I build a fortress tanka

i build a fortress
to keep the darkness away
o my wintry days
can you see my thoughts
meandering along broken dreams

Jack-in-the-box haibun

I slowly return to my full concsciousness. My senses are back, quickly map out the surroundings and produce a graphic representation on my mind screen; a 3x2 meter windowless wooden cabin, red mahogany, the floor lifted inches above the ground.

Outside of the cabin is completely mental darkness; nothing my senses can fathom but the smell of dust trapped between the logs stacked to erect the wall structure.

jack-in-the-box
even beating heart
in silent mode

The light slips thru a tiny leak on the ceiling intensifies and falls on my face. It’s the only light illuminates this room, too weak to light up anything around me. Sunlight? It probably is as my skin feels the heat it radiates on my skin. But, still, I doubt my own guess.

discerning
darkness between lights
complete desolation

 

Satori; Chapter 20, haibun*

Men are fools, Solange thought as she left the house in Tokyo.
A few tears, a sparkle of en eye, the twitch of a hip, and their brains are as easily turned off like an electrical switch. 
Haverford was smarter than most, just as blind.
Like the rest, he sees what he wants to see and nothing more.
Nicholai, on the other hand..
Dommage.
What a shame.

lanterns in the breeze
in her mind, darkness and light
darkness and light

*The prose excerpted from Don Winslow's Satori, Grand Central Publishing, June 2011