Dappled Trail Haiku

dappled trail ...

alone with the rise and fall

of birdsong

Kokako, 44, 2026

Granite Skies Haiku

granite skies

the burden of this grief

unknown

Kokako, 44, 2026

First Summer Rain Tanka

(

"Israel's oldest daily, Haaretz," which was was sanctioned by the Israeli government on Nov. 24, 2024

Daniel Blatman, Opinion, August 24, 2026: From Armenia to Gaza: The Language of Denial That Makes Atrocities Possible

From Nazi 'language rules' to the American military's 'collateral damage' and Israel's 'voluntary migration' policy for Gaza, euphemisms do more than conceal crimes. They allow ordinary people to live with them

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCCV: "headlines"

headline after headline

of situation, event

and incident ...

body parts on the blood-stained floor

of a half-flattened classroom

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCCVI: "neu-tra-li-za-tion"

neu-tra-li-za-tion

a new recruit mouths

with a middle finger —

a gray-haired Gazan's back

pockmarked with bullets

FYI: Below is a relevant excerpt:

In 1947, two years after the collapse of the regime that had threatened his life, the German Jewish philologist Victor Klemperer published a short book titled "The Language of the Third Reich" ("Lingua Tertii Imperii"). Klemperer, who escaped extermination because he was married to a non-Jewish woman, did not write about extermination camps or SS death squads. He wrote about words.

Nazism, he argued, penetrated society not only through speeches and posters in the streets, but primarily through expressions that people unwittingly internalized, like tiny doses of poison entering the bloodstream. Individual words, expressions and syntactic patterns were imposed on the masses through millions of repetitions, then adopted mechanically and unconsciously. The poison, he wrote, does not act immediately. It accumulates....

The Israeli media now has a complete, efficient and polished lexicon designed to implant euphemistic descriptions of the state's crimes in the minds of Israelis. Mass killing in Gaza falls under the heading of "operational activity." The destruction of entire neighborhoods becomes "mowing the lawn" or "flattening," images borrowed from gardening and construction. A targeted airstrike that kills dozens of innocent people is described as a "thwarting" or "neutralization," terms from the world of intelligence that imply the prevention of some greater evil. An area that continues to be bombed, such as Al-Mawasi in southern Gaza, is called a "humanitarian zone." And when it becomes clear that uninvolved civilians, including children, have been killed, passive formulations take over: "were killed during an operation," "lost their lives," "fatalities were reported." ...

This is precisely what the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu meant by "symbolic violence." It is not a lie that someone decided to sell or an instruction handed down from above, but a set of categories of thought internalized so deeply that both the person doing the classifying and the person being classified accept them as natural. A news editor who writes "hikers" or "terrorists" does not feel that they are choosing a word. They feel that they are describing reality. That is the power of symbolic violence. It requires no administrative enforcement because it is already embedded in our vocabulary.

)

a child's hand 

outside the car window

to touch

the first summer rain ...

bumper to bumper to Exit

NeverEnding Story, August 23 2026

Added:

a midnight moon

glints in the skylight

turning once more

I listen to her breathing

as the night stretches on

Added:

packing

and unpacking my suitcases

for three hours —

this life without my love

yet still within my love

Added:

we all move on

then the story carries us —

still I stand still

at the bend of her street

hearing her door close

Added:

home from vacation

it takes three moonless nights

for my heart and mind

to adjust to living

in a room of my echoes

Another New Day Tanka

the sound

of yellowing birch leaves

zigzagging ...

alone again, yet

another new day

Time Haiku, 65, 2026

Pulses Tanka

moonlight

dripping from icicles

in pulses

this silence echoes

weeks without you

Time Haiku, 65, 2026

Old Farmer's Stare Haiku

old farmer’s stare 

dawn fades into the flight

of ravens

Time Haiku, 65, 2026

Hazy Crescent Haiku

hazy crescent ...

the trace of what I was

(is this all)

Time Haiku, 65, 2026

Glasswing Butterfly Haiku

after Ecclesiastes 1:9

glasswing butterfly

in morning sunshine

anything new?

