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  Richard von Sturmer         

Richard von Sturmer is a New Zealand writer and film maker. He has published three books: We Xerox Your Zebras (Modern House, 1988), A Network of Dissolving Threads (Auckland University Press, 1991), and Suchness: Zen Poetry and Prose (HeadworX, 2005). As well as being a lyricist for several New Zealand bands, including Blam Blam Blam, he and his partner, Amala Wrightson, toured the country in the 1980s as the performing duo, The Humanimals. From 1993 to 2003 he lived and worked at the Rochester Zen Center, a Buddhist community in upstate New York. His most recent film project is Tanka Films. Contact Richard.

  
raindrops
and the sound
of a shoe being unlaced
  
  
bitter tea - my teeth
leave indentations
in the polystyrene cup
  
  
to write as simply
as you pick
a single blade of grass
  
  
each day less light,
the smell of printer's ink
on the morning newspaper
  
  
first snow,
the eyes of the sparrows
sharp and bright
  
  
during the rainstorm
the child's colouring-in
becomes more intense
  
  
winter's end-
a folded poem
stops the window rattling
  
  
the storm passes,
sunlight
on the back of a sheep
  
  
red red hibiscus,
its stamen casts
a purple shadow
  
  
the old broom
sweeps away
bits of itself

 

Publication Notes:
bitter tea - my teeth: A Network of Dissolving Threads.
to write as simply: ibid.
each day less light,: Frogpond (US).
first snow,: Suchness: Zen Poetry and Prose.
during the rainstorm: Frogpond.
winter's end-: Suchness.
the old broom: Haiku Society of America 2002 international anthology.

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