Haiku During Crisis

An Ongoing Series, Basically in Chronological Order

© 2020 Kurt Wildermuth

For

Marian Johnson
And the Zen Motorcycle
Of Norton Haiku

And Susan, always
My best friend, closest reader,
Coworker at home

In memory of John Prine

____________________

Hearing rhythms, you
Feel bass lines, feel drum beats, feel—
Hands clap! clap! for you

Godot to go, go—
Why wait? But they do not move
They, too, serve in place

This haiku is new:
A small spider, you, perched high
On five-seven-five

Below the surface
Premonitory surges—
Rice, beans, cheese emerge

I, Whit Waltman, born
On the forthright of New York
Tend to the wounded

Darkness—silence—drear!
Dread—fear—coasting on bat’s wings—
Something with feathers

In a Turtle Bay
Townhouse Sondheim lives stately
So cerebrately

Bob Dylan rambles,
Scrambles—thief of thoughts—
Sneaks, stuck, inside blues

Katharine Hepburn
Rescues dogs, repots plants, sighs,
Picks up lost pennies

Tonight is the night
But for what does it ask not
When why ’tis of thee

Spring is cumin in!
Ground’s dark, damp from yesterday
When greens dripped and drooped

I had this weird dream
Of haiku after haiku—
Clouds without a sky

Peat moss in the parks
Of a virus-hit city—
Sign of tomorrow!

The Omega Man
Meets I Am Legend on a
Cruise ship to the sea

A lone seagull soars
Over opaque crosscurrents
And swoops in somewhere

In the Vondelpark
Near the Van Gogh Museum
Rain doesn't touch you

Pigeon perusing
Patina’d stone boar and frog
And snake and no wings!

East River sparkling—
Child and bicycle are one—
They don't watch the news

Elixir! fixer
Rocketer roller mixer
Upper cupper joe

This is just to say
Those haiku you left for me
Left me wanting more

Saint Iron escapes fire,
Gathers rust, peeling paint,
Bird poop, dirt—a life

Does evil exist?
No, we did away with it—
Your little dog too

Terrible timing
Of a helpful distraction—
Frog prince crowned star fish

Water babies climb
Ladders if they have to go
Somewhere flippers can’t

Lou said to Laurie
I don’t want to be erased
Stopping New York time

All visitors must
Check in at security—
Say chicken sent you

Two only children
Prepare their past lives for life—
Rocks make a garden

Haiku in a time
Of distance between breaths—
Can't hold each other

Dystopia now
Delivered to your doorstop
By sci-fi hive mind

Day without haiku
Not today, obviously
No pleasure, deferred

Flowerless orchid
Sprouting tiny center leaf—
Clock on its own time

I saw the best minds
Working in the worst of times—
Synapses afire

Remember that day
When that special thing happened
And you ran upstairs

Remember that day
When you saw something moving
Maybe it saw you

Remember that day
When you played your instrument
And listened to it

David Byrne saw it
On Talking Heads' Fear of Music:
Urban worry funk

A thousand and one
Stories told at the same time
Using a strange tongue

First line, anything
Second line, a direction
Elusive third line

People walking streets
They have never seen before
Their feet way-finding

Remember the day
Your mom or dad or someone
Taught you how to be

A red cardinal
Sings the Beatles' song "Blackbird"
But does not like it

We need poetry
Said the smiling publisher
Tell all the children

It's time for your bed
Time for washing all your stuff—
Keep bears' needs in mind

While we are asleep
Plants plan their daring escape—
The pots stay neutral

Who knows where it goes—
The time, the tide, the tie that
Binds the twain shall meet

Our rattling Buick
And the AM radio hits—
Did Dad ever speak?

For the longest time
My mother evaded me—
What did she look like?

This world is nuts and
You can quote me on that in
The other nuts world

Subsonic warbles
Say I love you in private
Animal language

I have loved many
Things, including some people
But mainly music

Goodbye to all that
Which won't last the sorting out
After the virus

Goodbye to even
The things that will continue
But in altered form

Channeling Gandhi
She asks herself one question:
How can I resist?

It's a question of
How much can be accomplished
And how much that's worth

Epic in haiku:
Riding the syllabic wave
Until something breaks

The end is nearing
You'll know it when you see it
Damn, you just missed it

Tired of blue sky
They moved to the Land of Smog
And sold oxygen

Bryant Park webcam—
Normally a silly thing—
Where motion means life

Ducks in formation
Their feet fighting strong currents—
Momentum mori

Go ahead take a
Picture, make a video
Of my mask and me

Man standing outside
Other men standing inside
Do they not like him?

You don't like my mask
I can tell by how your eyes
Try to meet my glaze

Bicycle planter
How proudly you bear your weeds—
Flat tires? Who cares!

Leonard Cohen's ghost
Sits smoking a cigarette
Made of his last puffs

Say your slideshow ends
Because the quarantine does—
Make it your mantra

Emergency! Tape!
Plastic flapping poetry
Waiting to happen

Jesus Fucking Christ:
Cancer-disfigured singer
Dies by corona

Illuminations
By Arthur Rimbaud was just
A liberal hoax

Whatever happened
To that "Meet the Author" guy?
Did he meet someone?

Shivering snowman
Arrives in New York in spring
Boy does he have balls

American flag
Displayed like a show of hands—
Her T-shirt, your wall

While you follow one
First line that's going somewhere
Another one occurs

Say you reach the point
Of never leaving a place
But the place leaves you

Assemble a mask—
Dust cloth, duct tape, pine cone, leaf—
That covers the world

Arms outstretched in
A hug waiting to happen
Yoga position

The Crystal Palace
Stood where Bryant Park lies flat—
Go there, do something

Please use main entrance
You'll know it when you see it
Can't miss it, really

Rivers run to you
See if you can catch their flow
Or if it bathes you

Crunchy and Stinky
Find themselves on Gym Clothes Hill
Realize they're socks

Careful what you wish
For wishes really do come
Creeping in the night

New Year's confetti—
You've gotta be kidding me—
Falling in April

Classic martini
Proof a god loves us
Dryly with a twist

This ain't no sonnet
Feel its bloody heart beating
Down the door of love

Haiku by numbers:
You can count the syllables
And recount but be off

Birds are peering down
From ledges just like humans
Who wish they were birds

They took that away
Then they took that other thing
They know what you like

We're gonna rise up
Like crypts in New Orleans
Disgorge our contents

Forgive them for they
Know now not what their country
Is capable of

Forgive them for they
Know not what a loaded gun
A life turns into

When you write your last
Haiku during the crisis
Make it one long breath

I could sit staring
At this unblinking unthinking screen
Or see what's inside

Prepare your next mask
Like you're writing a haiku
That could be your best

Zen Buddhist temple
Had to cancel services
As nonessential

Zen Buddhist priests are
Delivering nirvana
For the art lover

Life is what happens
While you wait for further word
(This is you on hold)

I take walks daily
While thinking about haiku
Not only haiku

Can the virus last
On the surface of a coin
Face down in the street

When you're reaching out
To feel nothing reaching back
You are free from them

Thumbs up or thumbs down
They say the Romans did that—
Took fate in their hands

You live only once
Unless another lifetime
Hits you on the road

Get on the good foot
Your other foot jumps too much
For you to hop on

Open a business:
Machine to count syllables
For mobile haiku

Just cherry blossoms
Don't add up to a haiku
You need your fingers

Luckily for him
It hurts to put Donald Trump
Into poetry

I hate to tell you
Your dog's my kindred spirit—
Its collar, my soul

An only childhood
Prepared me for staying safe
By keeping distant

Where once was fresh earth
There now is newly laid lawn—
Which do you prefer?

Invasion of the
Body snatchers but bodies
Spreading the gospel

Spreading the gospel
Of not spreading the virus
Not resurrecting

Erika died of
AIDS, which she got from a guy
When the plague was "gay"

When my parents died
Four months apart and apart
From home, I moved on

Become the cliché
Your parents warned you about:
A haiku writer!

Life-sustaining life
Like the heaviest metal
By the hardest heart

I went out without
A pen and found—a surprise—
No prompts for haiku

It will hunt you down
That thing you've always wanted
And yet were part of

I love how some signs
Say the current pandemic—
Not the past or next?

Haiku mania
Is coming soon to your town
It's going viral

Waking from a nap
To realize it's bedtime
For someone somewhere

I, Haiku Doofus,
Use up pens and paper scraps—
Clown bouncing balloons

Put it on a leash
I don't want that thing near me
Whatever it is

Prepping vegetables
Is like writing a haiku:
Life sliced into bites

Suppose one minute
You're freezing in rainy wind
The next you're too warm

Let your conscience be
Your guide rope up the incline
You're inclined to try

Each day a journey
Through an unfamiliar woods—
Worm's search for a bird

Each day a journey—
No, not the rock band, you dork—
Steps until you stop

Nothing but gray skies
But how many grays there are!
Pick your favorite

Chalk mark in rainstorm:
Joni Mitchell's metaphor
For whatever is

Aim for the island
In piloting your small craft
But know you will miss

Self-reflexively
You write about your writing
Self-reflexively

In the end I bought
A used LP from the guy
Who used to be there

Private no entry
Please keep off the grass
Beware of haiku!

Someone distributes
Nutrients like breadcrumbs
Do you dare take one?

People dropping masks
The way they used to drop bags—
The spirit is weak

End of enchantment:
When the spell breaks down crying
When it doesn't work

Damn that microwave
Abandoned on the sidewalk—
Useless state of grace

Crumbs from your crackers
How you know I'll notice them
How we discuss this

Do this for a while
Then find yourself something else
Because you did this

Your verse voice could be
Stuff of wagon trains:
Not a word wasted

Haiku fever brands
Dark three-line mark inside your
Light versifier

In Saramago's
Blindness, people shit everywhere
Because they can't see;
Shit happens until
The affliction goes away
Mysteriously

Cute couple passes
Potato on the sidewalk—
Simple food for thought

Dipsy and Doodle
Decide pizza will suffice
On their hungry day

David Bowie shields
His profile from passersby
With one thin white hand

Hits me in the head
Where the brain is said to live:
Be a Receiver?
Jester in Shakespeare?
Wizened Outcast on Ice Floe?
The Old Switcheroo?