NeverEnding Story, August 19 2026

FYI: Ecclesiastes 1:9 (New International Version)

What has been will be again,

what has been done will be done again;

there is nothing new under the sun

The haiku does not explain Ecclesiastes 1:9; it re-enacts its paradox in miniature. Ecclesiastes offers a pronouncement; the haiku offers a question. The former declares that there is nothing new under the sun, while the latter allows the reader to experience the tension between apparent novelty and inevitable recurrence. The philosophical conclusion is therefore left unstated... For more detailed comments, see "Reading More and Writing Better: Anything New? Haiku"

First Morning Sun Gembun

awake alone to the year’s first morning sun. 

in the mirror 

this familiar stranger … 

a burst of birdsong

The Bougainvillea Journal, 1, 2026

Dayandnightmare

Trump Empire, Inc.: C

a senryu-inflected, visual haibun

A red brick wall fills my field of vision; its perimeters are out of sight.

MAGAMAGA

echoingback

MAGAMAGA

NeverEnding Story, August 17 2026

Added:

The Sound of Absence 

a senryu-inflected, visual haibun

Bedroom door slammed shut, I'm left to my own devices.

finger scrolling

OnlyFansSexTubePornDude ...

one stray outbarks the rest

Added:

the moan of a dove ...

my wife replies, I fake it

until you make it

Added:

one more blue pill --

in slanted moonlight my wife 

on top of me

Added:

close to urinals

close to civilization

drip, drip, drip ...

Added:

                  my

              blind

              date 

new snow on old snow

               top

               of 

               me

Maple Leaf Flag Tanka

the Maple Leaf

flaps in drifting snowfalkes  ...

a hyphen

before "Canadian"

joins my two halves

The Bougainvillea Journal, 1, 2026

Summer Grass Haiku

summer grass

on both sides of the border

rusted helmets

Highly Commended, Wales Haiku Journal Summer Competition 2026

FYI: For a detailed analysis of this "structurally allusive" haiku (in relation to Basho's), see Poetic Musings: Summer Grass Haiku

summer grass

all that remains

of warriors’ dreams

Matsuo Bashō,  written at the Hiraizumi battlefield in 1689

Old Grief Haiku

lone beach stroll

wave after wave 

of old grief 

The Bougainvillea Journal, 1, 2026

Bruise-toned Night Haiku

bruise-toned night 

things she remembers 

things she doesn't 

The Bougainvillea Journal, 1, 2026

Aftermath Kyoka

Politics of Distraction, XXI

aftermath ...

questions amid camera clicks

before Trump

yet the lingering smell

from this catering truck

NeverEnding Story, August 12 2026

Added:

my face lit 

by the glare of a screen ...

no words come 

except a murmur:

a dreamer, not yet a poet

Added:

A cup of cold coffee holds a skin of dust.

blinking cursor ...

the silence between me

and a word to come

Hum of Summer Clouds Haiku

rippling sunshine

a hum of summer clouds 

in the mountain stream

NeverEnding Story, August 11 2026

FYI: It might be interesting to do a comparison reading of my haiku below:

the sky dappled

with cotton candy clouds ...

summer fair

Autumn Moon Haiku Journal, 6:2, Spring/Summer 2023

And 

summer mind

I hum along

with the meadow

Frogpond, 49:1, 2026

Shawn Blair

Added:

a loon call

held by the mountain lake

summer moonlight

Added:

predawn darkness

the silence between me

and a world to come

Added:

For Sale askew

a porch dreamcatcher

gathers dust

Added:

waiting room smell

patch by patch summer sunlight

slips out of the door

Added:

love affair

the dappled trail widens

into a road

Forest Bathing Trail Haiku

forest bathing trail ...

the scent of dappled sunlight

and birdsong

Cafe Haiku, April 27 2026

Great Blue Heron Haiku

lone great blue heron

crack after crack splitting

the frozen river

Cafe Haiku, April 27 2026

Lone Bear Haiku

a lone bear

wind-sculpted ice cliff

in twilight

Cafe Haiku, April 27 2026

Seaside Train Trip Tanka

seaside train trip

to my childhood hometown

with eyes closed

and the window ajar

I breathe in, and breathe out ... 

Laurels, 5, 2026