Thursday, November 7, 2013

the suburbs 
turn purple
- jacarandas

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Here among the thirty thousand days 
of a long life, 
a single day stands still.
-Donald Hall

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Senryu

Like dew drops
on a lotus leaf
I vanish.

-Senryu, 1826

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Ryokan

This world
a fading mountain echo
void and unreal.

-Ryokan

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Borges

Is there or not
the dream I forgot
before dawn.

- Jorge Luis Borges

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Buson

one line of wild geese -
stamps the moon
on the mountain’s edge
- Buson

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

What makes good art

Talent’s just an instrument. It’s like having a pen that works instead of one that doesn’t. I’m not saying I’m able to work consistently out of the premise, but it seems like the big distinction between good art and so-so art lies somewhere in the art’s heart’s purpose, the agenda of the consciousness behind the text. It’s got something to do with love. With having the discipline to talk out of the part of yourself that can love instead of the part that just wants to be loved. I know this doesn’t sound hip at all.
- David Foster Wallace

Togyo

When autumn winds blow
not one leaf remains
the way it was.
- Togyo

Monday, March 18, 2013

Yosa Buson

Coolness,
the sound of the bell,
as it leaves the bell.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Besieged without warning.
I surrender without a fight
- rain in the deep of night

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Kerouac

Bach through an open
dawn window —
the birds are silent

Jack Kerouac, “Book of Haikus”

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

The frog's call sounds like
hard river stones struck together
in the soft water.
Alarm going off somewhere.
What world have I broken into,
at this ungodly hour?

Basho

Winter solitude—
in a world of one color
the sound of wind.

-Basho

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Chosu


Broken and broken
again on the sea,
the moon so easily mends
—Chosu

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

The Two Cosmoses

Everything that is out there is also within. One might say there is a cosmos without and a cosmos within. In the haiku moment they are drawn together as one, each and every time. And, over time, the distinction becomes less and less. What a great gift is this grace we call haiku. Do accept it.