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ISSN 1556-4975 

Poems and Collaborations by Thomas Fink and Maya Diablo Mason.

                                                                                             

HAIBU(NA)KU 3, by Thomas Fink

 

This picture can stand by itself. We have no babies to medicate, so who holds the pain? I mostly think about me. He gave me the words, but I forgot what they were. You’re supposed to feed all your –isms that are missing, so can we track them down together? Though Cupid might cheer folks up, everyone should own what can never be confiscated.

If
it’s soft,
throw it out.

 

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HAIBU(NA)KU 4, by Thomas Fink.

 

Here’s to all the wonderful people in the world. May some of them survive—you especially, my charming brother, who are really my service man. Are we lucky to be lasting so long? ‘Cause (beyond those bluster-face acrobatics) this fellow’s a bit frail, too. You shouldn’t let much stuff leak out of your rectum. I wish I was more of a sister to you.

First
I must  
buy some neighbors.

 

Note:  Eileen Tabios, inventor of the hay(na)ku in 2005, inaugurated the use of the haybun in 2008, a haibun involving any number of hay(na)ku as the poetry section following the paragraph(s) of unregulated length. With her blessing, I have devised a stricter offshoot, the haibu(na)ku, in which the paragraph must have an equal number of sentences as the hay(na)ku or chain of hay(na)ku has words.

 

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SOMEONE COULD BE HOVERING, by Thomas Fink and Maya Diablo Mason

 

What happened here—so sunken-white?
Be careful where you leave footprints.
Federal bases will soon gain access.
Even winter doesn’t discard much.
She did not expect to produce damage.
Or are they mine?
I could have checked.
You appreciate the anonymity of motoring.
Not having soles to match souls.
I covered some, but they were remembered.
For the ultra cautious, is there a banquet to speak of?

 

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HE MUST HAVE TORTURED PUPPIES, by Thomas Fink and Maya Diablo Mason.

 

His face is a threat.
Twisted bicycle
to masquerade’s
acned celebration.
Filthy eye

deception dance.
Mouth idiocy offerings.
When verbal, pollutes.
Finger-widened nostrils. 
Flareless.

Curly wildfire around
small head,
smaller CPU.
Inconsequential
potential:

is respect
valid, solid?
Summons says:
existence errs.

 

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Thomas Fink’s fifth book of poetry, Clarity and Other Poems, was published by Marsh Hawk Press in Spring, 2008. His chapbook, Generic Whistle-Stop (Portable Press at YoYo Labs) appeared in 2009.  A Different Sense of Power (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2001) is his most recent book of criticism, and in 2007, he and Joseph Lease co-edited “Burning Interiors”: David Shapiro’s Poetry and Poetics.  His work is included in The Best American Poetry 2007 (Scribner’s). Fink’s paintings hang in various collections.

Maya Diablo Mason was published in The First Hay(na)ku Anthology (Meritage, 2006) and her collaborative work has appeared in Otoliths, 21 Stars Review, BlazeVox, Of(f) Course, Long Island Sounds Anthology 2008, Marsh Hawk Review, and EOAGH.  A high school student in Long Island, New York, she plans to pursue a career in drama, visual art, or writing.

Their work appeared in Offcourse Issue #34, Poems. T. Fink's work appears also in Issue #16, Two Poems

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