painting by Ichiro Tsuruta 鶴田-郎, 1954
Her face a white mask,
stone jewels her guardians;
carnellian lips her invitation;
a portal each escapes into —
doom’s dissonant stay.
The form is Gogyohka. The poem is directly inspired by Kerfe’s artwork and poetry based on ventriloquist dummies and by our dialogue in the comments for it.
Colleen M. Chesebro is the host of Tanka Tuesday. Colleen says:
This week, choose your own syllabic form and a color to feature in your syllabic poem. Think about the different ways you can use color in a poem.
Tao Talk 
A profound poem Li.
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Thank you, Sadje! I loved Kerfe’s post and the conversation we are having on it.
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You’re welcome. 👍🏼
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very nice and now I know what carnellian is, after a google search…
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Thank you, Randy. For females we know it by lipstick and nail polish shades, but it’s also a type of stone, as you discovered, I’m sure.
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Perfect, especially that last line!
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Punam, THANK YOU. Much appreciated.
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My pleasure. ❤️
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I love the Geisha Girl image, Lisa. She is exquisite! Where did you and Kerfe have this discussion? LOL! I love how that happens and we can create something meaningful from the conversation. 💜
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Thank you, Colleen. Click on Kerfe’s name in the afterword and it will take you to her art, poem, and our discussion in the comments. Kerfe is my Oracle ❤
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I found it… OMG! I was on my way back to dVerse… What a stunning post, art, poetry and discussion. 💜
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🙂 ❤
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A perfect piece and I love the visual too ❤
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Thank you 🙂
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Reblogged this on Frank J. Tassone and commented:
#Haiku Happenings #4: Jade Li’s latest #gogyohka for Colleen Chesebro’s weekly #Tanka #Poetry challenge!
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Thanks for reblogging, Frank 🙂
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Beautiful beautiful Art…both 🙂
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Thanks much, Sangeetha 🙂
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love, love loved. Great post. Thanks.
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Selma, thanks much ❤
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Spooky synchronicity–I’ve been drawing Japanese puppet faces for awhile, some of which are very like this one. At some point I’ll find a poetic prompt to post some of them. Noh masks are also good sources of inspiration. I drew some at some point, although I have no idea where they are now. What a haunting painting this is. White mask is exactly right. (K)
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Wow, very cool to learn. Just did a google on noh masks, and I can see why they would be. If you follow the link to the image there is quite a gallery there by this artist. Thanks for reading and your comment, Kerfe.
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I’ll take a look, thanks.
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Beautiful image, and lovely poem.
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Thank you very much, Elizabeth.
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sumptuous poetry.
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Thank you, Jude ❤
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My pleasure.
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