a hitchhikers guide to haibun

ok. you have been reading haibun. i know because you are reading this one. magic eh. simply put there is a title that adds nothing until you get to the end. some prose that often is disguised as poetry. and then a wonderful haiku or senryu that either ties the whole of it together of just blows your mind. there you know all i know.

imagining
my death
choking on an apple

mysterious fog

fog is often discussed by poets as obscuring the view. but what i enjoy is what is reveals. if you understand fog you realize that what you cant see is still right there in front of you. fog demonstrates the real nature of existence. we see the stars in the sky. but we see almost nothing of them. as the poet archibald macleish penned in his play jb. are those the staring stars i see or only lights not meant for me. indeed it seems to me that what i cant see are the things that make life worth living. what is friendship if not a fog we cast over a relationship. it is the bond that allows us to overlook the ‘defects’ in the ‘others’ in our lives. i thank god for fog. all the good things in my life spring from it. join me in it will you…

i find more
and put my hand through it
fog

slippin into darkness

the big dipper is caught in the oak tree at the end of my driveway. no matter what happens i have the milky way to keep my soul from shrinking.

at a meeting
of free thinkers…
everyone talks at once

gonna blow a fifty amp fuse

there was a time when i thought leon trotsky was right as rain. we had an a&p store a couple blocks from my apartment and we went down to break out the windows once a week. as a first step we thought toward the revolution. it was a small store and the only one in the area for fresh fruit and pasta. two old italian ladies in the neighborhood caught us one night. they gave us a ration of shit for fucking with the only store they had nearby that carried all the old canned tomatoes and cheeses they needed. we explained that a&p was owned by huntington hartford and he supported nixon and the war. they seemed unconvinced but did not call the cops just told us never to do it again. our crew of revolutionists slunk away from those old ladies like a cat that just knocked over the vase. after that i hung out with mellow souls and became convinced it was better to be a peace loving freak instead.

slipshod
but still holding out the cold
the ill fitting door

a couple of years later i told the story to a friend. she slapped me hard on the head. it was sudden and i was taken totally by surprise. that is when she explained that huntington hartford did not own a&p for over a decade and he did not support nixon in sixty eight either and was no fan of the war. i had wasted my rage and soundly defeated some store windows that were not at war with anyone.

echoes
off empty walls
footsteps from the past