Haiku 112909*

a mink stole
a lambskin jacket
thanksgiving guests






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*For One Single Impression, Prompt 92: Migration (From one habitat to another, from one state of being to another...)

Haiku 112709

frosty grass
fellow riders avoid
her cold eyes

Haiku 112509

heavy downpour
the downtown skyline
melting

Haiku 112309

autumn storm
the fifth symphony
on FM





First posted in The Four Seasons of Haiku

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Recently, we read the following headline: "In Germany, an ode to joy"

Haiku 112109

morning coffee
her autumn breath joins
rising fog





First posted in The Four Seasons of Haiku

Haiku 111909

children's games
autumn moon seeking
cloud cover

Haiku 111709

wet leaves
bend uncut grass
sacked QB

Haiku 111509

taps*
as she lays her rose
a sigh





*A tune performed with a bugle to signal lights-out; also performed in military funerals
Edited; original first posted in The Four Seasons of Haiku











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Recently, we read the following headline: "Tearful Oprah announces end to iconic talk show"

Haiku 111309

this old man
misses the rustling leaves
leaf blower

Haiku 111109

both curbs lined
with bagfuls of leaves
mass offering

Haiku 110909

fall collection
honor guards unload
caskets






For One Single Impression, Prompt 89: Departed

Haiku 110709

campfire tales
hunter's moon crossing
our lake






For One Single Impression, Prompt 88: Shift in Time

Purpose served*

I imagine –

1.
Down the hill
the brush caressed his crumpled body
a human rights warrior
bearing badges of defiance
now crusty claret.

Manny lay cold and spent
like a hammer in a corner
of the smithy’s dirt floor
rusting, unnoticed.

In quiet confidence, he had forged
other dreamers in his ways--
scores of cadres to help frame
an unfettered future
then, still in his mind’s eye
and in others’, too.

This hammer had served faithfully.

2.
Before, a hammer--now, rusting iron.
It returns to the earth in its new state
like fallen leaves and wilted flowers
and people’s tears--
its purpose served.

"Death is simply another state.
Each people’s worker is part of a dialectic. "
Manny’s death merely transformed one part
and created a new, more discerning unity.

The warrior had lived his poem,
the poet had lived his war.

Though stilled, he is still of the species.
His thoughts and words and works
resonate in the lives of people
around whom he wrapped his heart.
They're also spawning new dreamers.

3.
Fellow travelers are grasping and defending--
and improving on--his life and their own
as men and Man.
Deeded now to the owners of surplus labour
the Worker, reaching some critical mass
will be principal in the spring.

The principal of the future
in time will free the birds of peace
and freedom.
And, I imagine, Manny’s eyes--
glasses off--will be smiling then.





*Chapter 9, Fractured Memories

[In memory of Emmanuel “Manny” Yap who disappeared in the 70s during the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines; November 5 is his birthday]

Haiku 110309

the full moon
framing bare treetops
church icons

Haiku 110109

receding sea
a crab creeps up
the sand castle