How to sanitize
Everything material:
From the spirit out

In summer we swim
In that shallow concrete hole
In over our heads

Fiona Apple
Walked up and down, up and down
A hill while waiting

Wait for the signal
Driver don't proceed
Speed honk curse spit rage

Is it listening
Noting predicting hoping
Falling or crushing

Sweet dreams going mad
Sourdough bread breaking bad
Witch turning good—sad!

His huge platform boots,
Leopard-skin pants, and top hat
Show glam still lives here

How small an item
Can you find poetry in?
Smaller than that one

Small ball of pink thread
Clinging at the waterside:
You make my heart sing

Granny on bongos
Performing all greatest hits
Beating her heart out

"Give Trump the finger."
"I will not do that." Straight-faced.
Give it to yourself.

Santa Clause rises
To defend Easter Bunny
Against charge of theft

Man gets well, returns,
Receives ice cream cone, says, "So
Many calories!"

You must be so dumb
You're riding a mountain bike
Down stairs in New York
Who will pick you up
If you fall and crack your head
Someone who shouldn't

Hit a rubber ball
Against an office building:
Ingenuity!

Don't start playing this
Childish, life-consuming game:
Counting syllables

Big Microbrother
Sees you as a head full of
Thought experiments

Tacos are dollars
And arepas count as coins
At the fun food bank

You'll get back, get back
Into the swing of the thing
Just avoid the noose

John Cage sought silence
In an isolation tank
But heard his heart beat

Atlas loses grip
Putting new spin on old globe
Become gutter ball

Neglected flowers
Abandon garden beds to
Visit hospitals

Gold-plated cacti
Fence deserts where skeletons
Lie in sand mansions

Reach the breaking point
Where your chest pushes forward
Till your feet lift off

Early bird special
Pokes out of his earthwork―oops!
He don't feel so good

King Crab the Sideways
Summons Good Sir Pens Hornbill
For status report.
"All's quiet, sire.
Holding down the fortress, still
Closed to the public."
"Carry on, Hillborn,
Good man." "Good Sir." "What was that?
You're fired." On pyre.

Lung cancer won't quit
Seeing itself as God's head
Essential worker

Waste transmits disease
If you find yourself diseased
Don't waste what you have

Radio City
Beckons from Forbidden Zone:
Ghosts doing high kicks

Couscous and Quinoa
Costar on cooking show where
Talk gets granular

You can be yourself
You can be beside yourself
You can't find your self

Where the hell were we
On some rocky cliff in fog
Or lost in ourselves

Scraping out your brain
Like gold mining, blood taking,
Junkie-sick seeking a vein

Your upstairs neighbor's
Fist-feet pounding the floor
Become metaphors

Something makes you feel
Something like uncomfortable
Must be worth doing

You could keep writing
Keepers all night, morning now
Where did haiku go

Am I in the lead?
Have I become my own league?
Will I be legion?

Oh my God I think
I might be doing God's work
So what's God doing

Keep going faster
Like around a rounded bend
Pretended corner

Friend without a friend
Who needs you to be closer
Is comfortable

You got what you thought
You thought it was at the time
You thought it got you

In Beckett's Endgame
Clov follows blind Hamm's orders
Because nothing's left?

Metaphysical
Speculation will get you
Into deep trouble

Enough for one night
Don't you think you've done enough
Don't you think you're done

Help I have become
The Fifth Beatle of haiku
The faux guru dude

You are not alone
You are home inside your head
Like Dad in hospice

Dog bites traffic cone—
Some dogs settle for small toys—
Proud jaws gripping thing

Empire State Building
Dear old friend, hyperdermic
Flashing red alert

Best days of my life
How sick is it to say that
Judge me judge me not
Mad man that I am
Having passed tests in past tense
Times not judged the best
Yet not sick or sad
I savor the times that test
What I am best at

The stress whale exhales
A steady stream out its hole
Not a soul or sign

Sondheim lives a block
Down my block―or I'm down his―
As I pass the place
I see him writing
Corona: The Musical
But burying it

United Nations:
Modernist tombstone to the
International?

Electric guitar
Comes out of its case to play
For healthcare workers
Harmonica too
Emerges for the first time
In years just for them
Kitchen utensils
And pots and pans and hands join
In giving it up

It has been so long
Since I have been close enough
To anyone else

Your cute little dog
Is so sparklingly whiter
You must have bleached it

No one may read these
Scrambled syllables scribbled
Then sent in secret

Do not block crosswalk
And do not walk across block
Go where you do dare
Do go where you dare
You do dare go where
Where you do dare go
Where do you dare go
Dare where you do go
Where do you dare go

Colonoscopy
Not the procedure but the
Anesthesia

This is how I work
When I have real work to do:
Matter mind over

Some kind of monster
Appears as nonentity
And that's no disguise

Overeating home
Workers have reason to fear
Their rear-end reviews

Avoid crazy man
Taking dictation from air
He might hear the cure

Park chairs have seated
Themselves at safe distances
For people's return

This one goes out to
This one goes out too far out
This one goes out two
This one goes out two
This one goes out there therefore
This one goes out here

Spiritual twins
Separate then reunite
Then split the difference

Ezra Pound's Cantos
Don't step on my blue suede shoes
But draw on haiku
Like this double one
I wrote for you to have fun
Like Ezra's Metro

Abolitionist
Frederick Douglass freed his brain
From their tyranny

What does the muse do
When it muses in your view
Does it amuse you

People fear dying
Needlessly because you can
Take comfort in that

For fifty-five years
I have been looking at things
From inside this head
One day I want out
Like flying long distance and
The plane closes in

I miss my New York
Philharmonic Thursday nights
When nothing happened

I make my nightly
Rounds through the neighborhood still
Caring about it

An empty ferry
Pretends to bear passengers
While dreaming of flight

Tomorrow you'll read
The newspapers piling up
Tonight you're the news

What is it about
A red tugboat that makes it
So evocative

All you wanna do
Lately is haiku don't you
Know they're bad juju;
Do you still love me
Or do you now love only
Three-line poetry

Powered by people
Is the power of people—
Paradoxical

Some of mine will take
A while to get if they can
Even be gotten

To thwart a sentence
Redirect words before the
End punctuation

Here's how you can help:
Pushing past past boundaries
Pushing past your past

A Swiss Army knife
Unfolds in more directions
Than you think you can

Haiku led me to a great experience. One of mine—

His huge platform boots,
Leopardskin pants, and top hat
Show glam still lives here

—is about a man in our neighborhood who dresses just like that, all the time. He reportedly was part of the Warhol crowd. In fact, Warhol's original Factory was on E. 47th bet. 2nd and 3rd, and this man lives on E. 48th off 2nd. Maybe about a week ago, I saw him after not having seen him for weeks, and I immediately wrote the haiku, which I considered a kind of journalism. Yesterday I started down his block, and there he was, walking with two canes. I spoke to him once, years ago, so I know what a gentle, unassuming soul he is. Earlier this year, before the virus arrived in the U.S., I saw him hug a grocery store worker he's friendly with. So I pulled out a piece of paper and my pen, wrote down my haiku about him, then walked down the block, stopped in front of him, and said, "I saw you the other day and wrote a poem about you." I handed it to him and explained, "It's a haiku." He was wearing a big black scarf as a mask, so I couldn't see his expression, but he said, "You're a wonderful person!" "We love to see you around," I explained, heading off. And then—quite uncharacteristically for me, but what the hell—“God bless you!”

Be not afraid to
Look stupid, be not afraid
To look, stupid, be
Afraid not to be
Stupid, look, to be, not be
Afraid, be stupid

Hug time at work for
Domestic partners in the
Factory of love

Mickey and Minnie
Miss mousing around the house
Because they are trapped

Not to get too weird
Not to get all combative
Not to get woo woo
Not to get off track
Not to get sentimental
Not to get on you

Swim in oceans seas
Lakes ponds pools puddles droplets
Tears if you have to

In the ambulance
From hospital to hospice
Dad must have been scared
When his eyes met mine
They dimmed and stopped their wild search
For a resting place

Desiccated gourd
Whose only occupation
Is getting smaller

Poodle with man bun
Contemplates long gray beard as
Retirement goal

Abandoned scooter—
Tireless advocate for
Staying in one place

Wallace Stevens told
William Carlos Williams that
Writing poetry
Was like doctoring
Or like selling insurance
Which of course he did
Williams did I mean
Really practiced medicine
Stevens never did
He did something else
At the Hartford Accident
And Indemnity
Company where he
Wrote poetry on paper
Scraps stashed in his desk
But what he might have
Told William Carlos Williams
I really can't say

Tin-foil hatter and
Six-foot rabbit ask Alice
Who's curiouser

A boxer puts his
Coworker on the ropes
In a title match

Et cetera and
More so on and so on so
Ad infinitum

Plants we leave behind
Given water and sunlight
Grow on their own turf

Everything is haiku
Except for this poem
Which doesn't count

Saw you yesterday
Wrote a poem about you
No, not this haiku

Nature and Nurture
Are vying for attention
Inextricably

My parents had tents
In the end Mom's folded up
While Dad's flew away

Living hand to mouth
Can leave you biting the hand
That can't make you eat

Berryman's Dream Songs
Never dreamed they were singing
Nor knew Berryman

Environmental
Activism starts with you
Cleaning up your act

Don't ruin thinking
By being critical of
Critical thinking

On the other side
Of the other side you'll find
You're back where you started

Play "Murder Most Foul"
Yet another masterpiece
From master Dylan
This one of a piece
With his latest reveries
About history
And mythology
Whirling in a hurricane
That upends the world
Released in this year
Of covid-19 murder
Mystery or not
This one is about
The killing of Kennedy
And healing through art

The pandemic blues
Have got the world singing them
Catchy choruses

T. S. Eliot,
Banker, shored up unsureties
Against sure ruin

Hepburn and Tracy
Never married famously
Or infamously

Man on a mission
To make it his mission to
Make something happen

Man, not a barber,
Gets well, returns, suddenly
Offers me haircut

From Zen Flesh, Zen Bones,
Collection of translations:
"Through change, consume change"

So, now, thank you, no,
I don't need to meditate
Now, I think, no, so,
You know why I think
I am meditating now
I know, I thank you,
I don't need to meditate,
You know I thank you,
I don’t need to know
I am meditating now
So know, no thank you

"Fancy rat attack"
Reads graffiti in doorway—
I don't fancy one

All philosophy
Is a footnote to Plato
Who is a footnote

Warhol's Factory
Started a few blocks from here
Ended a few lives

Glove missing its mate
On the one hand plays the hand
Dealt—on the other . . .

