A loneliness business, and yet...

"Rage, rage against the birthing of this darkness of gaslit words..." I stop mid-sentence. The words harden on the screen. I let them sit while the night presses closer.

midnight moon

in snow-shrouded silence

the sound of keystrokes

I hit delete and take a deep breath. I remind myself that belief—not certainty, but something felt rather than known—starts a poem. I lean into the weight of this thought and push return.

paperwhite dawn

a robin's song in and out

of my writer's block

Contemporary Haibun Online 22:1, April 2026

Ceasefire: You Cease, I Fire

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCXCIX: "Ceasefire: You Cease, I Fire"

Ceasefire: You Cease, I Fire

Boom, boom, boom ... trailed by intermittent night-piercing screams, near and far. 

an armless boy's stare

midnight lightning links Heaven 

and smoky ruins 

hazy day moon

an orphaned girl, her world

of paper cranes

NeverEnding Story, June 28 2026

FYI: For more poems about Israel's war crimes, see Special Feature: "Selected Poems for Reflections on UN's Report on Israel Committing Genocide and Other War Crimes."

On June 18, 2026, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry published a major report titled “The essence of childhood has been destroyed: Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023”. 

The paper describes the deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian children, including post-ceasefire since the October 2025 Gaza peace plan. The Commission also examines a sharp increase in violence perpetrated by members of Israeli settlers against Palestinian children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

There is no ceasefire in Gaza; the world has normalized the genocide of Palestinians.

-- Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine and author of UN Report, "Anatomy of a Genocide"

And

There comes a time when silence is betrayal.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCC: "one thousand cranes"

cherry blossoms

and yet Gazan children ... 

one thousand cranes

Family Values Banner Gembun

Trump Empire, Inc., XCIII

A Family Values banner tangled with the flagpole atop the White House roof, silhouetted against the sunset.

only two sexes ...

clouds drift through bands

of hazy gray

NeverEnding Story, June 7 2026

FYI: This could be read as a sequel to the following tanka:

On the Brink of Trumperica, IX

the White House

pronounces, only two sexes ...

trans youth trapped

between black-and-white Kansas

and rainbow-colored Oz

NeverEnding Story, January 27 2025

And the following tanka could be read as its sequel:

Trump Empire, Inc., XCIV inspired by The Guardian, May 31, 2025: Four queer business owners on Pride under Trump: ‘Our joy is resistance’

near the White House gate

a rainbow-haired teen's waist 

wrapped in a flipped flag

under the guards' dark-glassed stare

she pirouettes timelessly

Silhouetted Figure

At the edge of night, memories flare like lanterns drifting on a river.

hospice window

morning mist

ghosting the blossoms

Frogpond, 49:1, 2026

Writing Gembun

The blank calendar; even thoughts paused like a frozen screen.

the cursor blinks ...

the weight of another

hazy day moon

NeverEnding Story, May 1 2026

FYI: My haiku below could be read as a sequel:

hazy day moon 

alone, awake with the weight

of memory

PoemHunter, February 16, 2013

Added: a gembun, about the precarious "work-life," for May Day:

The fan oscillates, its hum a steady heartbeat in the cramped dark.

dust motes

in the slanted moonlight

life between motels

Imagine, a Dreamer

just to be alive

on this dew-drenched morning

a green-leafed breeze

"I don't know a dream that's not been shattered ...," Paul Simon's voice whispers in a corner of my mind. I repeat to myself, "I'll be alright."

As snow geese unzip the morning sky, I start taking the first step of my new life journey of a thousand miles.

Drifitng Sands, 34, 2025

The Passion

the glow of fireballs

in a dead baby's eyes

the stone cross tilted

Silhouetted against the half collapsed and blood-splattered wall, the parish priest of Holy Family Church looks into the cellphone camera, and says in a firm voice, "nuns and I will stay and take care of elderly and wounded people, pregnant women and children."

"Are you not afraid of dying during the next Israeli strike?"

"Jesus is weak and vulnerable among people who need help and comfort, and that is exactly the way, the only way,  in which Jesus can be with us and help us."

