a homeless man
on the steps of City Hall
hoping for change

Council Members walk past
the Mayor drops a quarter

Today’s Agenda:
Non-disclosure Agreements
Data Centers

fourteen-year-old girl
late to school, disheveled
the shelter was full

Digital Economy
We need the Jobs; the Money

wheelchair sign
IRAQ VET ANYTHING HELPS
BLESS YOU

Mark Brigham, 27 April 2026
#rengay #SoloRengay #LinkedVerse #haiku #poetry #SocialJustice

@extraspecialbitter

We pick shells and trash
from the beach, paths crisscrossed
like untrained vines

#rengay #LinkedVerse

@extraspecialbitter

Corrected version (“knight” in fifth link) #rengay #haiku #LinkedVerse #poem #poetry

The dark night arrives

@extraspecialbitter

selfies at the rock
where pilgrims landed
Champagne and goose bumps

#rengay #linkedVerse

@stevendbrewer @extraspecialbitter @asakiyume @NaraMoore

Agree. The live, in-person experience is an end member; an ideal.

I’m open to options: simple & crude & as people can respond on the Masto; & organized live video chat.

I may participate in either or both. A coalition of the willing.

I’ll dip my toes first, maybe host a virtual meeting later.

#LinkedVerse #renga #renku #RengaThis #hokku

Was familiar with linked verse in Japanese poetry, but not Chinese, so this also opened up a door there.

#LinkedVerse sessions during the time of #Basho were live and impromptu, something of a challenge between masters and pupils/disciples:

"Thus, the linked verse session was a performance of a sort, akin to acting or playing chamber music, except in this instance there was no script or notation to follow. All participants were actors and
audience at the same time and their dialogues ad libitum. And unlike other performing arts, the activities were recorded by a designated person who was versed in the rules and conventions and was qualified to judge."

(Terasaki, Etsuko. “Hatsushigure: A Linked Verse Series by Bashō and His Disciples.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 36 (1976): 204–39. https://doi.org/10.2307/2718744.)

#TodaysPoem is a #LinkedVerse Chinese piece from the Tang dynasty. Full poem in the photo.

"A Garland of Roses"

Like brocade flushed with sunset color,
Following the spring, they open at summer's touch.
(Liu Yu-hsi)
...

Pale or dark in hue, each has perfect shape;
The buds in secret urge each other to blossom.
(Liu Yu-hsi)
...

What to do? the flowers leave me no other plans;
I have only these last few cups of wine.
(Chang Chi)
--------

Chosen at random from the *Anthology of Chinese Literature: From Early Times to the Fourteenth Century*, Grove Press (1965). Random rarely steers me wrong, this was wonderful!

#Poetry

winter rose
the rivers in your knees
die

the scent of hyacinths
reminds you of lego swans

the worldly world
I leave
to the wind

in every dream recently
a hammer and a duck
.

#yotsumono (4 verse) #haiku #poetry #linkedverse