Here are the haiku I composed October 2009-July 2010. Most of these are written while waiting for transit, riding transit, or walking somewhere, but a lot were written incidentally I suppose. In case you were wondering. Either way, watch me go from Seattle Autumn to visiting Chicago in Winter to moving to Chicago in Spring to living in Chicago through Summer!
50
Clear and crisp and cold.
Red and yellow and orange.
The living city.
Glowing from afar,
wispy ribbons reaching out.
I want to go there.
We may be motley,
this crew, but we share something:
we are soaking wet.
Turn around, alone.
Where did everybody go?
Out of sight, not mind.
Sidewalk under trees:
a wet, shadowy tunnel
extending forward.
55
I am surrounded,
muffled by an extended
nightfall, still falling.
Robbed of all sunlight
while the equinox remains
miles and miles away.
Dead jack-o'-lanterns
on doorstep after doorstep.
It is November.
I'll use just three lines
and seventeen syllables
to describe this crush.
Greetings, blue sky patch
and sidewalk weeds, pushing through.
I'll wait here with you.
60
Shivering, then still,
I'm shaking off solitude,
wobbling at your side.
On the ground, I find
a page torn from the Bible:
"Hills melted like wax."
When the autumn air
forces tears out of my face,
I am not crying.
Felafel sandwich;
if consumed too quickly, can
make you feel awful.
Denim Sabbath vest
and a fu-manchu moustache,
yet I'm his elder.
65
So overheated
from running after the bus.
But I feel alive!
Day to day, I choose
delayed gratification
and plan tomorrow.
Ordinary jaunt.
See Christmas decorations.
Suddenly angry.
I will never tire
of migrating flocks of birds
drifting through autumn.
No peace in these thoughts,
save for when I look forward
to the happy end.
70
Dental school client
patiently waits for treatment,
holes slowly growing.
Ocean in the sky,
flooding and filling the void.
Life, underwater.
At the Crisis Line,
you need to know these three words:
I understand you.
Wear brighter clothing,
the bus driver offers me.
But, I'm a ninja.
This perfect pop song -
hopeful, melancholy, true.
And so: Here We Go.
75
Another driver
who doesn't like my dark clothes.
I'll wave my arms, jerk.
Can I call you out?
Can I be vulnerable?
Can I be wrong? Yes.
Afternoon, midnight
sky, endless night, and small days
that shrink to nothing.
No two Decembers
are the same, year after year,
except for chaos.
Two movies today,
Christmas, alone in a crowd,
looking for a ghost.
80
Roads look wide as the
cities contract on Christmas,
and I dream the day.
Riding the bus with
Muslims and Jews on Christmas.
Not miraculous.
Mild winter sunset,
delicate and faint in the
corner of the sky.
I love the city,
physically, hills and curves,
but not the bodies.
Dusk: snow laden ground,
burnt horizon. Glowing lit
rows, adrift in white.
85
Trains are for living,
and cars are for dying slow
or fast, but not life.
The land squiggles, moves.
Human roads forming a grid.
Life below, a map.
The Earth, a white face.
The sunset a rosy glow
on its chilly cheeks.
Between the layers
of clouds and air, snowy ground
disappears; a cloud.
Tall buildings and tall
people. Tall boots, and women
just the perfect size.
90
Dirty old city,
each exposed edge like tree rings,
revealing your age.
Giants made his place
tall and wide and then vanished.
We feed on their graves.
Sherbet orange sky.
Black tree fingers and backlit
homes silhouetted.
I want a big spoon
to eat a scoop of the sky,
cold and delicious.
Blissful weariness
graces all of these faces
flying through the air.
95
This city covered
in salt and hot dogs stays strong.
Living yet dying.
Standing wall to wall,
shoulder to shoulder, hands, feet,
close, never touching.
I have only been
in Chicago long enough
to not get lost yet.
Every neighborhood
is factories and houses.
Years of grinding life.
Wigs. Hair Pieces. Hats.
Bags. Jewelry. General
merchandise. Shop here?
100
Cluster of vices
chained together by roads.
Here is your city.
One gets the feeling
every story has been told.
This yawning city.
Sunset oozing blood
into the alley, sunken.
I am the witness.
For eleven years
I have been looking at you.
Still you don't see me.
No competition
for Starbucks in Chicago;
they are everywhere.
105
Pure empty blue dome,
a man-made mountain skyline.
We clamber upward.
The only mountains
are on the sides of buses:
"Come to Montana!"
Trains clatter and swirl
in upon old iron veins,
rumble in my heart.
Finkl Steel, steadfast,
towering above. Below,
so many shadows.
Seattle summer,
in Chicago, in April.
I fear for August!
110
Months of dust and trash
flood the air, finally free.
Or is this year round?
Strangers drinking beer
on the sidewalk as I pass.
We smile, wave hello.
At certain moments
the Blue Line cries so loudly
you can't hear yourself.
Yes, there are rats here.
Unafraid and scurrying
through daylight, and dark.
I will plant a flag
here among these people and
celebrate my life.
115
Yes, I did get on
the bus going the wrong way.
Learning is so fun!
I made this haiku
for you, Katrina, because
it might make you smile.
I wrote this haiku
for you; it is your birthday.
I hope it's happy!
Grown men play soccer
in the parking lot of a
carniceria.
Using graffiti,
she practices her reading
on the North Ave bus.
120
You were right about
the humidity. You were
wrong about the heat.
Here in Chicago,
a crosswalk is for when the
cars are gone; no more.
As she departs: "We
need to get a fuckin car!"
Me, I'm not so sure.
Playboy offices,
where women are on the walls
and behind the desks.
A crying baby
might stop if you smile at them.
"Who are you, stranger?"
125
I ran after you,
bus driver, stop after stop.
I learned my lesson.
The past never leaves;
it travels with you, stubborn,
yet reassuring.
Happy birthday, Mom.
I wish I could call you and
read you this haiku.
So ordinary,
and I have not changed, but still
I don't feel the same.
Another birthday
where it seems like no one cares
anymore. Ah, life.
130
I guess it's only
thirty-six; I killed my friends
and now I'm alone.
Things to do today:
achieve my dreams, be grateful,
know what's good for me.
Another dead bird.
An avian suicide?
The third in a month.
Joggers cutting through
the warm rain in Chicago;
a blessing disguised.
Backwards baseball cap
snaps his fingers, halts traffic
for a cab. Douchebag.
135
No helmet laws here.
Seeking death, not paralysis.
Don't show me your brains.
City needs a bath!
With so many dirty holes,
all streets smell like ass.
After all these years,
going alone to a show
is still so stressful.
Angry bus driver
can kiss my ass; he's late and
wants ME to hurry.
Sleepy heavy head
with freshly forgotten dreams
in see-through spaces.
