Tag Archives: daily poetry

Haiku, Nov ‘23 (first half)

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11/1
Out with the mouth guard.
In with the flipper. If you
don’t know, you’re lucky.

11/2
Silver-haired driver.
“Now see here, Dumbledore!” Ha!
Not Robert Burns then.

Another one:

Catalpa leaves float
and sway on their way from sky
perch to rusty ground.

Birmingham

11/3
Today’s tough topics:
reparations, guilt, fear, shame.
And don’t forget: love.

11/4
A doom loop. App shows
one booking, then the other.
Never together.

11/5
There are those who love
the time change, even stay up
to watch it happen.

11/6
His name was Moses
and he called me ma’am.
Not in Boston now!

11/7
The actual bus
where Rosa Parks sat, displayed
in Montgomery.

11/8
For walking past a
house where a white woman bathed
they strung him up. Dead.

11/9
Storefronts boarded up
with plywood. Abandoned gas
stations. Weeds. Selma.

11/11

If the Black Bayou
could talk, what would it say? “Oh
sleep, sweet Emmett, sleep.”

Tallahatchie River

Cotton gin fan like the one the killers tied around Emmett Till’s neck. It weighs 70 pounds. They never expected his body to be found.

Miss Jesse Jane Demings

Refurbished Sumner courtroom where killers were acquitted in 67 minutes

Haiku October ‘23

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10/1
Asters five feet tall
hosting a cohort of bees.
Beauty with purpose.

10/2
How can I think when
jackhammers and lawn machines
pound and roar and pound.

10/3
Squinting. Morning glare.
Does she hold lanyard or leash?
To Finn it matters.

10/4
Called a bearcat though
Bronx Zoo Kevin is neither.
Real name: Binturong.

10/5
Innocent bird flamed
by crisis. Antique fire truck
won’t help. Where we are.

10/6
A winding road through
Lincoln where trees are turning
and heartache resides.

10/7
“Oh look! There she is!”
Museum-goer when Madame
X came into view.

10/8
Another Sunday.
We walk around Crystal Lake
in reverse. Wild times!

10/9
Sukkot branches flung
off the frame. Grief not joy
in every toss.

10/10
Acorns tear through leaves
succumbing to gravity.
Violence of fall.

10/11
Clean the colander,
feel like crying. Walk the dog,
bathe, feel like crying.

10/12
Another treasure.
“Is it the snake or just skin?”
Crushed head in my palm.

10/13
“Oh no! It’s splodging!”
“Oh soddin’ hell! It’s so bad.”
Devonshire splits test.

10/14
Soft air, blue sky; we’ll
take the T to Copley Square.
A good day for books.

10/15
Instead of two hands,
six. Vote yes on issue one!
Ohio postcards.

10/16
Two Barbaras from
Cleveland writing postcards to
Ohio with me.

10/17
Unrelenting grief
and terror, bombast, so
I watch The Closer.

10/18
Dentist’s office with
dead branch outside and clutter
on the windowsill.

10/19
Pong! Pong! Black walnuts
being run over. Thud! Thud!
Thud! Hitting the ground.

10/20
SOS. What does
it mean in a centuries
old conflagration?

10/21
Cinnamon rot, the
smell of fall. Bronzing clethra
and plump hawk, the sights.

Another:
I fell in love with
a dog today. What day don’t
I? Fluffy, white, sweet.

10/22
Abigail Adams?
Of course not, dope! She’s Elsa.
Brother, caped and masked.

10/23
Stringy poop. Kleenex?
Oh no — a worm? He pulls, pulls:
embroidery floss.

10/24
We smell caramelized
sugar down near the T tracks.
Donuts? Apple cake?

10/25
Every morning I
fling treats around the backyard.
“Find it!” And he does.

10/26
He was renting shoes
when the shooting began. He
ran, hid behind pins.

10/27
Stunted oak, scrub pines
Slow traffic on Route 6 East.
Sunset on the bay.

10/28
Winking light diamonds
and the wooshing surf say, Rest,
little darling. Rest.

10/29
Pewter sky, flat sea
gun metal grey. Beauty does
not require sun.

10/30
Stitching a bird now.
The flannel house is tacked down.
Watch me make a moon.

10/31
October sun glares.
Yellow leaves glow. But winter
chill laces the air.

September ‘23 Haiku

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9/1
Scraps woven and sewn
into a sweet blue turtle.
Now she needs a home.

9/2
The sandy gravel
littering the shade garden:
downpour evidence.

9/3
Why penny whistles
for the guy who can whistle
lilts, Brahms, Bach, The Who?

9/4
After clams, a walk
to the Old Burial Ground.
They lived in slave times.

Eunice, Tyler, John,
Samuel, Martha, Lucy.
Lichen on granite.

Street off the Grand Allée, Quebec City

9/5
Recycling: a scam
to make boomers feel better
about consumption.