What did you think of
That nothing to get hung up
About the neck with

Jonathan Richman
Lowered his rock band's volume
To guard babies' ears

Sometimes I remain
In a place until I think
"Stay here forever"

When you're receiving
A goodbye kiss off of death
Say hello to it

A haiku highway
Leads nowhere you want to go—
So you want to go

A haiku highway
Leads nowhere you want to go—
You want to badly

My mother's birthday—
She would have been ninety-one
She's happy she's not

A bird seeks a bath
As a birdbath seeks the rain
Bird and bath stand by

What a rabbit hole
What fun for the whole rabbit
Burrowing inner

What goes on behind
The construction fence is what's
Going to happen

You're doing these things
Because it's now, you're you, and
They're available;
However—a big
Caveat—it’s not, just as
You're not and they're not

Here's looking at you
There with your isolation
Looking back at you

The patron sainthood
Of seeking occupation
Seeks a full-time saint

Yesterday: haiku
Today: freedom from haiku
Tomorrow: haiku

Presence or fragrance
Who can tell the difference
When senses are dulled

Wake up so groggy
Can turn over and go back
To sleep in your bed

Take a sad song and
Make it sadder by singing
Everything in it

Compost containers
Stand ready for the day de-
Composing restarts

This is not a bike
Stand right where you are hands up
On no handlebars

A homeless man lives
On Fifth Avenue writing
Signs to inspire
Better behavior;
For example: "Right now small
Gestures of kindness
Truly change people's
Lives"; he sits shouting at a
Man without a mask

The Magic Mountain
And Hamlet lie on benches
Not saying a word

Books left on benches
As anonymous presents—
Showers are forecast

Showers will wash shit
Off the sidewalks, where people
But mostly dogs go

Which do you prefer
More graffiti appearing
Or dogshit smearing

The woman shook her
Head, refusing my spare change,
Shakes eating chicken

Vonnegut sat or
Was it slumped, shot, bloodshot yet
Sallow is the word

My nose runs behind
My mask but I don't wipe it—
A fringe benefit!

"Best mask sale here" sign
Meaning best mask or best sale—
Ambiguity

My mother always
Called it the apartment on
East 65th St.
My parents lived there—
Conceivably, I did too—
In their early years;
After she had died
Dad and I stood outside the
Building, which had changed

"Keep Your Distance" sang
Richard Thompson but in a
Different context

Woman in the dunes
Smiling slyly at the sands
Piling castles

Remember that day
Black-clad women danced outside
The Ford Foundation;
It's happening now
And it will keep happening
Like a bird tweeting

If babies could stroll
There'd be no need for strollers
Still there'd be walkers

Do not touch your face
And your face will not touch you
You will both be free

Runners are the worst
At keeping social distance
As they pass unmoving

You wouldn't would you
Or you couldn't if you could
But should you should you

Feeling self-conscious
Have a good self-conscious time
Being pure feeling

Edward Gorey meets
Greta Garbo, neither says,
You are my sunshine

This might be the place
Where they say the world ends
Its life as the world

So much fun and such
Freedom from wanting to want
Means one thing: Wake up

This movie moves me
This movie is such a trip
This movie is called
Koyaanisqatsi:
(Hopi) life out of balance:
Documentary

Unhappy Earth Day!
Planet, couldn't you pick a
Better place and time?

Apotheosis
Rises to the challenge of
Dropping to nadir

No Shit Sherlock joins
Sticky Gumshoe on ground floor
Of new building case

This haiku is new
Unlike all the old haiku
It breaks every rule

Perfect copy meets
Imperfect original—
Regrets being made

Better days ahead
Says a chalkmark that survived
Yesterday's rainstorms;
And if a chalkmark
Wouldn't understand nature
There's no hope for us;
We remain hopeless
Poor nature interpreters
Apart from ourselves;
We remain apart
From our essential nature:
Animal ahead

This scene repeating
With minor variations:
Are these dogs friendly?
Some dogs may be nice
But other dogs may not be
There's no way to know

Personality
Is a hallmark of the pug—
The same one for each

Dog that stared at me
Bounds, tail wagging, to see you
Because we're all dogs

Of all city birds
Which one is the luckiest—
Do the others know?

Iridescent bird
Variegated body
Like an oil-stained road
Unhappy with me
For standing there and gawking
Hides from bush to bush

Thinking to myself
Because the thinker's on mute
I think I love you

That empty carriage
Roundabout may be calling
Past horses to work

The sheltering sky
Might take you in like you're a
Long lost innocent

I love when signs say
"Due to the recent events"—
Which ones do you mean?

Hi, is Yoko home
I happened to be nearby
Really across town
And thought I'd drop in
Like a visitor from Mars
To pay my respects

Proceed with caution
Do not block intersection
Be prepared to stop

Bethesda Fountain
Is out of water right now
Come back when things work

Zero percent chance
Of normal living today—
Haiku are likely

Yesterday: Be bug
Today: Consider windshield
Tomorrow: Be bug

Where is Central Park
But in your mental backyard
Where it needs to be

Only in New York
Can you turn around and see
The Met waits coolly

Loving memory
Is where much of the city
Is living these days

A small bird dropping
At my feet to say hello
Expects a crumb tip

Syllable thinking
Is like composing music
By first counting notes

Healthcare worker sits
Alone by the river, smokes,
Drifting, smoldering

Subject for haiku:
For those attuned to silence
Crickets speak volumes

For Kafka, living
May mean putting out feelers—
The bug reaching out

Metabolism:
How do you go on if you
Don't know you might not

Out of the way, guys—
Talking to pigeons within
Barriers again

Sidewalk rising toward
Your downward-facing forehead
Packing a wallop

Down it plops! Oily
Long-billed black bird drops
Only to pop up

"Work has called in sick"
Says another restaurant
Wittily resigned

Working a vein of
Making even myself think
I think it's working

New York will be great
If they ever finish it
And can stop working;
Physical world as
Always under construction
Hard hat area:
The Bristol Hotel
Sat on the northwest corner
Of 42nd
& 5th until it
Was demolished to make way
For the skyscraper
Where I used to work;
A computer now sits there
Picturing my face
As I access its
Programs, memory, workings

Silly and Stupid
Stand across from each other
Eyeing the border

Water jug and pen
Hang from bedsheet line knotted
Under scaffolding:
Makeshift writer's room
Abandoned by its author—
Anonymous work

Orwell wrote the book
Of love like a warm blanket
You never shake off

An indefinite
Article and the sure thing
Might make a couple

Three lines that don't rhyme
And don't mean a thing if they
Ain't got that Zen zing

Man's messing with worm—
Hey man, leave that worm alone!—
Returns it to dirt

Rock and roll haiku
Won't solve anyone's problems
Does the twist on them

Put a name on it
And you stop it just in time
So it can't run off

Capture the moment:
Yes, that's it, hold it like that,
And you just miss it

So-called president
Has his so-cold choking hold
On this country's soul

Get out of its way
When current illness passes
Open wellness shop

What needs to exist
Is what might not exist yet is
What needs to might not

Finding iced coffee
You forgot you made before
The caffeine wore off

There's no choice between
The product and the process
Neither can be yours

You may save the date
You may save a place in line
You try to save time

Who was that masked man
Bystanders ask each other
As stranger goes lone

Be an insider
Within your own inner world
Of outsider art

The first to go is
The last of the innocents
Told to lead the charge

What could be sadder
Than a dog park in the rain;
How about the hospital
Across the river:
Ruin, abandoned asylum
Of Typhoid Mary

Shutdown in New York:
Welcome opportunities
To explore corners
Ordinarily
You would not choose to stand in—
Until it turns out
You're on camera
And security guard says,
"Can't stand here, buddy.
You look suspicious."
You laugh, because sure!
That's the way the world works now:
Image keeps us safe

Haiku in rainstorm:
Keep paper dry for wet ink
Or try memory

Can you spare some change
That depends—you can and can't—
You'd prefer more change;
Change kept in bread bag
Can be hard to extricate
But is worth its wait;
The spare change you give
Means less than nothing to you—
Makes the world lighter;
What a world that is
Where change can play hard to get
Or can hit you hard

Not feeling it now
Not even sure what it is
Nor what it feels like

Give a man a pole
And he'll fish out an eyeball
Or thrust it someplace

What if we got cut
All of us at the same time
Giving transfusions

Are you a fretter
A chicken convinced its head
Is running away

The naked mole rat
Loves the hole it has not seen
(Because it has not?)

There will be a hug
Waiting for you at the gate
Of purgatory

At the mouth of hell
They serve the best barbecue
But it's not takeout

This world was made just
But then injustice crept in
Just as you were born

Bagging up the bags
All the garbage of the world
In one neat bundle

If you say it it
Must be so so be careful
What do do you say

Dog lies in the path
Where the world steps around it
Till it's carried off

The last of my kind
And that is kind of funny—
I'm one of a kind

If two red tugboats
Form a tandem flotilla
Their strange pull doubles

Sitting in my spot:
Favorite occupation
Next to spotting it

You get everything
If you live to get that old
Everything feeling

There is no honor
Higher than being dismissed
In lowly haiku

Where I am is not
And I have been there before
And won't be again

Kafka told his friend
Brod to destroy everything;
Brod didn't and did

Donald Quixote
Pins windmill on enemy
Spins party wildly

Calder made mobiles
To show how so many sides
Revolve and reveal

Your darkest secret
Knocks like opportunity
(Bell's toll is reserved)

"He'd had lung trouble . . .
Went home from the hospital . . .
And that's where he died."