Contemporary Haibun Online, 21:3, 2025

Give me your tired, your poor ...

the Stars and Stripes

in my migrant friend's wrinkled eyes

the spring that once was

American dream

somewhere over the rainbow

detention camps

A group of protesters, mostly gray-haired, gathers at the steps of the Statue of Liberty. They reclaim this public space as a site of memory and denunciation. Helped by her granddaughter, a civil rights activist reads out loud, one by one slowly, the names of the unlawfully disappeared.

Each name is a breath of life , a wound of heart, and most importantly, a warning for the country whose "greatness" will be built on the silence of everyday Americans.

Editor's Choice, Cattails, October 2025

Commentary: Chen-ou Liu is again another artiste who shows us that only in asking will we find the path— that only by daring can we truly reclaim what we have lost. He tells us of a history that is easily forgotten and warns us of what is, and what is in the coming. The prose is stark, focussing on the intergenerational emotion that resonates with freedom. As I read this over and over again, it dawned on me that in writing, Chen-ou dares us too. It is at once a warning and a beseeching. The haiku are placed at the beginning—a necessity to draw our attention to the immediacy of the moment.

FYI: The title refers to the most famous inscription on the Statue of Liberty, "The New Colossus," a sonnet by Emma Lazarus.

Writing Gembun

written for Richard Bach and Robert Frost

A cursor blinks in the white of my screen.

darkness pools around stars

words I never said

words I never sent

NeverEnding Story, March 11 2026

FYI: Below are two of my favourite remarks on writing:

A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit. 

-- Richard Bach

And

Every time a poem is written, every time a short story is written, it is written not by cunning, but by belief. The beauty, the something, the little charm of the thing to be, is more felt than known.

-- Robert Frost

Added: I just found this "reading, writing and human connection" remark:

These days, it’s easy to feel that we’ve fallen out of connection with one another and with the earth and with reason and with love. I mean: we have. But to read, to write, is to say that we still believe in, at least, the possibility of connection.

George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life, 2021.

The Winter of Our Discontent

Its edges browned with age, another photograph, long buried beneath piles of boxes, has come to light in recent days.

His eyes meet the camera head-on. His hand rests at the curve of a young girl’s hip.

the man, once a prince

hid behind purple curtains ...

now cuffed in cold steel

NeverEnding Story, February 19 2026

FYI: This sociopolitically conscious haibun is inspired by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, being arrested by UK police over Jeffrey Epstein ties.

The title, "The Winter of Our Discontent," is a famous allusion to the opening lines of William Shakespeare’s Richard III: Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York

For more analysis of this allusive title, see To the Lighthouse: The Impact of an Allusive Title.

See The New York Times, Feb. 19 2026: Live Updates: Former Prince Andrew Arrested in Britain Over Epstein Ties

Added: Trump Empire, Inc, LXXVI

inspired by a viral social media prompt:The U.K. just arrested a royal. Is the U.S. capable of the same?

The Next One

My boy lines the dominoes along the coffee table’s edge, their lacquered backs blinking ivory in the lamplight, and nudges the first with his forefinger.

In the armchair, I grip the remote, the blue glare of the television flickering against my tired eyes as a news ticker scrolls the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

King Charles III’s words, “the law must take its course,” hang in the air like dust in the living room as I switch off the TV. I stand for a moment, facing the window, where the last of the light thins along the fence line.

the White House

shadowed against the sky

crow after crow ...

Groundhog Day loop Gembun

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLXXVII: "Groundhog Day loop"

Phase two of the Gaza ceasefire plan rolls on the news ticker. 

fireball by fireball

day and night, night and day:

Groundhog Day loop

NeverEnding Story, February 6 2026

FYI: "Groundhog Day Loop:" a plot in which the character is caught in a time loop, doomed to repeat a period of time (often exactly one day) over and over..." Watch the time loop scene from 1993 Groundhog Day.

