favourite*

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Haiku New Zealand asked me a while back to write up a list of my favorite haiku for their web site, which I agreed to do even though I thought it would be very hard. I was wrong. I won’t say any more about that because I say it over at Haiku New Zealand, so check it out.

So now I’m curious about what other people’s favorite haiku are. Do you have any? Do you think it would be hard to decide on some? What do you think of my choices? What are you having for lunch? Comment below.

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*One of my favorite things about this entire project was having my bland American spelling of “favorite” corrected to make it more New Zealand-y.

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desktop

123/6

.

.

worshipping

graven
images

in a hall
of
mirrors

.

crepuscular

your
invisibility

continues to
betray
you
.

midwinter

snow
blindness

prevents me
from reading
my tombstone

.

.

(intra)

.
.

intravenously she must have asked for it

.

born

broken
the shell

of her
only
egg

.

wherever he’s inserted entropy
.

.

(static)

.

.

static; interference; trying; to; tell; you

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(Bones 1)

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This haiku was born out of sheer cussedness. I got irritated with everyone saying it wasn’t a good idea to put semicolons in haiku. I got irritated with everyone being down on semicolons in general. What does everyone know, anyway? I decided to write a bunch of haiku with semicolons in them and make everyone admit how great they were.

It turns out that the reason everyone says it’s a bad idea to put semicolons in haiku is that it really doesn’t usually work well at all to put semicolons in haiku. So my defiant experiment was largely a failure. Except for this one. I kind of like this one. And it has five semicolons in it. In case you hadn’t counted.

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(they say)

123/5

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solstice

light
therapy

challenges
me
to a duel

.

offering

oranges
to a god

who doesn’t
believe
in citrus

.

January

nothing
but ice

and a newly
sharpened
knife

.

123/4

.
still

inside
me

unified
field
theory

.

housebound

every
door

just
another
opening

.

rosebush

attenuated
women

discuss
their favorite
thorns

.

sounded

.

pack of condoms carbon nanotubes bobblehead

 

. 

spackled drift of feathers hefty toppling of rafters

 

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flat white Cheshire cat half measures

.

123/3

.

driving

away from
the fire

with an
unknown
name

.

skipping

a winter
or two

before
the end
of the world

.

random

access
memory

I find
more fog
to take your place

.

the moon / on the breast / of the new-fallen snow

.
.

fractions
apparently the moon
wasn’t enough

.

transit of Venus
I’m not the sign
you wanted

.

snowfall
one more way
to be silent
.

.

123/2

.

assessing

the innocence
of vines

she hangs
another bag
of IV fluid

.

galoshes

no one
complains about

the crystalline
structure
of dirt

.

appreciation

for an abbreviated
life

I iron
wrinkles
into shot silk

.

one, two, three

.

heartworm

internally
speaking

I’ve almost
arrived
at your eyes

.

instructions

for dancing
in circles

the smoke
disappears
into clouds

.

famous

for shouting
loudly

the birds
vanish
when called

.

(second snow)

.

second snow
an angry wound
next to the scar

.

(tallying)

.

Christmas night
tallying the contents
of empty boxes

.

the sun stands still

.
unzipping files
the dark larger
inside than out
.

Presence 47

.

 

(gunshot)

.

summer night
a gunshot
interrupts the heat

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Presence 47

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I grew up in Connecticut, which is a very small state. No place in Connecticut is more than a couple of hours away from anyplace else. I lived about forty-five minutes from Newtown. It was down the road. Every place in Connecticut is down the road from everyplace else. Most of Connecticut is a patchwork of small towns more or less like Newtown, all butting comfortably up against each other, breathing each other’s air, gossiping comfortably about each other. The towns are all old and comfortable in their own skin. They’re real places, not in-between places; organic places, not manufactured places. I was a child in one of those towns. I’ve never felt so safe since.

halfway through Advent
the latest explanation
for evil

.

.

first snow

.

winter darkness
a load-bearing wall
collapses

.

deep winter
they compare the size
of their rifles

.

(winter darkness, Modern Haiku 43.3; deep winter, A Hundred Gourds 1.4)

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(beating back)

.

beating back god every morning a new forest fire

.

thistledown as far as light can bend

.

every windfall a different frequency into the night

.

nomines

.

moon glass
harbor milk chair
nail boat

.

.

wall moth letter pine screw eye compass

.

.

cup
board
hand clock
seed ash shell

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