Three Haiku

during the drought
the bird bath has been filled
by the spring storm


april moonlight
a black cat waits silently
in the yard


rainy evening
home alone with tears
chopping onions


Chapel Hill News, April 23, 2008 (Note: the last poem appeared in the newspaper's print edition, while all three appeared online)


poetry, haiku

A Dusting

If you must have a snowball today,
while waiting for the school bus –
the snow isn’t on the grass –
What’s on the car is out of reach –
but it covers every leaf
that’s scattered in the yard.
Pick some up.
Wipe them on your glove.
It’s worth a try, at least.
But do it fast, and do a lot,
for if your glove is warm,
or the school bus comes too soon,
then sad to say
you won’t have a snowball today.


Luna Negra, Kent State University, Fall 1997
by Ed Bremson

poetry

Circle

Life is a journey:
the farther you roam
the nearer you are
to returning home.


Writer’s Exchange, Society Hill, South Carolina, Spring 1997
by Ed Bremson

poetry

on poetry

moot questions posed
by would-be poets
make lines that
would be poems moot.


Writer’s Exchange, Society Hill, South Carolina, Spring 1997
by Ed Bremson

poetry

Forbearance

I can’t keep my son
out of a tree.
I can forbid him,
threaten him,
say anything at all,
yet when I go outside
there he is
up there –
with a big smile
on his face.
I could hit him, I know,
and he might obey,
but I don’t have the heart
to do that, remembering,
I, too, once was a boy.


Raleigh (N.C.) Men’s Center Newsletter, January 1997
by Ed Bremson

poetry

You’re No Jack Kerouac

Suck up nicotine, beer, and pot.
Stay up sleepless, salacious nights.
Go on the road
As far and as fast as the road will go.
Then go and write what’s on your mind.
Surely your thoughts must be important then.
But it takes more than self-abuse to be an artist.


Innisfree Magazine, Manhattan Beach, California, November 1992
by Ed Bremson

poetry

Iceberg

If the human mind was an iceberg,
then consciousness would be the tip;
and the unconscious mind
would be everything else:
that which lies submerged –
vast, dark, and deep –
the ice that keeps us afloat.


Words of Wisdom, Glendora, New Jersey, June 22, 1992
by Ed Bremson

poetry

Student

He knows just enough chemistry
to make LSD:

to hold a gun to his mind
inside his brain;

to take a chance at
crapping in his genes.


Innisfree Magazine, Manhattan Beach, California, June 1992
by Ed Bremson

poetry

De Profundis?

Writing verse
with Latin words
may seem profound,

but dead languages
make living languages
dead somehow.


Thumbprints, Caro, Michigan, March 1992
by Ed Bremson

poetry

No Guarantee

Exterminators are stronger than bugs,
but only in direct contact.
It’s a big house, and there are
lots of places for bugs to go to survive.
Exterminators don’t make a living
by exterminating.


Words of Wisdom, Glendora, New Jersey, January 13, 1992

by Ed Bremson

poetry