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLXXVIII: "cart of bodies"

Drones buzzing against Gaza's sky tinged orange-red.

a fork in the road

lined with smoky rubble ...

a cart of bodies

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLXXIX: "outstretched hands"

A crowd of kids with outstretched hands, metal bowls gleaming in the dust.

a girl's empty stare 

grains scraped from the cracked pot

tumble past the bowl 

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLXXX: "wall of fire"

In four minutes, a farmhouse in the West Bank village enveloped in a wall of fire.

blood-stained olive leaves

cinder through the smoky air

laughter greets laughter

The Question Not Asked Yet

for Albert Camus

charred remains 

of a woman and baby

the sky, tinged with red

Is it barbaric to write poetry during the genocide? But what else remains? A gray-haired poet mutters to himself in the flickering candlelight. 

He turns his gaze away from a piece of wrinkled paper, then stares out his cracked window at smoky ruins after smoky ruins ...

Drifting Sands, 33, 2025

Thoughts Racing Gembun

Another night of shifting, flipping the pillow, and counting sheep …

my thoughts pacing 

in moonlit dark, one stray 

outbarks the rest

NeverEnding Story, January 27 2026

Added: This Brave New World, CXXVII

round after round

pink slips slide across desks—

warehouse aisles hum

as robots pick and place parcels

on time, 24/7

FYI: CBC News, Jan. 28 2026: 

Amazon is slashing about 16,000 corporate jobs — the second round of mass layoffs for the e-commerce company in three months...The latest reductions follow a round of job cuts in October, when Amazon said it was laying off 14,000 workers. 

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLXXV: "New Gaza"

New Gaza: a coastal strip, replete with high-rises and resorts.

newsfeed scroll:

ripped tents after ripped tents

in freezing rain

FYI: The Nation, January 30 2026: Jared Kushner’s “Plan” for Gaza Is an Abomination

Kushner is pitching a “new,” gleaming resort hub. But scratch the surface, and you find nothing less than a blueprint for ethnic cleansing.

And this is a sequel to my gembun below:

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLXXI: "Phase Two"

The ink barely dry on the paper, and Phase Two of the ceasefire plan announced to the clicking of cameras.

these dark blue lips

as frost thickens on cracked panes

Gazan sky tinged red

NeverEnding Story, January 19 2026

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLXXV: "skeletal houses"

raven by raven

skeletal houses in Gaza

darkening

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLXXVI: "Rafah refugee camp"

tents go dark

in Rafah refugee camp

moon-filled puddles

Added: Trump Empire, Inc, LXXIV

written in response to The Daily show, Jan. 30 2026: the best bribe disguised as a documentary goes to... "Melania"

in the near-dark room

less than a dozen viewers

glance back and forth …

Melania Trump’s mouth

rarely opens on screen

Added: Trump Empire, Inc, LXXV

on silver screen

Melania walking, walking

to nowhere ...

viewers awake when the light's on

all give ¼ star

FYI: The Nation Magazine, Feb. 2 2026: The Melania in Melania Likes Her Gilded Cage Just Fine

The $45 million advertorial abounds in unintended ironies.

Melania, this documentary makes perfectly clear, likes her gilded cage just fine. After all, it lets her produce this movie starring her clothes, her hair, her shoes, and her complexion, and how many women can say the same?

And The New Yorker, Feb. 2 2026: 

In the film, the First Lady comes across as brittle and materialistic; her interactions with her son and husband are stiff. Instead of baby photos or family mementos, viewers get so many shots of Melania in high heels that it starts to feel “like an OnlyFans account crossed with that meme of Kim Jong Un visiting factories,” Caroline Mimbs Nyce writes in her delightfully cutting review, The Melania Documentary Is “Exceedingly Mid"

West Bank Town Gembun

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

Jan. 27: Settlers Rampage Through South Hebron Villages, Torch Homes and Steal Livestock.

Jan. 27: The Israeli Ethnic Cleansing Militias in the West Bank Have Suceeded Once Again

Jan. 27: "Ordinary, Decent Israelis" Still Think That What Happens in the West Bank Stays in the West Bank

FYI: Jan. 27: Netanyahu Government Ban on Haaretz Is Unlawful, Attorney General Tells Israel's Top Court)

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLXXIII: "Saharan desert warbler"

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

 Jan. 25 2026: A West Bank Bus Trip Through 'the Best Documented Ethnic Cleansing in History'

A Saharan desert warbler spotted in Haifa, only the second ever to be seen in Israel.

