I would like to share with my readers six new tanka poems from my upcoming book Teutonic Mysteries. Tanka are short poems that originated in Japan in the 13th century. They are five lines long and often convey deep feelings about nature, love, or existence. I have Saturn and Moon conjunction in my natal chart, so it is natural that my poems gravitate towards themes of grief, lack of nurturing, emotional starvation, loneliness, isolation, and despair. Even though I do not necessarily experience these states presently, I know how it is like to go through the proverbial dark night of the soul. I also invite you to my YouTube channel to look at Jakub Schikaneder’s atmospheric paintings, which partially inspired the poems you are about to read.
A broken bottle
glints in the yellow moonlight
that reveals my thoughts
joyless as the midnight sea
and shattered by her absence
Stuck in a wheelchair
I gaze out of the window
at these puffy clouds
drifting slowly to far realms
that I shall never visit
On this moonless night
words fail to describe my grief
so I shed two tears
with the melting candle wax
as my sorrow’s lone witness
How shall I find peace
amid these forlorn grey hills
where fog veils the rocks
bare like the empty mansions
of my despondent blue heart
Dry leaves dance wildly
through the graveyard’s dark pathways
where twelve moons ago
tears flowed down her ice-cold cheeks
in the mist’s deathly silence
Another rough night
in this secluded lighthouse
my only friend rat
dashes out of the shadows
to ease my great loneliness
Celestial Trail 