The Color Green

James Karkoski (odd verses) and Sheila Windsor (even)

The front garden,
the color green
has run
through every live
thing in it.

Hand in hand
down the lane we've traced the scent:
wild honeysuckle!

New lovers loitering
with laughter
in hopes of
stalling goodbye,
midnight poplar trees.

Long stemmed glasses, sip by sip,
white wine gives way to moonlight.

The slip
of a breeze
in a wan moon
on a deserted bay,
it's the end of my summer.

All night
in and out of sleep
the hotel elevator
scraping
through my dreams

Early morning hangover:
on the table the ache of
cheap smelly ale bottles

And her words
scrawled on a scrap
of wet paper:
all the meeting, touching, merging
see'ya

The slash of the rain against the
window of the first northbound train

pulling into midnight
a voice asks one thing
skipping tracks
searching . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . searching

Into Hey,
(a romp through Much Ado)

James Karkoski and Sheila Windsor

My muscles grow
grey hard shells once
a woman oysters
pearly eyes at me!

Into hey nonny nonny
I bid you good day!

I have no appetite for your metaphor Sir
and with lips firmly closed, go on my way

Into hey nonny nonny
does babble dear Lady Disdain

Oh, would Hercules' steed
run so breathless
as a woman's tongue
that wags she'll now pass quiet

Into hey nonny nonny
and pass you I will Sir

Would that your sword were sharp as your wit
it might cut through fog, if first you honed it

Into hey nonny nonny
more prattle from silent Lady Disdain

She stabs whenever
she speaks, but
since her tongue has no point
where's the cut?

Into hey nonny nonny
he stays me again

yet my tongue seems much to your point Sir
if there's meaning to this prodding spit it out or refrain

Into hey nonny nonny
lingers the parry of Lady Disdain

Hasn't she come to call
me to dinner, and yet
we dally on our heaving knives
when we could be feasting with forks

Into hey nonny nonny
the banquet is spread

and my uncle awaits, I will tarry no longer
shall we to table Sir and there assuage our hunger?

Into hey nonny nonny
bread on a platter from Lady Disdain?

If I did go and sit
for supper, then the plates
of four men could not feed nor
quell my gnawing desire!

Into hey nonny nonny
how seamless we seem

To have slipped the icy ground of battle
and entered instead, Sir, the portal of a dream

into hey nonny nonny
and if he ignore a lady, disdain!

Let my wit
turn terrible towards
those who avow
that what we do is not love!

into hey nonny nonny
a turn of the reel . . .

pray you tell me plainly Sir: if I join you in this dance,
lies at the end a ring of gold, or bed of dalliance?

into hey nonny nonny
she echoes a refrain asked all eternity
into hey nonny nonny

we bid you goodnight . .

The Color of Magic

- a haiku collaboration between James Karkoski (in pplain text) and Sheila Windsor (in italics)

loud applause a bright handkerchief in a top hat

my name in his little black book pocketed

smooth sailing predicted for tomorrow a rainbow

snuffed candle smoke scenting the dark stars beyond the skylight

morning brightness the free clear ring of a winging lark

then his telephone voice telling me what I already know

that like Icarus I did whisper my dreams into his warmth

now only an ink-written jingle on a blank card happy birthday

a mardi gras funeral wads of damp tissue no longer translucent

torn and discarded the emptiness of boxes spills out

on a red pin stripe bed a multi-colored pile of stuffed dolls

one for voodoo full of holes the color of magic

^

Biography

James is an American living ang working, as a conversation teacher, in Japan where he has been for the past twelve years. As a poet James began with mainstream western forms and branched into haiku after settling in his adopted country, where he found haiku to be something more than it is in the West. He has had traditional work published in various small press US magazines and has given speeches privately and publicly in Japan dicussing the differences between haiku East and West.

Sheila began as a mainstream poet, with her first publishing success coming about six years ago. Several awards, from quality small-press journals, mainly in the U.K. where she lives, quickly followed. When she met haiku and its relations five years ago, it was love at first sight. She has been widely published in the U.K. U.S.A. Canada, New Zealand and Japan and received a number of awards and runner-up positions in open competitions.

In recent years both James and Sheila have posted their poetry (and in James' case academic discussion) to haiku internet lists and private clubs . . . which was where their friendship and writing partnership began.