Tanka, 5-7-5-7-7 [or less] Options

[JustDaniel]

some information
is difficult to follow
as are some tankas
but who reads them anyhow
here in the Karnak basement?

[Larry]

In Karnak’s basement
is where poems go to die.
Perhaps the placement
could be a good alibi.
You won’t know unless you try!

[JustDaniel]

it's useless to try
when all you can do is cry
about emptiness
this old man's life is a mess
and brain's suppressed with duress

[Larry]

Duress is suppressed
with a simple silent prayer
when He is your guest
for He will always be there
with His help and love to spare.

[JustDaniel]

despairing of love
will never find a lover;
comparing your love
to that of your janitor
will make a clean sweep of it

[Larry]

Will makes a clean sweep
Won’t may leave an empty room
Greed is what you keep
Needs remain until the tomb
Desires are a waiting groom

[JustDaniel]

waiting groom's desire
grows as she walks down the aisle
unquenchable fire
good they're swimming to an isle
so the flames he won't defile

[Larry]

The file in the flames
has now turned a cherry red.
The blacksmith reclaims
a rusted tool that was dead
and makes one to fear and dread.

[JustDaniel]

fearfully red file;
blacksmith dunks it in water
to restore temper
his soft words had grated us
since he somehow lost his cool

[Larry]

Sense he lost is cruel
for he can no longer lead.
He was just a tool
of those who left us in need.
Will someone please intercede!


just Biden' my time.

[JustDaniel]

someone enters seed
into the newly-plowed soil
it's hard to believe
that sunflower seeds create
gigantic yellow blossoms

[Larry]

Gigantic Blossoms
of my two Queens of the Night…
large as Opossums;
an Epiphyllum delight
blooms ‘till dawn; that is their plight.

[JustDaniel]

bloomin' dawn's a plight
for the guy who drank all night
his head's been achin'
since the hour of his wakin'
and all grace is forsaken

[Larry]

Forsaking His grace
is not where you want to go.
You will lose your place
in the queue that we all know
and you’ll wind up down below.

[JustDaniel]

if you wind up down
where is it that you wind down?
haps up a pillow?
where do your keep your ticking?
inside your grandfather clock?

[Larry]

Your grandfather clock
is no longer keeping time.
There’s no tick or tock
since it committed the crime
of killing mice in a rhyme.

[JustDaniel]

mice attacked in rhyme
wasn't the grandfather clock
it's the farmer's wife
who picked up the carving knife
to cut off the blind things' tails

[Larry]

Cut off blind things tail?
They would still scurry and shock
farmer’s wives. They fail
to remember that old clock.
Hickory-Dickory-Dock!

[JustDaniel]

Dick Oridocker
always worked around the clock
until one dark night;
attacked by tailless blind mice
he slept with the farmer's wife

[Larry]

Slept with former wife
but it was not for pleasure.
She caused too much strife.
I just wanted to measure
how she’d wasted love’s treasure.