9/6
On a dare, a boy
eats super hot nachos. Dies.
Please make it make sense.

9/7
The year’s hottest day.
Five thousand steps before ten.
Where are all the birds?

9/8
Season of the stoop.
Power saws. Demolition.
Pencils behind ears.

9/10
Trees held in the glass
tabletop turn eating eggs
into religion.

9/10
Two bins of cloth strips.
Three inch, two. Pink, black, grey, blue.
Archeology.

9/12
Glass lined room, fish tank
like in the wet gloom. A hawk
flashes past. Ah, air!

9/13
There is a quiet
in the neighborhood. Not at
all like September.

9/14
I slept like a lamb
and woke to a day free of
rain. Hallelujah!

9/15
Bracing for the storm
means closing the umbrellas.
A few cacti in.

9/16
Grassy paths, stone steps.
Pink hydrangeas and asters.
Granite for the dead.

9/17
Dappled legs, four. Heads
tilted close, two. Friends walking
through shade on Cypress.

9/18
How it rains, rains, rains,
and rains, as if Seattle.
But it’s not. We’re east.

9/19
The hydrangeas bloom
in pretty exuberance.
Softening tarmac.

9/20
I made corn fritters,
Claire brought cookies, Pat stories.
Kathleen looked well. Yeah!

9/21
A memorial
made of sheets pegged to a line.
Wind testimony.

9/24
Blustery breeze off
the St. Lawrence. A chilly
Québécois farewell.

9/25
Scarlet berries dot
the female holly bushes
and I’ve made curry.

9/28
Crickets sing sad songs
of nostalgia. Childhood in
a chorus of chirps.

9/29
Like so many days
I wake to trucks’ shrill beeping.
Tree work racket now.

June 23 in Haiku

11 Replies

Only in LA?
Strappy silver platform shoes
as garden decor.

After fourteen days
of leaden skies, cloud cover,
gloom, the sun comes out.

6/3
The mushroom ragout’s
secret ingredient is
wedge of Toblerone.

6/4
The smallest bird swoops
in an arc, back and forth, then
rises, rises. Gone.

She begs with brown eyes,
an occasional paw swipe.
Sweet and persistent.

In the wee hours,
Lila hops up and joins me.
An honor I’m told.

6/9
Once nut hulls rained down
on my head. Another time
raven swooped so close.

(Billy: you better believe they do it on purpose).

6/10
A pleine air painter,
boyfriend posed in the shrubs. “May
I?” He nods. “Fauvist!”

6/11
Four Travel Haiku

The worst gate ever.
Ten seats. Four speakers. What? What?
Six minutes to board.

A nun. A family
wearing crocs. Yoga pants and
bare midriffs galore.

Curly hair. A snot
rag wadded up. Goopy snorts.
Please, God, not near me.

Seeing the tall thin
Black man exit first class when
I’d thought him homeless.

6/12
Grapefruit, orange, dill,
ginger, salmon, and snap peas.
A nice departure.

6/13
Scrap of Dan’s pj’s
Square of Mom’s wool challis scarf
Strip of indigo

6/14
The clematis vine
twines upward on the lattice.
One perfect flower.

6/15
I wished my zoom friends
could hear the growling thunder,
See the trees backlit.

6/16
Two hens, one tom, live.
The flicker dead in the road.
Men tamping asphalt.

6/17
I get mullion, toile,
and priapi, but bundt? Do
they never eat cake?

6/19 (two)
Sunday was a blur
I really like it like that.
No apology.

I knew the Haitian
boy, so newly here, would love
the plastic monkey!

6/20
The balloon arches
grace the front doors of the school.
The last day is near.

6/21
I wrote for hours
almost all of it about
one of my front teeth.

6/22
They run out of air
today. One wife’s forebears are
waiting in the wreck.

6/23
Launching off the bed
to bark at the front window.
Who is it this time?

6/24
The boys raise their hands
at the same time. “Revolt!”
they holler, and smile.

(This came to me as I woke before I’d heard the news about Prighozin).

6/25
I am happy. I
am victorious. I’m loved.
Why not say these things?

6/26
A stately linden
shades the cop at the detour
while he does nothing.

6/27
Finn walked in a heel.
A heel! To get under my
umbrella. Went back.

6/28
Along the wood pile,
I scoop catalpa blossoms.
Yellow jacket stings.

6/29
Everyone who came
later has emerged and left.
What is going on?

6/30
White supremacy.
Partisan hacks, too good a
term. Going backward.

A dog walk in pics and haiku

11 Replies

Roses in the street / still in their cellophane. A /tale of rejection?

June one delivered / a rainbow heart sticker. Three / days later: gone. Ouch!

Yesterday a fire. / Now at Moon Canyon, a / crew cuts dry grasses.

White sneaks, linen pants, / a summery white jacket. / Who even am I?

Wearing dreads and scrubs / he rolls the bins to the curb. / Not likely his trash.

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