Yesterday: today
Today: to be continued
Tomorrow: no change

Woolf saw it coming:
Need for a room of one's own,
Bed of a river

Yesterday: how much
Today: too or much too much
Tomorrow: not much

Philosophizing
Will put your mind in the mood
For love of wisdom

You see how it goes
This is the way the world ends
We laid the land waste

Upstairs feet pound floor
In the middle hands keep still
Downstairs head bangs wall

Pandas together
At the zoo ten years now mate—
Privacy? Boredom?

Here's the last chapter
Of that book you've been being—
Turn back or skip ahead

No need to disrobe
You can stay snug in your robe
All life if you please

River riven flows
Sometimes south, other times north,
Often some of each

LPs left curbside
As someone's hopeful gesture
Succumb to the rain

Empty sardine tins
Left on the path for no reason
Beyond emptiness

A Chump supporter
Ingested fish-tank cleaner—
He won't be voting!

Ronald Chump chomping
On a Constitution burger
Ground from believers

Pyro in chief, you
Feel the spark, fan the flame, take,
Take heat energy

A manifesto:
Do not fret—-cultivate care,
Irony, and rage

Yesterday: weirdo
Today: middle-aged hipster
Tomorrow: artist

Haiku in public
Is like skywriting a mask:
No one knows it's you
By the time they learn
You'll be a different lesson
They'll be indifferent

Fruit seller bowing
On cardboard on the sidewalk
His eyes still watchful

Dog looks longingly
At pigeon who sits calmly
Aware of the leash

In some ways you're still
Back there, with people, some dead
And wishing to be

It's quite possibly
The most beautiful evening
I've ever raged through

He didn't catch it
He stomped it to death right where
I said it would be;
Turned out he'd done this
Many many times before
Now we share this bond

You've stood here before
Taking shelter in a storm
That's now inside you

John Lennon was killed
At forty—I’m fifty-five—
I'd give him some years

Manhattan at dusk:
Glow over rooftops gathers
Strength for what comes next

A whole life condensed
Into one night's meander
Through streets that stay home

What was their work worth
The struggle to feel better
In the end they're dead;
I'm here so I win
And my prize is that I know
What their work was worth

Keep this far apart:
The distance necessary
To keep a part far

Wake up and smell the
Smell of being awake then
Stop and smell the sleep

Last night my sneakers
Wore themselves out on the road—
Soles shot serving soul

We will reopen
When the pandemic shuts down
Its going concern

If you'd made one change
It might have changed everything
Including this line

The way of all flesh
Is the way the world crumbles
And can't be embraced

Look, if you're going
To become a book, stay out
Of stormy weather

Once a hole appeared
And ate parts of the city
Then swallowed it whole

Salvador Dalí
Would have loved you guys, shooting
Hoops without a hoop

Half a dinosaur
Beats not finding any bones
In your quest for past

Position yourself
Somewhere you might envision
Your next position

Without your tether
I'd be a balloon drifting
Or a leaf blowing

Ball against the wall:
Good idea until it rolls
Under a car's wheels

Misremembering
May be hallucination
Communication

They gave him steroids
To reduce the brain swelling
To normal—for him!

Walk your way through it
Even if you're not sure what
Walk, way, or it is

Duck sitting in muck
Like a fat-flat-bottomed boat
That loves its poor port

To dissociate
Is to dissipate your pate
In a stream of thought

A happy martyr
Searching for a worthy cause:
A hot bed of nails

In old Hollywood
We—worldly city people—
Were smart, fast, funny,
But given to gaffes,
Misadventures, and pratfalls;
Our heartbeats outpaced
The clock's tick, the mouth's
Movement, the ear's capturing
Of witty banter;
That was the sweet dream—
A lie, of course, but artful,
Composed of, with, love

A certain outcome
Is no fun for anyone
But grinning reaper

She gives them out but
What are they? They are stars and
Somehow she made them

This is just to say
One of your little buddies
Didn't make it through;
Poor cute succulent
Overwatered, left to rot,
Fine one week, then dead

A damaged person
Is in charge of a nation
With its own damage

Half a dinosaur
Encounters its other half
But they do not meet

Half a dinosaur
Recognizes extinction
In its reflection

Half a dinosaur
In the hands of the right child
Can conquer the world

On the other hand
I sick my dogs in the search
For the one first hand

Savor the wonders
Of Prince, who died alone in
An elevator

So many choices,
Including north, south, east, west,
Up, down, back, or forth

Standing anytime?
No; not much of anything
You should keep moving

If you have to have
To complete something in you
Have something in you

Puppets in a box
Envy free marionettes
Who pray for scissors

This haiku is a
Portrait of the artist as
Disgruntled geezer

Stubborn little dog
Won't let go of stick it grips
Despite being gripped

If you have to have
Things, pare down to essentials:
Jacket, jeans, good shoes

Sign says I'm taking
The John Finley Walk, so I
Salute you, Finley!

Yes, that's me, I'm an
Exaggerated version
Of myself today

You can break your stride
So go ahead, break for me
And stay still broken

Spiritual, me?
Not spiritual man but
Spirit manual

In terms of weather
This moment might be the best
Ever anywhere

Stone in my sneaker
Tries to transmit message in
Minor discomfort

If I were homeless
Would I wonder what I'd do
If I were hopeless

Play find the haiku
In whatever you have or
What you have in you

Health before haiku
Hoodoo guru always said
Before eating words

Do the work upfront
And the work, working itself,
Will bring up the rear

Mythological
Figures ask nothing from us
But give us their lives

Things we do for love
Include noting the other
Things we do for love

Dickinson was off:
"Certain slant of light" can come
Not just in winter

Donald Destroyer
Rages inside the machine
Ripping out wires

Water, whether in
Large body, pool, or shower,
Lubricates the mind

Cement transporter
Barges up the East River—
Such a ship exists?

There's a special hell
For thoughtless people who drop
Masks and gloves on streets

"Anna!" graffiti
Appears twice in Manhattan—
Written by whom? Her?

A window's open
Enough to fit a dog's nose
Getting a good sniff!

You can beat the rain
You can be at the train but
You can't be terrain

Look both ways before
You either choose to go one
Or reject the pair

Hieroglyphics call
To you as do tarot cards—
How will you answer?

Remember that time
Your parents drove you to the
Exciting city
Because you wanted
To visit a place you can't
Find on the web now;
That was your life then:
People who loved you so much
They gave you the world

I had this weird dream
That included everything
I thought I had known
But was this wired
Drama suspended between
Some of my brain cells

A huge Dalmatian
Sits, balancing a taxi
On its upturned nose:
If that can happen—
Even if it's a sculpture—
You can do something

Snake swallows its tail
Then thinks: If I keep this up
I'll be great again

I do what I want
Within reason, until I
Hit some obstacle—
When I can figure
Out what I want, which is not
Just an obstacle

He's not the brightest
Tool in the bloodshed so chop
Off the old blockhead

Instruct your children
So I don't have to waste time
Getting around them

Can you catch being
From something that has it more
Than you wish you did

Can you catch being
Stupid? It seems to be so
Common and spreading

Team Zilch hits its goal
Which hits back with a vengeance
A penchant for none

Vampires arrive—
Play it cool, cold, dead, buried
Like who'd want your blood

She willed herself gone
And inspired her daughter
To play the same game:
Hide and hide and hide
Yourself so successfully
The seeker gives up

Saltines without salt
Really make you think about
Things lacking thingness

Graves we will dance on
Are one pleasure to conjure—
Top of the list: Trump's

There's something about
A ball that makes you want to
Kick it and think: Trump

Someone should worry
It's not going to be me
Which is worrisome

My mother claimed that
Nice weather on Mothers Day
Meant God loved mothers;
She was being wry
But also reflecting a
Biased perspective

Have you always been
Will you again be again
By transmigration

Police horse hooves beat
A Proustian madeleine
For a world gone by

People being cool
Just living the New York lives
They want to go on

Chick wears a bowler
Like she lives in Godot or
A Clockwork Orange:
Urban warrior
Absurdist science fiction
Personal styling

Paper engineer
Making fun pop-up objects—
Who knew that's a job?

What do the ants do
When their paths turn against them
Can't stop being ants

More brown parts than green
But don't give up on that plant
Till its life gives up

Learn to say nothing
While mouthing volumes of words
Making background noise

Join the department
Of lost causes or at least
Extremely long shots

Imaginary
Somethings will take you somewhere
But not bring you back

Thief? running, falling
Onto a parked police car—
Stranger than fiction

Waiting at a pier
Where no boat can dock to board
Shows great faith or none

Justice without truth
Makes a weak case for itself
Then shows no mercy

Crystal clarity
Comes once in any lifetime
But never in some

Your dog want a ball
Because this one seemed to be
Waiting for a dog

His occupation,
Singer-songwriter John Prine
Once claimed, was dancer

If yoga made her
(She said) a better lover
What activity
Might make me (at least
In my head, where I live now)
A better thinker

There'll be another
Fine afternoon like this one—
We'll look back from it

Is it evolving?
Are we adapting to it?
Changing measure change

Situations change
Even when particulars
Repeat within them;
Within them repeat
Particulars even when
Situations change

Story of my life:
He traveled from here to here
Tracing this through line;
Forget what happened
Which just placed points on the line
And, having placed, left

Children's hospital
Is where you don't want to go
Unless you're a toy

Twilight going down
Behind skyscrapers: fading
Glowing shifting shapes

A freak accident
That I'm just the freak to have:
Overthinking life

Scientology
Scene: "Volunteer ministers"
Wearing hazmat suits

Copyeditor
On the prowl for bad grammar
Pencil poised to strike

Younger-looking skin
Will be yours if you strip down
And don a new one

If you have proven
A lifetime's worth of proving
Find another life

A new commandment:
Thou shalt not give up doing
A delicate dance

"Thanks. Have a good day"
I say to say something but
Her look says she won't

Long ago I passed
Dad on the road to the past—
Dead men take their time!

You have one go-round
And you spend it getting rich
At others' expense

Evangelical
Conspiracy theorist
Sees vaccine as plot

Number of the beast
Will mark those who don't watch out
And those who read news

When I'm an old man
Tinkering with my artworks
May I not lose touch

Bags on the pavement
Your belongings spilling out
Your bad skin made up

Dragging yourself through
To a place you might become
If it becomes you

Same sky wherever
You go or where you look in
Photos—comforting!

