Imbalance is when
Your doctors claim your time more
Than your grandkids do.
[217]
Category Archives: Haiku
March of the Haiku
This spate of haikus comes from a prompt offered from the FaceBook page of friend and bard, Terry Wooten. That’s him in the photo performing at his unique venue, Stone Circle. He wrote:
Bi-polar April.
Peepers singing in snowflakes.
Change lawn mower oil.
(April 18, 2022)
I shared his poem on my FaceBook page with the following comment: “It is a nearly perfect example of the the American Haiku: 5-7-5, presents something funny and/or surprising, it contains nature and makes a comment on humanness. It goes above and beyond by banging two things together that don’t belong together (twice!!) for a little “contrapposto.” I took it as a challenge to write my own April poem. I thought I could take inspiration and match his genius. Not today! I’ll keep trying.”
The rest of the day I continued to put out haiku and some are better than others. I’m not certain any rose to Terry’s level above.
Oh no! I just drank
six gay beers and I liked it.
Please don’t tell my wife.
[68]
Heart doctor gave me
(prostate the size of a peach)
Mass diuretics.
[69]
What makes a haiku?
In America, mostly
Humor and surprise.
[70]
Ski masks make baseball
Look like bank robbing–
Another stolen base.
[71]
It’s hard to see things
If you don’t do anything.
Bad haiku! Bad ‘ku!
[72]
When the sun peeks through
on a snowy April day,
don’t believe the lie.
[73]
A Fox News headline
Is a lie that might happen
In Bizarroland.
[74]
Matter/energy
Cannot be made or destroyed.
Where’d the ice cream go?
[75]
Haiku for a global pandemic
I recently joined a FaceBook group called “Haiku for a global pandemic.” Once or twice a day I drop a haiku in that group. I’m going to keep a little collection of them here as well. I’m sure mostly they will be my own, but I’ll put up ones I like with author’s permission. This will be a growing collection through this period of isolation.
4/13/20
Cold Michigan wind
the morning after Easter,
trails strands of somber.
–Steve D. Marsh
4/10/20
My highest highlight:
The most yellow daffodils
Telling Death to wait.
–Steve D. Marsh
Haiku?
These come in from a cull of some old notebooks. I’m posting them here for an archive, if nothing else. Feel free to peek in this archive if you want. If, when you leave, you are still counting, I have failed.
I am unsure of the date for these three. Maybe March of 2017
Is alt-medicine
newspeak for Flint tap water?
Or do you smoke it?
My father enrolled
in watchmakers’ school. He lived
His perfect metaphor.
The rheumatism
has my left leg in its jaws,
Motherfucker!
On November 1, 2017
The old, fat man sees
his penis in a mirror.
“There you are, young Toad.”
On August 4, 2018
Refrigerator
On the fritz. Warm beer’s better
Than no beer at all.
On Ash Wednesday of 2016, I wrote:
No ashes for me.
Why the annual proof of faith?
Faith isn’t on skin.
I also wrote a note that I was glad I got to live in a country and a culture where I can write this idea. Today…eh.
A February 2017 offering a memory of a thing of beauty.
Thicker than bacon
Spanish cheese made of sheep milk
Medium oven.
It seems very odd to post the next two in May. They spoke of a much different experience than now.
At last, it is winter.
I have missed you like mania
Misses depression.
and
Today is too cold
For Valentine’s Day, my love.
My blood fails to heat.
And the marginal note said, “Deb’s 200 miles away anyway.”