanka brush
this cascade of me! and my! and mine!

only a one-sentence
rebuke
to my kid
and all day
the lousy after-tast