April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XXX

Brush of fine gray hairs

Marking time in tiny lines,

My face, your parchment:

Dig not deep thereon.

Write "mirth" instead, and "grace,"

"Welcome," and last, "peace."

April that was here

Now shall pass into a May;

All shall pass in time.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle)" XXIX

If there come a day
When I can no longer speak,
Read to me, instead.

Tell me what you know
Of yourself, of me, of us;
Talk about the world

And how it has changed
For the better, where you are.
Be my voice for me.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XXVIII

The day's fine and hot,
And the reservoir is full.
Geese stand by the lake.


Centuries away, 
There's a different kind of
Connectivity.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XXVII

Blown dust veils views of
Whitecaps on the Silver Lake.
Strange, hot winds breathe, "Change…!"

And mile-high mountains
Are completely hidden in cloud,
Unfamiliar.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XXVI

Voluptuary

April's in love with itself,

Pollinating all.


Such a narcissist!
Frolicking with bumble bees—
Trollop in the raw.

Samantha Gluck, Collaboratrix Extraordinaire, was in the spirit, and gave us a second stanza! Poetry party! 

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XXV Middle School Guest Poets!

Photo Credit: National Geographic

Guest Poets, also Ghost Poets!

I heart Katy Hickman, who teaches middle school downstairs from me. Her students dash off haiku with, well, dash, and she's letting me share a few with you. But we're not telling who did what…

Lizards live on trees.

Certain lizards camouflage;

I wish I could, too.

What's analogy?

Comparing with something else—

That is the meaning.

Why have slavery?

No one should suffer that way—

We are all humans.

Live in the moment

Don't mind what the people say

You only live once

I will not divulge

my bizarre desire to sing!

I guess I just did…

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XXIV

Image: National Geographic

Delicate and bold,

April's hummingbird arrives,

Visits the flow'rs.

Quixotic, sublime,

Masculine, he is much like

Someone I once knew.

"You were fun at first:
Lots of laughs, cute debates, but
Now I'm bored with you."

All those things he said,
sharply focused, pierced my heart,
needlelike, precise.

He loved me the best
that he could, but the truth is:
he never knew me.

For L.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XXIII

Whence unpromised rain?
April has dyspepsia, 
A gripe in the heart.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XXII

Earth Day

Early morning songs

announce the joy of young birds

in green trees, blue skies.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XXI

That April night, when 

My life was about to change,

I never knew it.

I thought to myself:

What would I do without you?

I could not go on.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XX - Tanka

We enter this life

with nothing, and have to give

what we've been given,

so in sharing of ourselves

this tired world creeps heavenward.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XIX

Tiger in April

Your prowl: strategic. Your words:

Insinuating.

There in the long grass

you couch in mock repose, eyes

upon your quarry.

You tell me you have

no ulterior motive;

what should I believe?

April Fool! [not] (a "haiku" cycle): XVIII

Apostrophe: cinquain, American style

Fly, black

and fizzing here

and there, harrassing my

hard-earned, longed-for lunchtime quiet:

buzz off!

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XVII

   Violets are gone.

Roses are coming on, and      

     Gophers in the lawn. 

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XVI

She has no conscience.

April never held her tongue

out of mere kindness.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XV

Candlelight, moonlight,

Filtering through the still leaves,

Make me feel at home.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XIV

Out in center field:
The start of a good season.
Crowds cheer, "M! V! P!"

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XIII

Is there half a moon?

Clouds cover all the sky—not

Possible to know.

Farmers' Almanac

Says it will be like this for 

Almost the whole month.

April is supposed

To bring us cherry blossoms.

Instead, it brought pits.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XII

Midway through April,
Joy in spring yields to fatigue.
Blossoms fade and fall.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): XI

The sun goes down on
another warm April street.
There, a man walking.

Tiny in his hands
An infant, only weeks old,
Pressed against his chest.

His attentive mien 
Reminds me of the seahorse,
patron of fathers. 

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): X

The sun's coming up
On a new day. It’s April.
Still I haven’t slept.

"Can writing provoke
An existential crisis?"
Not now—I'm brooding!

April Fool—No April Fool! Guest Post Instead!

War on Silence 

by Iain, known as Beowulfsson


Today, O Silence, I make war on thee.
Here and now, I declare my sovereignty.
Your power is broken over me.

Today I stand strong, tall and proud
Before the hushed and awestruck crowd.
Today I shall strike you down.
Today I will take your crown.

Today you will fall at my feet.
Today I take your royal seat.
“Who will stand with me?"
"Who will open his eyes and see,
Silence has no power o’er thee?”

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): IX

Prosody: One Reason


A prism casts rainbows:

Its obliquity serves the

Peripheral view.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): VIII

I wonder, doctor,
If the fact you have not called
Is good news, or bad?


"Not so good," she says.
"The specter of recurrence
Has assumed your form."


This is a fiction
Concocted in anxious thoughts,
Not reality.


A lab test assures
My own resurrection day,
Remission of fear.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): VII

I am number five
I came up lame in the sixth
Half furlong to go.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): VI

Nights are chill, days, hot,

With summer still three months away.

We live chaparral.

The songs of the hawk,

Owl, mockingbird, and blue jay:

They are at home here.

Witch hazel and sage,

Coast live oak and sycamore,

Mesquite and madrone

Tinge the air with spice,

Both wake and calm the senses.

We breathe chaparral.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): V

Netflix for April.
Did I really blow this month
On Dodgers tickets?

But there are movies
I might like to see! Maybe 
The Boy will take me…

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): IV

In like a lion.

Then wind, rain, and haunting fog

Go out like a lamb.

March played false with me.

Though these winds may disappoint,

Why should I say so?

I am brusque with you.

Wild weather inside haunts me,

Not your deserving.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): III

April's on the edge
of laughter, tears, and singing—
any moment now.


Sky so blue it dives
deep into your chest, expands,
leaves shimmer behind.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): II

Do fields look fallow

Under the early spring sun?

Still they will grow green.

Out in the garden

The roses look like dead sticks;

Bloom will come again.

April Fool (a "haiku" cycle): I

haikummings


a lass:i me ill-

imitable april dreams

exact moons in mirrors!

 i became infected with an e. e. cummings virus of some kind several years ago. the words exact, april, moons, mirrors and dreams figure prominently in his pieces. reading as much of cummings's work as i did taught me something about the usefulness of grammar, punctuation, and multiple word-meanings in expressing very challenging or intimate ideas. my piece may be read seriously or slyly, ad libitum.