Haiku: Know Thy Inner Sanctum, Wretch

Thrice anguishing he 

Who laughs out loud at himself 

While crying within.

 

 

 

Of The Poets At Sixth Street And Pine

With all those subtle 

And not so 

 

Subtle nuances 

Of their meanings, 

 

Do they not signal 

Another kind 

 

Of sensibility toward things 

That really matter? Say 

 

Displaying a sixth sense 

Of knowing just where 

 

To turn at every junction, 

And signaling 

 

Their intentions years beforehand 

By bursting headfirst naked 

 

Into an unsuspecting other world

Lost in time.

 

After Wendell Berry

Do not shy away— 

Those little words that 

Come out of silences, 

Make them hear what 

You have to say. 

 

 

 

Haiku: Twisted Sense Of Humor

Artful you thought it 

Funny everybody was 

Not tied up in knots. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haiku: An Open Book

More moving than that

One we know you read without 

Turning the pages. 

 

 

 

 

Haiku: Sagging Derelict

Shuffling by that old 

Familiar façade, you see 

How much it still hurts.

 

 

 

 

Haiku: Perspicacious Runaway

When you know from which 

Direction the waywardly 

Wind’s going to blow. 

 

 

 

 

Haiku: Ninja Apologizing

Sorry if I hurt 

Your feelings, I didn’t know 

You were a brick wall. 

 

 

 

Diogenes The Dog

—for Elizabeth Boleman-Herring, 

who's always known the difference. 

 

Woo-hoo! 

Too many thought he was just 

A flea-bitten louse slumming 

 

In an earthenware jar; still fewer saw 

He was much more than that--a literate 

Chigger who bit only those who knew 

 

No better than to bite off more 

Than toothless curs could chew. 

 

 

 

Haiku: Possible Impasse

Imagination 

Wants us to be all-knowing— 

We want to know more.

 

 

 

Dissipation Is

By your bedside night after night, 

One candle after another burning 

 

Feverishly at both ends, 

With no end in sight. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Greek In/Fancy

of light 

windy hillocks 

swaddled 

 

in 

undulate swaths 

of bittersweet thyme. 

 

 

 

 

Light's Dark Hideaway

You can never really 

Get enough of it— 

 

Even in full daylight, some orphaned 

Part of you wants all the light 

 

That’s still out there hiding, 

Waiting for the right sign 

 

To take you in. 

 

 

 

 

 

Haiku: If The Shoe. . . .Blah Blah

—for Joseph Hutchison, kindred pitchman 

 

 

To find the challenge 

Gauche enough to find the right 

Syllables to fit.

 

Haiku: Ambivalent Turning Point(s)

Take one more step there— 

Not the same as one more step 

There to take, is it? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haiku: Climate Deniers

Jackdaws chatter on 

Tips of blighted cypresses, 

Biting acid tongues.