West Bank town fenced in ...

a rifle silhouette

against the boundless sky

NeverEnding Story, January 26 2026

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLXXIV: "the Nakba"

The Nakba pictures in black and white; now this week in the color of smoky red.

fire's mouth

consumes the last farmhouse ...

settlers' roaring

Not at the table, Then on the Menu Gembun

Trump Empire, Inc, LXXI: 

a gembun written in response to Mark Carney's Davos speech on the first anniversary of the Convicted Felon sitting behind Resolute Desk:

Clapping of hands and thumping of feet to the claim: "If we're not at the table, we're on the menu."

my black cat returns

with a bloodied bird in mouth

drums of a trade war

NeverEnding Story, January 21 2026

For more poems about Trump's one year in office, see "To the Lighthouse: One Year in Poems: Trumperica, Revisited"

Added: Trump Empire, Inc, LXXII

Canada lives

because of the US, Trump claims 

fart on fart in Davos

Added: Trump Empire, Inc, LXXIII

In the end, we have only whistles and the ICE agents have guns.

freezing cold ...

snapped from school to trap parents

five-year-old as bait

Added: Trump Empire, Inc, LXXVI

rings of five colors

link continents as one

outside the stadium

fists, voices rising as one:

"ICE out and justice for all"

Phase Two Gembun

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLXXI: "Phase Two"

The ink barely dry on the paper, and Phase Two of the ceasefire plan announced to the clicking of cameras.

these dark blue lips

as frost thickens on cracked panes

Gazan sky tinged red

NeverEnding Story, January 19 2026

FYI: Haaretz, Analysis, January 18, 2026: Beneath the Bombast, Trump's Cease-fire Plan in Gaza Is on the Rocks

Jan. 19, 2026: Trump Invites Putin to Board of Peace, EU States to Decline Invitation, Diplomats Say

Jan. 19, 2026: 'Gaza Is Ours': Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich Calls to Cancel Trump's Board of Peace, Israel to Resettle Gaza

And Jan. 20 2026: Trump: If France Doesn't Join Board of Peace, 'I'll Put 200% Tariff on Wine and Champagne'

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLXXII: "Gazan newborn"

a young woman

gazing long at her newborn

but his eyes

never open to the light—

Gaza's morning frost thickens

FYI: Haaretz, Opinion, Jan. 19 2026: What Is Happening to Mothers and Babies in Gaza Should Leave Us Deeply, Collectively Ashamed

As maternal mortality surges in post-war Gaza, and newborns face cold, infection and malnutrition, pregnancy and childbirth are daily fights for survival. Women and their babies, universally noncombatants, are suffering disproportionately – and serve as a measure of our moral failure

Immigration Gembun

Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XLII

A new life in this promised land of milk and honey, where my veil of forgetfulness drapes like a shroud.

shoppers come and go

“I used to be” in the folds

of my Walmart smile

NeverEnding Story, December 14 2025

FYI: The "folds of one's smile," clinically known as nasolabial folds, are the natural creases in the skin running from the sides of the nose down to the corners of the mouth... Over time, these folds can become deeper and permanently visible (static lines) due to various factors, including:

Natural aging: The skin loses collagen and elastin, proteins that provide structure and elasticity.

Repetitive facial expressions: Frequent smiling and laughing reinforce the creases in the skin.

And this gembun could be read as a sequel to my tanka prose below:

The Point of No Return

On the day of my emigration to Canada, a land of maple leaves and snowflakes that will eventually bury my past.

a parting

of summer clouds

mother

lets go of my hand

. . . and of my heart

Ribbons, 16:1, Winter 2020

Added:

new immigrant’s gaze

raindrops on maple branches

laced with snowflakes

Added: written in response to Bondi Beach Hanukkah shooting

and for Ahmed al-Ahmed's courage, which reminds me of the following remark: 

The sole purpose of human existence

 is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

 

-- Carl Jung 

The candlelight flickers, defining and defying the gathering dark.

mass shooting news ...

another Hanukkah candle

glows on

FYI: During the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights (evening of Sun, Dec 14 -- Mon, Dec 22, 2025), an additional candle is lit each night, until all eight are burning on the final night. 

