Haiku—with its verbal and visual harmony, meaningful minimalism, and stifling syllabic budgetary constraint—is design poetry to me. I am inspired by nature as its infinite beauty weighs in one hand, its imminent destruction in the other. At times it’s hard to find humor in the balance but I hope to die laughing while I die trying.
spring
Subtle, shadowless
Watercolor light falls grey,
Lands in vibrant green.
April showers bring
Maybe after one more snow.
Wisconsin springtime.
More fake news from the
Celestial overlord.
Spring hopes eternal.
Storm clouds conspire to
Overthrow sun with treetop
Whispering campaign.
Rainy May Monday.
Golden daffodil suns warm
Bedraggled rabbits.
Dalmatian sidewalks,
Spots disappear as raindrops
Teach old dogs new tricks.
Pick dandelions.
Sunrise smile and sunset sleep.
Pick dandelions.
Beautiful evening,
Seedlings grow in dirt, mud of
Two-wheeled adventure.
Dirty fingernails.
Dinner has just been planted,
Wash hands at harvest.
Nightcrawler blasters
Hypospace across concrete.
The Earthworm Strikes Back.
Pelican wingtips
Silently ripple water.
Alewife assassins.
Dew droplets glisten,
Tiny street lamps shining on
The workaday ants.
Chopstick beaks, red bibs,
Worm-tongued robins slurp ramen
Noodles for breakfast.
Telltale fingerprints
Stained purple, indelible.
The mulberry snitch.
Beauty from chaos,
The bumblebee’s haphazard
Pollination path.
Flicker. Another.
Then comes the constellation.
Fireflies have arrived.
Lilacs, in passing,
Leave lingering lavender
Memories of sight, scent.
Cut umbilical,
Cordless lifelong connection.
Lines on Mother’s Day.
Magnolia bloom.
Spring’s valedictorian
Keeps speech short and sweet.
Languid second hand
Slowly sweeps school year’s last days
Under summer’s rug.
summer
Blazing arrows pierce
Subconscious darkness, eyelids.
Summer day sunrise.
Green grassroots army
Rises up against the man,
Blades pointed skyward.
Band-aids, plastic straws,
Cigarette butts, bottle caps.
Footprints on the beach.
Flip flop flip flop flip
Flop flip flop flip flop flip flop
Flip flop flip flop flip.
Toes dipped at lake’s edge,
A solitary heron
Is fishing, peerless.
Morning twitter feed,
Cardinals, chickadees check
For friendly retweets.
Goggles? Helmet? Check.
Dragonflies pilot tiny
Helicopter tours.
A skinny red fox
Slinks past soccer pitch sideline
And hungers for game.
The day shift fireflies
Recharge dead batteries for
The night shift light show.
Lightning, still distant
Though near enough to let loose
Thunder’s slow stampede.
The rhythmic rainfall
Practices paradiddles
On snare drum rooftops.
Brown sugar sand for
Imaginary cupcakes.
Beach day bakery.
Southeast winds break glass.
Not an emergency, just
A Great Lakes surf day.
A box turtle, slow,
If not streetwise becomes a
Cardboard box turtle.
White lines dash ahead,
Parallel yet convergent
Somewhere down the road.
Where bison once roamed
Now cell phones do not. Progress,
With consequences.
Three-fingered giants
Wave energetically from
The windswept hillsides.
Soldiers of the sun,
Golden eagles rise up on
Victory dance wings.
“Conquest,” touts RV,
Its occupants afraid to
Step outside themselves.
Prehistoric sea
Pitches tent on relentless
Invisible waves.
The small luxury
Of a hotel swimming pool
On a camping trip.
Milkweed leaves bow to
Shade royal repose of
Monarch butterflies.
Parade route houses
Vacant lots of blankets, chairs.
Small town squatter’s rights.
Tornado tears down,
Flattens midway, blows out of
Town and Country Days.
Grow grass then mow grass
Then grow grass then mow grass then
Grow grass then mow grass.
fall
The neighborhood cats
Pitter pat on padded paws,
Stalking the shadows.
Jeans, blue though barely,
Frayed cuffs, ventilated knees.
Not distressed. Earned. Loved.
Roadside opossum.
Dead? Playing dead? Playing? Dead.
Roadside opossum.
A refreshing breeze
Courtesy circling vultures.
Nature’s ceiling fans.
Ravenous, raucous
Reveille rips reverie.
A murder of crows.
Purifying light
Of mid-September’s sunrise
Blinds all dust bunnies.
winter
Water, poured over
Coffee grounds to morning cup
Of thoughts, pored over.
Paint peels, plaster cracks,
Floors creak, timbers sag under
History’s burden.
Monochromatic
Mosaic, weathered greyscale,
Forms from cracked blacktop.
Hibernating sun
Casts endless shadows across
Winter’s shortest days.
Cooper’s hawk, solo,
Rebel falcon flees fleet of
Starling destroyers.
Crystalline frost morn,
Lake Mills smells like a toilet.
Legendairy air.
Spring thaw uncovers
A neighborhood divided.
Winter of Nerf wars.