Rooftop View of My Life

night shift done

in 7-Eleven lights

a stray and I part

Tar sticks to my sneakers. Below, the grid of this city is a circuit board of silver, yellow, and red LEDs. A siren wails from afar, then is swallowed by the concrete canyons. Up here, a place of my own: the city noise thins to a hum.

clothesline

a damp sheet snaps

at my cheek

haikuKATHA, 58, 2026

Cyclic Pursuit of Love

I scroll through one dating app after another, and another.

snow on snow

our pot of tea steeps dark

and bitter

Beeps flurry. Messages stack up. Faces blur. I scroll until my thumb aches. The night thins out into small screens.

awake, facing

the empty side of my bed

sunrise tinged gray

A vee of geese unzips the morning sky. I reach for my phone.

haikuKATHA, 55, 2026

Truck Stop at Midnight

Diesel fumes and the hiss of air brakes. The neon ‘Open’ sign buzzes, casting a flickering pink halo over cracked asphalt, a discarded ‘Lucky for Life’ ticket, and cigarette butts.

highway hum

a luna moth flattened

on the windshield

hedgerow, 153, 2026 

On Shifting Ground

With skin creased like winter-worn leather and hands calloused from decades of labor, this gray-haired immigrant bears the map of a hard life across his face. His heart and mind now straddle memories of a sun-drenched homeland and a no-milk-or-honey future.

in wind-blown leaves

go back where you came from ...

he limps along

Kokako, 44, 2026

A New Immigrant

Outside the floor-to-ceiling airport windows, snowflakes waft down from a starless sky, then disappear into a world of one color.

I muse how far to walk to the pickup stop— a threshold to this land of milk and honey.

looking back

at footprints in the snow ...

which are mine?

Kokako, 44, 2026

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

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"