How can a night like
This one, especially now,
Feel overfull of
Possibility
Like in some ways some things are
Just beginning and
This night connects in
Fundamental ways across
Skies with other nights

No gun has been jumped
We're holding our own, the line
We won't cross too soon

Sickly sunlight from
The east signals a hot day—
Masks collecting sweat

People be shlepping,
Sleeping, practicing dance moves,
Sunbathing, waiting

Tomorrow: We'll see
Today: What you see seems real
Yesterday: Who knew?

Enter the Center
For Prevention of Too Much
Power per Person

Anger in your eyes
And of course I can't blame you
Black man on the street

When the numbness hits
You can only imagine
Becoming stardust

Get out of that state
With its multiple perils
And stay safe, stateless

Droplets of poison
May be lingering in air:
Angels of hot tar

Increase your chances
Of having your final thoughts
Be someone else's

Speaking in haiku
Means delivering meaning
Metaphorically

You spill dark coffee
In the same spot on two nights—
Carpet's destiny

Apocalypse now:
What the hell, let's eat hot dogs
And embrace the end

On some Saturday
Decades ago, I ate what
Will kill me someday

You can accomplish
A lot if you don't want much
Or need the credit

You turn a corner
Run smack into who you were
Who remains in place

You reach out to you
You'd like to steady yourself
Both of you'd like to

Empty sack of shit
Hawking its nonexistence
Don't you love my stink

People are sheep, Mom said
They'll follow each other till
They go off a cliff

Herd immunity
Will protect us from some things
Not stupidity

Tunnel Exit St.
Will take you out of that hole
But not fix your life

Signs remain of signs
You made when people were here—
Remains to be seen

I'm driving you home
From a party, but closer
Is where we arrive

Secret Service knocks
Like an opportunity
Missed or not taken

An epiphany:
Power surges through you when
You give it away

Suddenly you know
You've seen this somewhere before!
What somewhere is it?

Welcome to sign world
Where everything is standing
For impermanence

Dance this mess around
Until it shakes you up but good—
Could you find the beat

It has come to this:
You ask has it come to this—
Your hand stops her arm

Dog turns to say hi
Or turns to go home and I'm
Happy to be there

Day without haiku
Arrives today, after all
These weeks? No, not yet!

Initiate chat
With someone who could be you
In an altered state

Beware of starting
Something ritualistic
You might have to end

When music is all
You think you need or you want
A little can do

Outdoor exercise
In what chalk graffiti calls
"Stir crazy town"

Bikini girls jump-
Start the hearts of middle-aged
Men in city parks

Passive use only
Seems oxymoronic if
You think about it

Apartment window
Sign: "Feet pics $20"—
Taking or selling?

Say you've been tethered
Long enough you've forgotten
How you can get -un

Normally we'd be
Looking forward to being
But we're not normal

If you find me strange
Please understand that this is
My first pandemic

If I am not here
When you expect me to be
I might have gone out

One place: "We serve grits,"
"We are serving tater tots,"
"No mask no entry!"

Victim Bill Withers
Sings "Ain't No Sunshine" on a
Cloudy Covid day

Artificially
Shut down something in your life
As preparation

For the love of Trump
Open the churches and let
Illness sort them out

What’s it like to live
In an A-frame house? Too late!
It has been torn down

Going underground
Will only deprive you of
Light, air, food, news, touch

Thoroughly corrupt
Nonpublic nonservants work
To build up themselves

Grab your little plot—
Property, conspiracy,
Grave—and hold on tight

When your things close in
It’s time to vent, time to find
A vent, an event

Nothing new to say
And yet here you are again
Working on three lines

“All are welcome here”
Says a multicolored sign
In an empty lot

Clear the cobwebs out
Of your crevices and cracks
And find your lost youth

Disrespect the flag
If you dare to discover
What disrespect means

Through sheer force of will
You will deliver yourself
Into your next self

If someone wanted
To design a virus meant
For city people . . .

"Trump where is your mask,"
Reads sign hanging from her neck,
"Put it the fuck on"

Saw two more "Anna!"
Graffiti, here and the Bronx—
Woman gets around

Feels like exercise
Daily coping with crisis
Bending toward what's next

Picture your deathbed
Sizing you up, concluding
You used today well

Possibility:
Portable birthday party
With infinite cake

Summer swimming hole
Dried up, leaving you afloat
And stretched out midstroke

Race against the clock
To write one haiku today—
Alas, the clock won

Empty brain empty
Pen empty paper empty
Syllables counted

Woman in tutu
Pink—the tutu is, whereas
The woman is “white”

Sometimes you forget
That nothing is happening
And you start going

Oops! "Fuck the polcie"
Spraypainted in an effort
To make a statement

Haiku meets haiku
On neutral ground, wide landscape
For epic battle

Race against yourself
So you set the rules and odds
Are that you'll finish

I'm being followed
I'm sure I'm being followed
I'm sure I'm being

The clock always wins
In a clock's sense of winning:
Not what is but when

Your deleted drafts
Rise like electronic ghosts
Only to dissolve

I identify
As a truck, claims a small car
With capacity

Weather doesn't care
Whether you like it or what
You are doing there

Are you Pandora
Or are you the box, because
The contents are out

Commit outrage
Then keep escalating it
Till you feel potent

Many dreams deferred
Even before the dreamers
Could see anything

Inspect your bunker
Just like another famous
Fascist at the end

Series of strange times
Where you are all the strangers—
Every one in flux

Nice people homeless
Bedding down outside the church
Grateful for food scraps

Two martini night
Sometimes announces itself
As what the brain wants

We award ourselves
Not the keys to the city
Just pride in our place

Spring was holding on
As long as it could, for us
Who grow overripe

So humid walking
Is mixing with elements
Changing perspective

Time can be measured
In pairs of worn-out sneakers
Whose treads left no trace

The dead get nothing—
No justice, no peace, no more—
The living take some

I've lived with racists
Been "related" to people
Who said, "I'm proud of
Being prejudiced";
How, exactly, can you love
Someone who says that
Or, say, "I like white";
Now they're dead, and good riddance;
Get out of the way
If you cannot lend
A hand to clearing debris
Or pointing a way

Who wanted to be
Born this thing or anything
Deserves your pity

Nothing I have done
Matters more than carrying
This food to people

Today Central Park
Could not be better but is
Better than heaven

Hot cup of coffee
Even on steamy morning
Streams through you like blood

River waves spray in
Collaboration with sun
Make minor rainbows

What a bad movie!
If I had written that script
I would quit my brain

I am in a world
Of mainly one, sometimes two
Though made by many

Like, say, "Find your bliss"
"You are enough" is a meme
Not for the homeless

Eating and shitting
Are what it all adds up to
Or breaks down into;
If you don't think so
Take a look at the homeless
Waiting at the church;
They want food and drink—
Don't forget they need water!—
And a place to poop

Plastic pollution
Will work its way into you
Replacing tissue—
Black holes in reverse
Not swallowing everything
But infiltrating
Lay the foundation
For your next embodiment
As “free” energy

Meat beast awakens
Shaking, sloughing off victims
Of slaughterhouse dreams

Handhold by handhold
Is how you may find your way
Till your grip loosens

On the other side
If you flip this time over
You'll find a face card

In some other place
There’s a path you can follow
Or lead if you’d like

Leave something undone―
Button, conclusion, haiku―
So you never know

This is a weird place
To find the sun's rays found you―
Out of, in, the way

Black cop and white cop
Comfortable in uniform:
Twin bellies bulging

Keep riding the wave
To see where you land but have
No destination

Let's cancel culture—
Keep, say, toilets and paper,
Refrigeration

If you dip a toe
Into the moment, withdraw
It and step away

How can it not be
That, as in a movie, blink
And the lost are found

Philosopher-king
Or -queen or -other rules through
Possibility

You are off the hook
Like a fish free from a land
Line for good for now

The last time you do
This that or the other that
Might have been that time

When I feel like it
Can be when I become it
Can be a costume

Another layer
Lost and look at what lies there
At that which is left

Yesterday: not yet
Today: what is the damn point
Tomorrow: and yet

Your law and order
Makes patriotic duty
My hope to kill you

Had you only known
How time manipulates life
You'd have killed less time?

Editing a text
Can be weight-loss exercise—
Lifting and spinning

Advisory committee
Splits into subcommittees
To advise itself

My mother's bay leaves
Finally followed her lead
Into the great stew

On the day you die
May you be able to see
A clear light blue sky

What runs in your veins?
In mine it's New York City
As I walk its streets

Manhattan skyline,
Metallic green East River,
My heart rises up

The sound of . . . crickets . . .
Sends the composer into
Silent syllables

Be a receiver
As whatever is out there
Transmitting it is

Hope for an answer
And, while waiting, swear you will
Recall the question

Bear with the traffic
Which is what the traffic will
Not do unto you

Don't forget to thank
Godot, who may be waiting
For you too today

John Lennon's birthday—
What would he have made of this?
How would he have lived?

Shipper and Schlepper
Met on the super highway
And exchanged cross words

The market decides
You go for the buggy ride
And conspiracize

Hey influencer
Best work on those pouty lips
Or lose market share

Here comes a haiku
All three lines pointed toward you
Just one of them true

Crow and Coyote
As roadkill, meet their maker—
Fresh earth, fallen leaves

Field guide to haiku:
Of course you become poems—
Be field and guide too

You like my haircut
So much I should rush back to
Get another one

Mas reggae, menos
Capitalismo, sign reads
(Let the spirit lead)

Your dad's name was Dude
And you lived in a commune—
Your kids don't learn lies

Spiritual day
Like a Fata Morgana
Seen from the inside

All is well but weird
In our holding pattern here—
Pigeons on a ledge

Some forest creature
Sits in a corner, for rest
Beyond its nature

My mother had her
Limitations, among them
Horror of horrors

Not wanting to be
Or to see or to be seen
Or to be wanting

What good are what ifs
If good is measured in what
If and not what is

Shaking out feathers
Is a fine occupation
If you don't have scales

Every dead leaf
A defeat—not just a loss
Of life outside you

As we usher out
What may already be gone
Our eyes do not meet

A rodent appears
To appear and disappears
The food you don't eat

Call me Misanthrope
Or, better yet, don't call me—
Just leave me alone

Metabolism
Wakes you, makes you, takes you to
Your bittersweet end

Self-medicating
Is the way to navigate
Your shenanigans

To prove they are fine
Keepers of law and order
Cops beat up people

My whole life I have
Tried to escape the people
Who refuse to lose

This is why we live
Here and now we are living
In the why and we

Congratulations,
Biden: handwritten letters
Taped to our hearts

We are at the zoo
Watching creatures preen and prance
Rattling the bars

The world's worst person
Has been ruling a nation
And riling its soul

Dancing in the street
Because we have to release
So much karmic steam

How many devils
Fit on top of that pinhead
Or prone below him

Not to be confused—
No, to be not conned nor fused—
Not lit, burned, or used

Punk rock prepared me
For life in the big city
Facing bankruptcy

Time accelerates
For watches, clocks, calendars
Stressed by their makers

Empty streets are like
"Look how beautiful we are
Without people here!"

