Copyright © by Alexis Rotella. All rights reserved.

Wabi sabi cafe
my bagel
burnt

Copyright © by Alexis Rotella. All rights reserved.

Inauguration over
a walk
in the fog

Copyright © by Alexis Rotella. All rights reserved.

Mourning
it takes all day
to make the bed

Queenie [Digital painting]

Copyright © by Alexis Rotella. All rights reserved.

Copyright © by Alexis Rotella. All rights reserved.

the rumor arrives
in a red
corvette

Copyright © by Alexis Rotella. All rights reserved.

Our last dance
he tells me
he’s gay

—Artworks are reproduced here from the artist’s Facebook galleries with her permission. Dates of posting to FB: Inauguration over (21 Jan. 2017), Our last dance (10 May 2019), Queenie (21 Apr 2016 ), the rumor arrives (12 Jan. 2019), and Wabi sabi cafe (9 Dec. 2018).

 

Alexis Rotella

is the curator/editor of Unsealing Our Secrets, a MeToo anthology of short poems about sexual abuse which was awarded a Touchstone Distinguished Book Award. An award-winning poet and digital artist, she has been writing Japanese poetry forms in English since the late 1970s, and in July 2019, she will become the 19th haiku poet to be included in the American Haiku Archives. Her work has been published throughout the world, and she is the author of dozens of books. Her latest include Dancing the Tarantella (tanka and cherita) and Scratches on the Moon: Haibun, both of which are available on Amazon; and The Color Blue, which was released by Red Moon Press in 2017. Her out-of-print haiku and tanka books, as well as her newest works, can be read on Kindle.

Ms. Rotella’s passions include her acupuncture practice in Arnold, Maryland, and mobile photography. Her mobile art has been showcased in Porto, Portugal and Milan, Italy (2019) and continues to be featured in many on-line venues. Her digital art is for sale online at Alexis Rotella Designs.

Self-Portrait © 2018 By Alexis Rotella All rights reserved

Don’t try to figure me out everything I write is fiction all of it true —From Alexis Rotella’s Lip Prints: Tanka and Other Short Poems, 1979–2007 (Modern English Tanka Press, 2007); poem and self-portrait appear here with her permission.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Purple: A Parable by Alexis Rotella, with pictures by Diane Katz (Rosenberry Books, 2008)

⚡ Purple, the first poem Alexis ever wrote, and one which has been reprinted many times during the decades since