Year: 2025

09/21/25 A New Somonka for a New Day

Photo Credit: Christian Lue

You left me behind
I was always by your side
But you walked away
Now there’s no one to lean on
As I pick up the pieces

I was there for you
Each time that you needed me
But it was too much
I couldn’t keep going like that
I just needed it to end

This is my attempt at a Somonka, a Japanese style that is two tanka poems back to back. Often it is two love letters, but here they express their “love” through the pain of a breakup.

This was my original version, but later in the day, I rewrote the second stanza to the one above:

You left me behind
I was always by your side
But you walked away
Now there’s no one to lean on
As I pick up the pieces

We wouldn’t have lasted
We were just sinking slowly
Grasping each other
I had to end it before
Either of us got too hurt

09/18/25 A New Poem for a New Day

Photo Credit: Roberto Carlos Román Don

How many times have
I just stared transfixed into
Those spots on the wall,
As if this time, they would each
Converge to a single point?

Blast from the Past:

Two patterns collide
On the floor, breaking the world’s
Uniformity

09/16/25 A New Ovillejo for a New Day

Photo Credit: juan pablo rodriguez

Who feels anxious every hour?
Those in power

Where does the devil make his perch?
In the Church

When are we most resigned to fate?
When we hate

Even now, it is not too late
To look past how it’s been defined
To ascertain what lies behind
Those in power in the church when we hate

Today’s poem is an ovillejo, or at least my attempt at one.

Blast from the Past:

Oh what do you do
With your time when you finish
With all of this hate?