Single-handedly
With just a slip of the tongue
I can see both sides

News is terrible—
All of it, every day—
It means life goes on

To have lived in vain
Is inevitable, no?
Don't think big picture

I'm lightening up—
Hair whiter, skin paler—though
Increasingly hued

You have history
With a place of your choosing
Or memory's whims

New Yorkers on line
Outside the used-record store
Is heaven on Earth

Leave some for others!
We have to live together
Or suffer alone

Someone put a face
On the blank space where once lived
Possibility

Old-fashioned lefty
Proudly roams in search of right-
Wing propaganda

The brain is on fire
But don't try putting it out—
The brain is the world

Don't take the quirks out!
Where would the world be without
Something fun to do?

I am thankful for
Susan Connor, my red tree
In a browning world

Contemplative frog
Still standing in the garden
Head propped on fingers

Perfectly lovely
Day breaks through clouds to you, says,
"Hey, thanks for waiting!"

Moon waxing gibbous
Meets man at cosmic crossroads
Says follow my lead

Making sense of things
That you know don't make no sense
Until you don't know

Where is Central Park
But in your mental backyard
When you're far from home

Don't believe in soul
Yet live like you have nothing
But world soul to build

Who controls that light
Pouring across expanses
Warmer than humans

How do they differ
And why are they bothering
Each other through walls

A macrocosm
Meets its maker, gives birth to
A microcosm

Must be on our toes
Or out our eyes, for people
Making mistakings

Memorial bench
Sporting small bouquet given
Water in glass jar

Change: Drop some. Find some.
Change into your self costume.
Give some change. Change more.

Hello, survivor!
Welcome to your great beyond
Beyond where you were

Life being finite
Don’t waste time in baby steps
Doing fine—be it

Patti Smith’s birthday—
Seventy-four, still roaming—
Room to room this year

Remains to be done:
See yourself decomposing
Some beast in repose

To reiterate
Is to iterate but not
Again—the first time!

New York’s winter blue
Clarifying clouds and smoke
In crystalline white

Never met the man
Yet can’t see into his eyes
As he sees his I

What is undeserved
When may be undeserving
Who are underserved

Spirit animal
Meets the spiritless meathead
Who kills and eats it

Took the liberty
To the freedom repair shop
Where they shook their heads

Don't pay attention
To these seven syllables—
Write your own haiku

“Knowledge is power”
Wrote good Sir Francis Bacon
But what kind of each?

Need to stop thinking
Of parts you would recognize
As full of feeling

You are in one room
Making a racket moving
To another room

A hollow Caesar
Or at least or most a bust
Backwards to the world

Here is not bathroom
Nor is here kitchen, basement—
Some place else go home

William Shakespeare
Doesn’t want to be your friend!
He sees right through you

Something is coming
Up through the blood: reflection,
Reflexive action

Approximation
May be as close as you come
To being or not

So much depends on
How one works: for us or them,
At or under desk

If hope is the thing
You might feel fluttering in
Keep your windows open

Mind-bogglingly
Short-sighted so-called leaders
Lie in wait for brains

A year of haiku
May yield a ton of nothing:
Notes made about time

Pigeons are cooing
As Rihanna croons pop songs
Do they like the tunes

The (better?) angels
Watch from high perches (purchase?)
Then may swoop (or poop?)

A braying jackass
Will enjoy nothing but
Its own mulishness

Artwork you don’t like
Could turn out to save your life
By holding you back

New York as dada
Will tolerate no nada
Claimed Tristan Tzara

Billie Holiday
Knew no possibility,
Hope, dope, struggle, fate,
Or necessity
Could save her ever-loving
Soul, black, blue, from you

My America:
Freed from Fear During Crisis
By Haiku Itself

In one episode
Rescue Bear is found again
By Eight Bucks Bunny
Who says, What a sap!
That bear can’t live without a
Happy follow-up

President Biden
Seems like the calm grandfather
I wish I had known

Kamala Harris
Is the U.S. president
I look forward to

Hell is, probably
Will be, a portal into
Perpetuity

To have many days
Just like this one still ahead
What would that be worth?

“Baby, I Love You”
Sung by Ronnie or Joey
Quivers like heartstrings

In this solo show
I grow, I grow old, I go
So low, now, where to

Fat mermen have sung
Over all but the shouting
Which was all he wrought

A tugboat pulling
A barge five, six, times its size
Matter-of-factly
Should give us puny
Humans the power to pause,
Think, stop emotion

Musical moron
The moviemaker Fritz Lang
Described himself as;
But he could whistle
Well enough, the story goes,
For the M soundtrack

Your biggest blunder
May snake around you like an
Opportunity:
Good way to go out
Of business from the ground
Down to your godhead

I’m reminded of
My dream of remembering
Living where I was
When I was being
My dream self remembering
To remind me now

Rooted in your place
But not buried under it—
Shoots feel free to leave

A folk-rock chanteuse
Is a good goddess to find
In mind for a while

Say you liberate
Europe, stride purposefully,
Pose for photos, what then?

Salvaging scraps leads
To responsibility
For a world of them

For a world of hurt
The bodhisattva looks out
And vows to hurt more

A Zen garden kit
Sold in a small cardboard box
That becomes a hat
That becomes a home
For a Buddhist who looks out
At a Zen garden

We are transforming
Into sentient creatures
But we won't be them

And so finally
You find your favorite toy
In a mean dog's mouth

Clearly you are not
A spiritual person
Being unclearly

Spending time at home
Looking at pictures of home
Until there is here

My anarchist friend
Regarding your plan of no plan
Who will pave your road

If you spot mustard
Smeared on a New York sidewalk
Do not think hot dog

Big dog looks my way
Then away because it is
Humanly sheepish

Man in a dog suit
Greets dog disguised as a man
Whose eyes beam the truth

Birds do not exist
Say the latest signs of nuts—
Flying, spying drones

For a world of Kurt
What would you need to give up
Or which self to wake

Can I be your dog
If I sit, be good, and beg
Will you be my leash

An aneurysm
Snuck up on him from within
And so much for that

We are just this life
Like pigments mixed in the rain
We make so much of

Nature lacks context
Taken closeup or wide-eyed
Without what comes next

According to whom
And with what authority
Are we good enough

A celebrity
Looks around, sniffs his armpits,
Then implicates you

Don't drive Highway 1
Fifty miles from Monterey,
Where a chunk just fell
And the Pacific
Like a shark, will be brutal
In pursuit of more
Stuff, more whatever
Will descend into its maw
In wild recompense
Like Hitchcock's The Birds
But played out by a liquid,
A landform, and you

Haiku met Haiku
On the road to nothing much—
Exchanged syllables:
“Nice weather today”
“Been vaccinated lately?”
“They found more bodies”;
Haiku took Haiku
By the hand, and standing still
They waited their turn

It’s worse on TV
Because you’re trapped in a screen
Which is just a box

Lo the god of hogs,
Cried Upton Sinclair, watches
And weeps at hot dogs

Your secret is out:
Liberal cuddler-hugger
Spreading arms like alms

Pedestrian yells,
“You just drove through a red light!”
Driver says, “Shut up”

Without musicians
Where would we find ourselves?
Lost in space of sound

A man of action
He reportedly implored
Get me out of here

Haiku by request:
You can put in your orders
(I’ll be here a while)

The graft and the grift
Go as you work each day’s shift—
Only faces change

So much activity—
Even just snow shoveling—
In New York City!

Boycott Amazon
To save what for the moment
We can call real life

When their eyes meet ours
Over masks over distance
What might those beams mean
Near to us or far
Are they calling us back to
Old-fashioned human
Life as we know it
In verisimilitude:
Closest we will get
To being really
To being what we may see
When we can say that
Life is coming back
To greet us on each cheek once
Or if masks come off

Christian Marclay
Created a film artwork
That runs a whole day
As bits of footage
Include clock and time motifs
That synch with real time
And once the film starts
Barring a technical glitch
It cannot be stopped
From counting down life
In moments spent spectating
Inexorably

Don't poop on me, bird!
Leave my head and day pristine
And I won't curse you

Does how fast you swim
Determine how far you can
Go against the flow

There is the Buddha
But where is his bicycle
Under the squirrel
And the squirrel learns
To ride the damn karmic thing
And thinks: I am free

Your way of being
Could be my anathema
Or my Gethsemane

Don’t be Vonnegut
Be a Kurt of another
Mother or dada

These uncertainties
Certainly unmake moments
Momentarily

Gumby don’t wiggle
Though he do be flexible
He don’t be undone

The world always wins
Try as you might to change it
The game makes the rules

An armed person
With ill-defined intentions—
Inactive shooter

Crabby New Yorkers
Bouncing back from the crisis
Like balls with flat sides

Weird melancholy
Descends like a holiday
Decoration shroud

A round roundabout
A bout and nowhere near out
And about around

Be willing to share
Wherever you are being
Because you are a part

Not giving an inch
To fear or not to fear not
To embrace pure now

A very old man
With enormous faith in flight
Philosophizes

A man without teeth
Wishes he could gum carrots
And dreams of a beak

Be respectful is
Theoretically my
Cottage industry

Nobody can say
Why these forms each take their own
Form from fear of none

From here to over
Here, discontinuously
Missing my person

Am I wrong or left
Or somehow somewhere between
Being and has been

Someone’s belongings
Don’t belong in this picture
So reframe the world

Same old meets same old
On the small hill of has been
Where same old was born

An escalator
Running an uphill battle
With no soul in sight

Loathe humanity
For its lack of self-loathing
As it squats and squirts

Lost spirit reward
Has sentimental value
Can identify

Stop being the cop
Of the world outside your whole
Being behind bars

When I watch movies
My life passes as depthless
As pictures lying

Forswear fiction, be
Wary when making your vow
To enter the world

Year of retooling
From every thing that was
To what it seems

If a rock moves out
Of no one’s sidewalk garden
Who will put it back

Neither here nor there
Is that where I am living:
Nature not human

Tugboat pushes barge
Or maybe powerless barge
Is pulling tugboat

No humanity
Could be a rallying cry
As dead souls rally

World as hard, harsh place:
Word is heard, registered
As shots to the head

I am supposed
To have my best year ever
By whatever means

It is time for my
Untimely meditation
On medication

Do not grip tightly
Do not gripe despite lost life
Do not group—lose!—live!