And Ls 2&3 of the haiku could be read as an allusion to the following remark:

The proper response, as Hanukkah teaches, is not to curse the darkness but to light a candle.

-- (often attributed to) Rabbi Nachman

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLVII: "Israel blocking shelter supplies"

written in response to Al Jazeera, Dec. 11, 2025: Gaza’s camps brace for floods as Israel blocks key shelter supplies

one single breath

life and death divided

by indifference

in soaked tents Gazan kids curl

with eyes gazing heavenward

Added:

talk of war

a mourning dove fades

with the last light

Added:

more war news ...

on the power line

a mob of crows

Epstein Email Gembun

In a 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell, “… that dog that hasn’t barked is Trump.”

a pink-haired girl

seen through a telescope

of age-spotted hands

NeverEnding Story, November 14 2025 

FYI: CNN News, Nov. 12 2025: Takeaways from the new Epstein emails mentioning Trump

‘I know how dirty Donald is’: Several suggestions about what Epstein knew about Trump

In one 2018 email, Epstein remarked amid a discussion about Trump’s possible impeachment: “you see , i know how dirty Donald is. my guess is that non lawyers ny biz people have no idea. What it means to have your fixer flip.” (That last part was apparently a reference to Michael Cohen, who flipped on Trump.)

And 

A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving.

-- Ayn Rand, novelist and advocate of a philosophy, “the virtue of selfishness”

FYI: The Guardian, April 10, 2017: The new age of Ayn Rand: how she won over Trump and Silicon Valley

Her novel The Fountainhead is one of the few works of fiction that Donald Trump likes and she has long been the darling of the US right. But only now do her devotees hold sway around the world...

Added: 

the kettle whistles ...

my rented attic room

fills with its sound

as I look out at something

or nothing in the snowfall

Added:

snow on snow

the nursing home hallway

stretches into silence

Added:

another rent hike

a crescendo of rain

on the skylight

Added:

The Prime Minister's mouth opens, closes — yak, yak, yak, blah, blah,  blah ...

breadlines lengthen

in the Sunday morning chill

bare branches snap

FYI: Food Banks Canada's 2025 HungerCount report shows that Canada is facing a food bank crisis with record-high usage, as food bank visits in March 2025 were nearly double those in March 2019. This report indicates that monthly visits reached 2.2 million in March 2025, a new record.

Glimpses of Light

flashfloodweareallinthis t o ge  t   h   e r   

Rain and snowfall across Southern California has tamed, at least for the time being, the threat of major wildfires in the region; however, ash and mud are flowing across streets in the Los Angeles area, and some schools are closed for today due to dangerous road conditions.

While holding back tears, the School District Director makes an announcement on live TV.  Someone whispers behind local residents, "she lost her house and one relative two days ago." The news camera cuts to an aerial view of an once-lush neighborhood now charred by wildfires, and then to a long shot of a street corner.

skeletal houses

the fruit of a charred citrus tree

clings to its branches

smoldering ruins

an etched mural stands alone

at the temple

Contemporary Haibun Online, 21:2, 2025

Happily (N)ever After

balcony sunset

a table for one with sky

in my glass

I want to treat myself to a nice dinner after hanging up on my mother an hour ago. However, her parting words, "you'll regret staying single with no children for the rest of your life," float in the air like specks of dust catching the neon lights cast from New Heaven Restaurant's sign. These words now sit like rocks in my knotted stomach. I've heard them often since my divorce.

Most people around me still measure worth, success, and happiness in terms of wedding rings and strollers. "Oh, this weight of a good marriage with happy children," I murmur to myself. I notice that I'm playing with the phantom ring on my finger.

As I wait for my dessert, I look around and spot only two other tables-for-one in this crowded, trendy restaurant. I order another glass of wine to drown out the noisy voice from my inner demon. Feeling a little tipsy, I pay and walk the long way home to clear my mind, then I take a shower and go to bed even earlier than usual.

Drifting in and out of my dream,  I see something bright and soft swirling in a world of one color.

footprints in new snow

on the road to the church ...

muffled sound of bells

Drifting Sands, 32, 2025