Tag Archives: King

over the rim

sitting near a freeway on the dusty verge
picking tart berries from a briar patch
do we resist the urge to eat and dirge
yes! tho’ we’re vagabonds of a luckless batch

and we’re the queen and king of the universe
thrown on the scrapheap with crowns in hand
made from disposed packets of potato chips
we’re vowing to outlast this dead oasis

wiping berries clean with a dirty nose rag
feeding each other by hand and with laugh
to keep ourselves buoyed whenever we flag
in the scathing dust trails of the motor riff-raff

we’re the queen and king of the universe
regal wanderers with our crowns in hand
made from disposed packets of potato chips
we’re vowing to outlast this dead oasis

the night air smells of freshness and exhausting fumes
the cars swooshing past leaving snatches of tunes
we’re so tangled in tail light and bitumen plumes
that we’ve delayed overlong our return to the dunes

we’re the queen and king of the universe
waiting for the rapture, our crowns in hand
made from disposed packets of potato chips
we’ve vowed to outlast this dead oasis

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

Haiku King & Tan’ka Queen (Tanka) ~ The ∞ ‘21 Shades of Blue’ collaboration

Broken, unspoken
not mending round the bending
over backwards turns…

I close my self-harmed blind eyes.
It’s my way to feel alive.

I stared at you, too
with the other lights in my
starry-eyed skyline…

My carmine, acid-burned tips
are thrilled to death to touch you.

But they’d stop me cold,
I tremble imagining
true human contact…
Long-distance indifference
is all I’m familiar with.

I over-fatigue
myself with affined-distance
contacts. A cold space
makes me warm. I feel a blade
which tickles my blepharons.

Vulnerable codes
of casual ciphers, cracked
Flirts, being known hurts…

Now I’ve heard a fucking chord…
Hallelujah… hell, I hack!

Lady Scissorhands,
with paper white skin, I know.
I’m Inside-out Man….

Blunt edges give much more fun
with unpicking blue and red.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & RY HAKARI
© All rights reserved 2015

Knight Errant ~ The one ‘Knight’s tour problem’ collaboration

I’m lucky. Really, guys, I’m lucky!

Can you boast of two collaborations with Tony Single without a break? I can! Collaborating with Tony is a great joy. An exceptional joy.

Because Tony is exceptional.  Artist. Wastrel. A quantum of potential. Aha!
A fucking ideal. I can’t even believe that he’s real! Hey, Tony! Are you real?

Thank you, Tony… and let us go to the next collaboration? Please, please!

crossed-swords_p

Lanterns shine too bright
and water drops too loud.
I’m a lonely knight
standing opposite the crowd.

Lances jut too pointy
at queens too busy quilting.
Quintains feel too jaunty
for serious windmill tilting.

The firmament gets bleak.
Clouds weave the decoy node.
Pinnacled rooks beak
apples on the patchwork road.

Full import and all portent,
or is this mere priestly babble?
Preaching safe from beside the war tent,
in unholy war they dabble.

A phthisical bishop spits blood
into cream roadside manure.
The left quintain falls with a thud
losing its air-headed allure.

The right quintain sprouts lambent wings
and a halo for a hero’s journey.
It can have my heart as I’ve no wish to depart,
to forswear my stratagems twisty turny.

But it’s zugzwang, and I’m too tired to prate.
God save my Queen! I U-turn at one fling,
and make public a smothered selfmate
for my despicable sterile King.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2015