Anthropocene blues
Got me and mine running round
In bloody circles

We can be heroes
But maybe should be pigeons
Sitting in puddles

Flaneur a la mode
Surely taking advantage
Of no sure vantage

Cross paths with yourself
At crossroads you recognize
Wherever you are

Death be my rooster
Ready to strut in the dawn
But willing to crow

You can seize the day
And make hay while the sun shines
And be a cliché

Rainy Chinatown
High noon and blade runner dreams
Of fried dumplings

Haiku my haiku
Are reasons to be grateful
For being nothing

Do you remember
Writing that thing I just read
Without getting it
To make sense of things
You need to know their language
Or redefine sense
As you seem to have
Your own language for things
Remembered or lost

Beast river fishing
Your life a way to be a
River fishing beast

Transport or transform
Now via tugboat, teacher,
Oija, I Ching, eye

More of this moment—
Please sir may I have some more—
This moment of more

Accordion fold
Attached to what it was then
To another what

Two nuns are talking
To the guy who sits with signs
There every day

It was not today
At least not up to this point
From which much might turn

Joining the haiku
Rewards program entitles
You to these rewards

I am watching you
And I am wanting you to
Be wasting this time

Moments of being
Are becoming history—
Your life will change you

And then there were none
And none proved good enough
For the time being

Where there was a wound
Is a sign of the struggle
To hold life in place

Purification
Comes at the expense of truth
Which wants to be free

As I live and breathe
I find myself in the air
Born water balloon

If you watch people
Do things you may find yourself
Doing your own thing

Back where it started
Someone found a trace of it
Without a label

Floating holiday
On what you might call Earth Day
If you were earthbound

Pirouetting man
Makes the park his pivot point—
He stops—it does not

Because we are here
Far from the end of a world
Unknown we live on

A dead composer
Decomposes while his work
Notes passage of time

Welcome to haiku!
Where three lines awaken dreams
Through sheer pull of will

This is good practice
For when life presents a bill:
Time to give it up

Riding the wrong way
Will get you down the right street
Or flat on the road

Facing the dumpster
One aims to become a saint
Of toys in landfills

Ferocious kind
Is an admirable goal
So be sweet with teeth

Those who don’t make it
To the end of the story
Are territory

I thought I had lost
My glasses but then I saw
I was wearing them

No consequences
For selling shit labelled fit
For being yourself

An empty office
Awaits an umpteenth return
Holding space in place

Saving paperbacks
From their fate worse than the rain 
Will not change the world

We were just going
To get there and turn around
So we spun right here

My eyes deceive me
As I perceive the sunrise
Under my covers

Making the coffee
Stronger will not save the world
But it can be done

I had a weird dream
That I went back to the womb
But the womb went home

Rather have someone
Lie to your face or die for
Your right to unmask

Half a peanut waits
On the steps for you to stop
Or the dustpan does

Seldom did a thing
Worth doing because someone
Told you to do so

A bird climbs into
A gash in the metal of
A Walk/Don’t Walk sign

Why am I being
Right here right now for no good
Reason not the need

Things you do not know
Can creep up and awaken
Your wish fulfillment

Changing your working
Can work wonders on your ways
If you can free them

Leave the plants to fate
For you cannot carry them
Wherever you go

Moving beyond reach
In a motion blur of still
Images of you

Leaner and Meaner
Took themselves to the cleaners—
Never returned

You do not get it
When the invitation comes
Then it gets to you

What you were given
Was not information but
Inner resources

If you can keep it
Together for however
Long the search might take

It was always thus
And to thus it shall return
And thus will remain

Live a life or time
Like a line elongated
Between ear and ear

Try to read and fall
Asleep in a mesh of words
Then fight your way out

So much happened
Surprisingly at the time
Then clear as church bells

You let them run you
Raggedly you emerged
From a wire forest

As permanent as
Anything is anything
And nothing can be

Dog does what dogs do
And if that mean dog bites you
A human did that

Evaluation
May be how you do yourself
In from the inside

Crisis what crisis
You may be asking yourself
Haiku what haiku

Swimming your way in
To both being in water
And being water

Taste retirement
And a foretaste of never
Forcing out small talk

Not as much a thing
To think as a thought to be
And being thought through

Good thing I like this
Place and the place it is in
Because they make me

How easy to walk
Away from yourself or not
Even have to move

When hit by a wave
Best to find yourself rolling
A rubber ball as
When loud sound starts and
Small birds gather their forces
For sweeter tweeting

Found it on the street—
Kept it at home for a while—
Heard it went back out

I sit in my chair
And read about Buddhism
As the sky changes
And the day stretches
As the days now do because
This is my work space

Vase in your window
Golden in someone’s morning
But what, whose, later

Someone situates
Knowing the situation
Can make one a home

Inside the machine
Parts may meet, match, mesh, and move
Until they do not

Somewhere a jockey
Has lost his favorite horse
Or the horse has won

On have a hat day
Your head hurts from trying on
Your not quite findings

It did not end well
But it never has nor will
It ever stop here

Watching changing light
Maybe letting it enter
What may be your place

Inexhaustible
Avenues, streets, alleyways
And corners, always

In some ways it is
An open door you look for
So you can close it

Clutching a dollar
While waiting for the seller
Of a dollar’s worth

Both sides of your mouth
And perhaps your other mouth
Tell more than you know

This is a short book
—No, wait, I mean a quick look
At a long strange trip

Haunting old houses
Was my preoccupation
But it too got old

To be near water
Is to encounter your nerves
As raw energy

Buying a respite
Can be like borrowing time 
You have to return

If life is fighting
For a chance to make it out
Life loses its sight

This motherfucker
Knows which way to keep going
And that is around

What preys on the mind
Goes around and comes around
Like a sniffing dog

Somewhere a jockey
Saddles a cowboy and rides
For both of their lives

Looking straight at me
A fish like a dog or child
With kindred spirit

If that is the plan
Then I am down with it, man—
If I will, I can

Laboratory
Of life is what you make it
Is where you take it

Dog crosses river
To find something or show no
Leash means no owner

To have lived here
Is to have known light changing
Place into places

To live in one spot
Is to stop seeing details
Distinguishing it,
To not be a part
Of that rushing or crushing
On the farthest edge

Giant weather storm
Is headed toward headache
Is aching to blow

Birds on parapets
Have positioned themselves
Equidistantly
Or have they been drawn
Like metal bits to magnets
Over distances

Morning light patches
Over tan bricks of the old
Art deco hotel
At which residents
Awaken into the light
Knowing past again

Your best year ever
May be right where you left it
Out of reckoning

You just lost your fin
Inside the maw of the shark
Which is more the tank

Did I ever say
Central Park is my backyard?
Yes, I told some trees

Typhoid Mary sat
At the smallpox hospital
Counting her blessings

Your best year ever
Could be the one where you love
Places you must leave

Your nonattachment 
Clings to you like a medal
Awarded for nought

With all due respect
To what awaits this phase is
Self-medicating

Work is being done
Everywhere you may look
And where you may not

Practice means process
(Neither stands in for perfect)
In search of project

Leave something behind
For someone not you to find
Not your peace of mind

It is news to me
And amusing it may be
To use what you see

A little Elvis
Can go a long way toward
Shaking up yourself

Your tragic worldview
May prevent you from seeing
Some inner turmoil

If that is not good
Enough then how do you know
What is good for you

Do not do dumb things
Is what that declaration
Kind of reminds me

It is hard to read
History in the making
So you need patience

There is nothing on
My phone more interesting
Than what else is there

Use all the crayons
In your box, and when it goes
Change your medium

A feeling of calm
Like pulling up the covers
To save a heat source

Wiggle me this way
And I will wake up smiling
A smile like the sun

In a place you were
You may find traces of you then
Lose the trail again

Damned if I know
Where the cloud bank breaks the day
Or the world differs

The less people know
Me the more they seem to like
This more or less me

You never know when
Inspiration will strike you
On the head, down, dead

If you could bottle
The majesty of right now
Would you dump it out
By your curtain time
Still not say your uncertain
Annunciation
When you fall in place
Maintaining handholds for a
Delicate balance
Is part of the sky
Becoming a reminder
Of what remains in
You and moving you
Retain what will continue
An unread statement

Take it for granted
That you can take whatever
Twisted route you get
Nothing much to do
About where you are being
Taken for a ride
Just to make a move
You could deposit yourself
In desolation
Or go through phases
Or let phases pass through you
Like phantom-limb pains
But meanwhile take this
As your due for being made
By plan or mistake

Big liquidator
Looks to perform its function
So you need to move
Things you will get to
May get through to you before
You have prepared
Or the way has been
Paved the way a forest
May carpet its floor
For paths not its own
Two, four, or more feet belong
Yet remain apart
From the oldest growth
Which stands while forms continue
Nonvestigial

Welcome to a place
Where all news is exciting
Exit is final
But a do-over
May let you through a doorway
To another state
That you may not know
How to extricate yourself
From in a moment
Of shock or panic
Or simply recognition
That you made the news
By leaving the place
And the state you inhabit
Fits like newborn skin

