Back again

The camping trip, after a number of setbacks, was a huge success. Briefly:
bad -- punctured tire, switching campsites, grumpy nieghbours, too much driving.
good -- the food. the hike. the location (cheers, chris). the drum circles. singalongs. the food. the folks.

And now it's done. Difficult to return to the "real" world, if that's what you call this. Having spent most of my working hours entertaining myself inside my head by elaborating trip plans and practicing songs I would sing, I was stuck this week for something to occupy my mind. I wrote a couple tankas which ended up serving as a sort of catharsis -- I wrote each one about a girl that's had an impact on my life.

A tanka is a poem like a haiku with a syllable pattern of 5-7-5-7-7 (which adds up to 31, no doubt). I wrote fifteen stanzas in all. Here are a few:

TC
it's hard to believe
the games that i used to play
like a school bully
pulling hair, twisting arms means
"i want you to be my friend"

PP
part of me regrets,
but part of me won't forgive;
some of me wants to
see who you are today, but
most of me would rather not.

AC
so pathetically,
you have tied your numb self to
a loveless, clinging,
wife-beating asshole; you got
exactly what you wished for.

MH
because you saw my
semi-secret insides first
you contributed
to the construction of what
was later to become me.

CH
a goddess's grip
moves your pen around shapes of
unbelievable
grace and humility; you
draw fiction but capture truth.