#12

Commute

the wind barrels down
burnt, hibernating fields-
skeletons rattle.

I Missed a Few Days

I've missed a few days I know. Being deathly ill does not put me in the mood to write haikus. The experiment is not over, though. I am pressing on.

#11

the asphalt shimmers,
wet from unexpected snow-
winter comes in waves.

#10

modern pioneer-
intrepid, you walk to the interstate
          followed by a cur.

#9

a drive down blacked out
     streets for shakes at midnight-
let there be light.

#8

james brown shouts
   through a speaker at my son-
the tub is full of soul.

#7

dead tree forest
   on a vacant lot prairie-
where are your leaves, old men?

#6

morning fog creeps
   to my awoken window-
the elegy writes itself.

#5

union pacific
snakes toward St. Louis,
each car a canvas.

#4

Sycamore

white fingers reach out
to the cloud blanket overhead
the torso to the earth beneath

#3

old man raking leaves
for him, autumn comes quickly-
soon it will be me

#2

red flash flutters down
her sisters cover the ground-
storm drains eat them whole

#1

sock feet on hard wood
unseen giggle from kitchen-
toothless grin of joy

A Poetry Experiment

     I am ridiculously busy right now. I am a full-time student at a university. I work when I am not at school. In between these two endeavors, I am trying to be a good husband and father.I feel as if I am being pulled in a thousand different directions. I used to be a contemplative person, but now I go through life on autopilot for the most part. I do not live an examined life.
So, I'm going to start a blog. I have had this desire for a while, but I wasn't sure what I would right about. That is until my birthday came around. I turned twenty-five two days ago. I'll be honest, it bothered me a bit. The whole quarter-of-a-century thing. Someone said to me, "You know, if you live to be seventy-five, a third of your life is over." True, but depressing. This is beside the point. On my birthday, I composed a haiku, seventeen syllables to express my feelings about the day of my birth. It was cheesy and not very good. But I had a thought-What if I did this everyday, just seventeen syllables of poetic expression everyday.
     So, that is what I am going to do. Write a haiku everyday. I chose haiku as a form because it is simple and straightforward. My daily life feels as if it has unending stanzas, weighed down with extended metaphors and over-bearing symbolism. Haiku reveals only the essence of a moment. It is the poetic form that is most like the life I want. I want to live for the moment, not worrying about the next five to ten years, just the next five to ten minutes. So, seventeen syllable life, here I come.