The hardware clerk said,
"Oh, i just sold the last roll!"
with mock dejection,
when asked for duct tape
that would prevent lips of power
from speaking lies and
stop ears of meek ones
from hearing them and children
from seeing them. No
amount of irony
helps heal understanding's lack.
The project remains
sticky. So, i buy the monkey wrench
statue banning evil by ignorance instead.
October 7, 2024
I have no idea if this form has already been invented, however, my proposal is that a new hybrid form called the Haikusanette (Hi-koo-sonn-ett) be practiced. The form is this: Four Haikus followed by a two-line Koan. The idea is to combine the best parts of the Elizabethan sonnet and the Haiku. Please note instead of using a couplet to tie the poem up in a kind of textual bow as Sonnets often do, the Koan opens the package to reveal a paradox upon which to meditate after the poem is over.
Here is my first attempt at a Haikusanette:
A tree falls without
witness and i pretend to
care until i'm caught
etching my love for
you in its bark. i try to
claim ignorance, but
everyone knows.
And meanwhile i dissemble
with sappy knife in
hand: "But love heals sin,
right? Besides the tree was dead"
And your reply:
"A simple 'I love you,' would have been fine."
Can i get a witness of thought, word, and deed?
Tootle on (Click link to tootle vigorously)
Tootle on, you turtle you, you Horseshoe Crab, Waltz on, please do.
Tootle through the eons do, oh tootle, tootle on.
Tootle on and vigorously, be of that mind and tootle to
the beat of your eternal toot oh tootle, tootle on.
When you were one, you tootled fair.
You Tootled here you tootled there.
So tootle now with all you are heart oh tootle, tootle on.
Tootle on, you myrtle you, you Maple Tree, Inhale we you.
Tootle through the eons do, oh tootle, tootle on.
Tootle on and vigorously, be of that mind and tootle to
the beat of your eternal toot oh tootle, tootle on.
In Nashville just before dawn the not-so far off train
Whistles while it works, while i lie in bed
and wonder as many likely do: why does it sound again
and again, every morning, in this way? What is ahead
that it tries to warn? Perhaps a deer or moose
who daily mistakes its call for a mate long gone
from the one time the conductor, in the caboose,
forgot to call to remind the engineer on the phone,
By joking, "Dinah, won't you blow your horn?"
And the result was a sad loss of wildlife.
Straying from a field of summer corn
just long enough to get crossed out in strife
in the single headlight, frozen for all time.
My thoughts break at the alarm's chime.
Agape.
I remember
No recipe.
Mass produced
And still
My first experience of Christ
May have come
On a plate
After Kindergarten
In the Kitchen:
Tomato Soup
Celery
Peanut Butter and Jelly,
Wonder,
And Bread.
"Tell me the story again, Mom."