One dream races past
Faster than a video
Made by an eye-blink
Followed by one
The dreamer realizes
Is even smarter
Than the dreamer’s mind
When it thinks it is awake
It sinks in it is
Unmoored and can
Drift off around surroundings
Taking a last lap
Like a lost swimmer
About to run out of pool
But finding the sea

Never take the bait
But nod, smile, swim, eat, write, know
The perils you face

Right in the dust bin
Is where I expect to drop
Or the compost pit
Where I put my hand 
Out for a contribution
And find more options
Are deposited
Like opening my eyes wide
Makes items to see
And what things to think
Might come from an open mind
Like bugs from a ditch
Dug not just for you
But down the middle of you
In the place you make

Fuck this bucket list
Because the universe fits
No known container

When you reach a goal
You did not know existed
The game may play you

When you feed two beasts
One may be nothing or a
Negative number

I try not to think
I just thank a broken thing
I never knew whole

A different place
Circles back to your first place
And finds no one home

You are grasping it
Then risk loosening your grip
On a taut tether
To time and go down 
Like the garlic cloves in brine
Indefinitely

When the words add up
They do nothing but announce
This was what we did

Intuitively
You understand the landscape
Wherever you stand
Strangely enough
Surrounded by a howling
That never dies down

A sheltering sky
Taken off the line, folded
In squares, put away

A missing person
Thinks it is too late to think
Or rethink just steps away

In case of fire
They would go back to the earth
Wherever they stand;
In winter they drop
Branches and leaves to the floor
Because it is wood

Do not diarize
For lines in time become lures
And you are the fish

Little dog grips ball
In teeth not sharp for gritting
Or grinning sidewise

Object in motion
Tends toward you in motion—
You are the object

Object in motion
Tends toward you in motion—
You must change your life

Go manifesto:
The object in motion aims
To be or not to
Be there in spirit 
As some interesting shit
Tends to go for it

A place outside you
Like an igloo for storage—
Where are your snowshoes?

Morpheus puffs once
Scentlessly on both eyelids
Losing all sense of
Time of your choosing 
Refusing to settle down
To one stopped clock:
Moratorium
Spreads itself like a blanket
So over your head
Sensibility
Comes running up behind you
To deliver knocks

Ten reasons to love
Might start with what you carry
On to bring it on
To form what follows
From things you know will happen
To things you do not
Then decide one day
When to simply walk away
Is loosely to live

The little mermaid
In your pocket sings sweetly
As a siren sounds
On the road to hell
Paved with crap you make up
In the shape of you:
Lowest form of life
Like a flat thing that could be 
Floating and taken

Damn those cormorants
Dipping and masquerading
As loons in the drink

Disposable sky
Tosses itself and the world
Opens like a shell

Home is a fortress 
But its steel beams are wood bones
That move with the Earth

A braying jackass 
Mistakes sounds in its ears for
A superpower

Power by proxy 
Pulls its pull-toy, towing a
Barge full of garbage

Presiding spirit
Consumes change through change with a
Zero percent chance

Your first symphony
Flirting with cacophony 
Never committing

Lime in the gutter
What forces placed you there?
Now where will you roll?

Make the fountain work
Why don’t you try any way
To spray from inside

More than cynical
Seems an appropriate stance
So stand there being
Uncharitable 
Like broke, broken, comical
Royalty, your id
Or is it super
Ego charged, changed, by
Transmigration then
To love being here
Be fine with always leaving
Finally behind

What is this fluid
Time presents, pasts, futures, its
Constructing structure
As if time could act 
And if time would if it could
Build according to
The world’s view of
Works, plans, specifications
When instead it flows
While all of us lose
Our moorings or must loosen
Ties to what anchors

Who is a good dog
Depends on who is asking
What a wag is worth

A funny haiku
Takes itself seriously:
Obituary

A sleeping haiku
Wakes up to reality
Rewriting its lines

Unleashed haiku
Trots off, nosing like a dog’s
Unconditional
Love or surrender
To scents that drift, lift, linger
In lines light as air

Making peanut sauce
Focuses the universe
On twists of a whisk

Down you fall, nose first
And that strikes you as pretty
Much how all will go

Piloting your barge
From one spot in the river
To a passenger

One breeds another
In a partail trade-off
So Darwinian

Hosing down your life
Like it lies sidewalk flat as
Trickles take contours

More myth than legend
More amorphous than . . . something
More muth than wilder

Floating holidays
Weave carpets you ride in a
Psychedelic daze

A bear in a box
Knows nothing about the world
Which too is a box

The world takes you out
For a spin until the wheels
Flatten or fall off

Human expressions
Have been selected in dogs
Not Republicans

Slowly torn apart
May be the feeling but still
Keep absorbing shocks

It is good, they say
To imagine yourself old
But pick your best self

Hand a psychopath
Absolute immunity
And cross your fingers

A lone cheerleader
Is unaffiliated
Yet in uniform

Patience may pay off
With luck, but fuck, in the end
Peer pressure may win

Things you did not do
Things despite what you would like
Things to say you were

Taste of purity
Hits or seems to or hints at
Shape of perfection

Strong healing power
May seem an absolute good
But who might be hurt

Arbitrariness:
The universe does not care—
We put up with it

A swinging hammock
Enjoys the afternoon breeze
Or endures, strung up

Ready to grow fins
But not yet considering
All-important gills

A duck on a dock
Sits flat, world contemplating
Then stands to plunge in

At dusk bugs arrive
And it is time to move on
Or become dinner

Gin-soaked olive
Or chilled chunk of mango—
Back of throat exults

Your ukulele 
Is the last thing I want to
Hear on my deathbed

Mentally ill man
Makes himself Y on concrete
And walkers make Z

When a place has gone
But remains in memory
Please let it go on

Roads get repaved
And that work counts for something
Though no reforest

The Chrysler Building
Glistening at 6 p.m.
In a hot July

Humanity does
Not deserve democracy
Or any planet

Joe Biden bought us
Four years of respite from grief—
Close but no relief

Why would you want to
Survive in a fallen world
And not just transform?
The artist June Leaf
Transformed materials
Unfashionable
Then at 94
Transformed her components
Into universe
Since the deal always
Was working for the moment
To wipe it away

How can you feel good
When so many barbs surround
Any path you tread?
You are meant to be
Here, heading down this staircase
Of patterned tile

Modigliani 
Could not have made a better
Or more fitting nose

A Ukrainian
Writer, before his murder,
Buried his book
But it was dug up
And published, so his words
May outlast the war

Sacrificing time
If it is time, nothing more,
May be forgiven
If you find yourself
Suddenly back to normal
So the job is done . . .
But is that cryptic?
Very well, it is cryptic—
Call it all-purpose
When it comes to time
And time comes to sacrifice
So you can get back

Row row row your boat
Kid keeps singing at your pool
Row row row your boat

A flat pigeon suns
On the thin metal edge
Of a fire escape

Tending your garden
To green the window and clean
The avenue air

T-shirt, shorts, sneakers,
Pen, paper, water bottle,
Money, sunglasses

If you play your cards
You may find yourself face up
Kissing the dealer

You can barely see
But the spectacle near you
Will announce itself

This is a good groove—
One you can surely approve
With one simple move

There is a samba
Version of a pop-rock hit
That is so not it

Bottomless bottle
Of something you could swim in
But swallow instead

Apocalyptic
Rain, prepared piano,
Downward-facing dog:
Call that a haiku
If you will, because you have
Lovingly strung things

All of them are lost
In a flow and cannot tell
Fish nests from fish nets

You get out of bed
As mist shifting, sun coming
Up behind mountains

Mutability:
Where birds fly, perch, and flutter
To Johnny Mathis

A silent goodbye
A lazy Lazarus gone
A solo journey
A calming spirit
A presence almost absence
A nonmourning dove
A sunny Sunday
A turning from belonging
A cloud formation:
Blue sky underlies
Morning’s glowing opaqueness—
Growing awareness:
Storm curtains the north
End of Lake George, then travels
South to shower through
This sky or that sky—
A nice day, a good person
A best way to be

Continuity
May not be who remains but
What sticks in the brain
Like things you have seen
And cannot articulate
Or may not discuss

Gut renovating
Decisions made by the gut
For and of the gut

Houses up, trees down
Is the way of the human
World being unmade

“We make garbage and
Work in pain.” —Uruguayan
José Mujica

The clock is ticking
But the king does not hear it
As he counts his coins

This too is a phase
Where you drive to a still place
That of(f) course will go

“His whole life was bars
And we had to let him go.”
“His whole life was bars . . .”

Points of light travel
Across the Queensboro Bridge
Coming back to you?

Corral and cajole
But plastic is gonna break
And you need to deal
With cracks and slivers
In the surface and below
What you can handle

Excruciating
Awareness of finitude
When the engine starts

Exegetical
Impulses straining toward
Opportunities

Still, would you say what
A world keeps clamoring for
When you want quiet

Whomever you love
Or whether you feel you feel
Carefully pull strings

You go back and forth
Over ground markless until
It is time to go

One too many ghosts
In the very thought of you
Or where that thought lives
Tells you to pack up
Any burdens remaining
From your last bundle

In a Petri dish
They made the monster from cells
Handed like candy

Where do mountains go
When they need to get away
From seeing it all

We may become saints
When we die and then arise
In sky-seeking eyes

Time to say so long
Which is about the amount
You have been around

I am an old dog
And they took away my teeth
But I try to smile

At least I am here
Mostly remaining in place
But this place is nice

Strip to my Band-Aid
And dance to a wounded sound
That is going around

Things I cannot say to you

Be on vacation
Somewhat artificial
Need to be nowhere

What struck me as odd
Was what striving stuck with you:
Purification

The hunger artist
Finds what he was thirsting for
And pours it away

What to think about
Makes itself perfectly clear
In the dark at night

Ukraine is the world
In miniature: mori
Minus memento

As arrogant as
The truly ignorant thought
Of competition

You take a moment
To straighten a small item
That takes a moment

A numbness sets in
That resembles tingling arms
But without the arms

Crisis continues
Because haiku keep coming
From out of this mess
Where nothing is left
But then when was there something
Real to hang onto

Blessed are the mice
Who stare at the cheese and think
The trap will not shut

We wait for rain but
What if it never arrives?
What if it hates us?

When you hold yourself
Back from plunging in the deep
What sits on the shore