November Tanka: Friends

long married

just turned eighty-seven

she ‘never

wanted another fella’ –

some fairy-tales come true

14/11/25

oh no! 

her new photo tells me

she’s old – 

so much younger than me

I know, how can this be?

19/11/25

next door

is quiet today –

the artist

I think must be working

deeply absorbed (like me)

20/11/25

unlike

in religion, politics,

lifestyle 

yet we are old friends –

we see each other’s hearts

21/11/25

Note: I'm referring to four different friends of mine who happened to come into my consciousness at this time. Some readers, here and elsewhere, have been a bit confused about that.

Sharing this with Poets United for Friday Writings #204 , where the optional prompt is to take inspiration from the quote,  ‘The most expensive garment you’ll ever own is your own flesh.’ But I didn't have time to write something new for that theme today. Instead, here I am looking out at other people.

Dragons and Unicorns

 Companion poems (mine and a friend's) written and published years ago, and duplicated here in order to show them to someone who hasn't seen them before.

 

I was living in rented premises and wasn’t allowed to have animals there. I complained to my friend Janet about the lack of pets. “Why don’t you have psychic pets?” she said. “Brilliant,” I thought. She decided to have some too. Some time later, there ensued the following correspondence.

 

 

 

DEAR Janet,

How are the unicorns?

 

I haven’t patted I haven't patted or said hullo to

the dragons for such a long time.

I forget them, like plants unwatered.

I hope they feed themselves

and don’t depend on spasmodic rains

or the crumbs we leave for birds.

 

I wonder what they do up there all day.

Are they bored? If it was me.

I’d copulate constantly — but dragons,

I think, have a different kind of season.

 

I see they have moved

to a low, convenient cloud. The roof

was awkwardly shaped, uncomfortable.

They swathe their massive tails

They s                   in coils around each other.

They look bored but cosy;

 lazy and cosy, curling up for warmth.

 

The blue one is Agyar, known as Betsy.

The red is male. His name is Aragon.

They are faithful dragons to me

 and dutiful. I must treat them better.

 

Janet, how are your unicorns?

 

 

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 1993

First published in Feet First: poems by the Aardvarkers

Also in Secret Leopard: new and selected poems 1974-2005 (Paris, Alyscamps Press, 2005)

 

8/4/93

DEAR ROSEMARY

 

The unicorns

look silly in the laundry beside the washing machine

Nathan is combing Jennifer’s tail with his teeth

I woke up at 3 o’clock last night

because someone was nuzzling my cheek

They love music

Nathan’s a Beatles freak

Jennifer prefers Debussy

They don’t look bored

I don’t think unicorns do that

and they’ve got the cat to talk to

I asked them what they think about

they said ‘LOVE’   and the space beyond the black stump

There’s a black stump where they come from too

They look cramped in the laundry

Perhaps I’ll take my psychic paint-brush and

create for them a daisy-covered meadow

and in the lounge-room a pond

 

It’s wonderful living with unicorns

 

 

 

© Janet Gregory 1993

First published in Feet First: poems by the Aardvarkers

Also in Secret Leopard: new and selected poems 1974-2005 (Paris, Alyscamps Press, 2005)

Finding, Bringing ...

Sometimes, like a musician

coaxing certain notes

and interminglings of notes

from strings or keys

or a sculptor pulling shape

gradually from stone,

chiselling away all that is not 

that shape,

I draw words from somewhere

behind thought, from

beyond the air:

thus, here.

Written for dVerse 17 Nov 2025: Q236 – Coaxing Is As it Does, a Quadrille (a poem of exactly 44 words excluding title, which in this case must include the word 'coax').

November Tanka: Birthday

water sign

(Tarot Queen of Cups) –

am I calm lake

vast moody ocean

or deep river?

13/11/25

three-day birthday

feasting with this kind friend 

and that, and those …

last night’s tea just a snack,

pyjama day today

14/11/25

‘eighty-six 

going on seventy-two,’

says my doctor

and, ‘I'm glad you’ve still got 

your brain. I see so many …’

14/11/25

gifts: flowers 

from her garden

food she grew

one  birthday candle

hours of easy talk

17/11/25

by the third day

I've already stopped

writing daily

in my new diary 

(birthday gift kindly meant)

*

now I inscribe

my journal's blank pages

with new tanka –

poetry is my way

to fill my days, my life

20/11/25

dark moon

in the month and sign

of my birth –

not surprising I’m loath

to tidy my house

21/11/25

November Tanka: Home and Family

(Decided it was time to play with this form again. But didn't think of it until November had well started.)

still wearing

my wedding ring

past his death –

the band thins, but

the gold remains bright

9/11/25

looking out

after sudden rain

what’s to find?

on the dying vine 

a single new bloom

10/11/25

I gift you –

brought by our Nana 

from India,

passed to Mum, then me –

these bracelets, Cousin

12/11/25

photo line-up: 

cousins, teens to babe –

decades on

oldest and youngest

become dear friends

12/11/25

morning porridge

childhood comfort food

thick and salty –

in old age I learn

to add cinnamon

13/11/25

Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United for Friday Writings #203: Why I Love /Hate ... The prompt asked us to write about three things we hate and tear them down, and/or three things we love and celebrate them. It's my own prompt, but I have been busy the last few days marking my 86th birthday. (I always seem to have extended birthdays, courtesy of kind friends who want to take me out and do nice things for me.) So I haven't written specifically to the prompt, but I had already decided to play with tanka this month, and these first few kinda fit. They are certainly about things/people I love. Perhaps it can be inferred that I also hate the attendant loss (of husband, dying vine, the past, my own childhood) ... the  ephemeral nature of all things.