Man in Black Haiku

store windows barred shut

footsteps of a man in black

echoing mine

NeverEnding Story, March 23 2025

FYI: For more examples, see "To the Lighthouse: Haiku Noir"

Added:

in a blue suit

the "Great One" walked onto the ice 

near the US team’s bench

with a thumbs up ...

Gretzky statue smeared with poop 

FYI: Maclean's, March 5: Goodbye to Gretzky

The cracks in Gretzky’s patriotism have been showing for years. In 2009, he was promoted to companion of the Order of Canada—the nation’s highest civilian honour—but he wouldn’t come home to accept it. “It’s just embarrassing,” Christopher McCreery, an expert on the Canadian honours system, said in 2018, after nearly a decade had passed and The Great One still claimed the honour. 

Added: Trump Empire, Inc., XI

Land of the Crazed --> USA

Canada <-- Home of the Brave

giant road sign

at the corner of the border

as flocks of geese fly north

FYI: This could be read as a prequel to the following:

in Toronto sunshine

with the scent of early spring

and freedom

two Americans meet and part:

one draft dodger, one Trump evader

NeverEnding Story, March 17 2025

Added: Trump Empire, Inc., XII

Uber ride home

a Trumpinator bobblehead

rattles on the dashboard

(FYI: Trumpinator bobblehead is a figurine of Donald Trump as the Terminator) 

Added: Trump Empire, Inc., XIII

fast-hitting snowstorm

as Trump enacts another round

of tariffs ...

to stay or to go, I muse

[yet this longing for Never Land]

Added: Trump Empire, Inc., XIV

inspired by The Atlantic, March 24: The Trump Administration "Accidentally" Texted Me Its War "Plans" 

supersized

FistStarsandStripesFire 👊 🇺🇸 🔥...

three emojis

and MAGAmoronsinsuits

love company in the spotlight

FYI: The Canadian Press, March 26: The Atlantic releases the entire Signal chat showing Hegseth's detailed attack plans against Houthis

The Independent, March 26: ‘It’s really not a big deal’: Trump responds to latest round texts published in Signal text scandal

And CNN, March 26: The politics of the Yemen chat scandal is obscuring key foreign policy shifts

Midnight Scream Haiku Noir

the sound of rain

on the sound

of a midnight scream

Frogpond, 45:2, Spring/Summer 2022

For further discussion, see my "To the Lighthouse" post, Haiku Noir

bangbangbang Haiku

bangbangbang

followed by eerie silence ...

the night deepens

NeverEnding Story, November 4 2022

FYI: for more about onomatopoeia and haiku noir, see my "To the Lighthouse" posts, "A Rhetoric Device, Onomatopoeia" and "Haiku Noir"

Added: 

alone in the TV's light

fade-out

before each ad

Added: This Brave New World, LXII

COP27:

in this resort city

on the Red Sea 

hundreds upon hundreds

of jumbo jets touch down

FYI: From 6 to 18 November, Heads of State, CEOs, ministers and negotiators, along with climate activists, civil society representatives will meet in the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh for the largest annual gathering on "climate action."

And CBC News, Nov. 5: Climate activists stop private jets from leaving Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport

The environmental group says Schiphol is the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the Netherlands, emitting 12 billion kilograms annually.

This tanka is a sequel to the following poem:

The End (of COP26)

This Brave New World, XXIX

written in response to The Hill's Nov. 10 News : Nancy Pelosi defends "America's moral authority" on climate action and The Washington Post's Nov. 11 News: U.S. and China issue joint pledge to slow climate change

   Ame      rica 

i    s    a    l    l    i    n

with arms linked

young activists chanting

blahblahblah, clean up your mess

a pundit ranting

beneath slate-grey skies

during this decade

there will be talk after talk

between the US and China

NeverEnding Story, November 12 2021 

A Cloud of Doves Haiku

nee-naw, nee-naw ...

a cloud of doves in flight

dripping blood

NeverEnding Story, October 21 2022

FYI: Nee-naw Entery, Wiktionary: Imitating the sound of a siren on a vehicle used by emergency services,  see my "To the Lighthouse," post, A Rhetoric Device, Onomatopoeia And for more about haiku noir, see my "To the Lighthouse" post, Haiku Noir

Blood Moon Eclipse Haiku Noir

blood moon eclipse 
at the edge of my mind
a wolf howling

NeverEnding Story, January 20, 2019

Note:  For the definition and examples, see my "To the Lighthouse" post, "Haiku Noir"

Selected Haiku: Strip of Moonlight Haiku Noir

TV hissing ...
a strip of moonlight
on her body

Moon Anthology, 2015 

Selected Haiku: Bloodstained Wall Haiku Noir

bloodstained wall
a smell of wine and perfume
lingering

Sketchbook, 6:5, September/October 2011

Selected Haiku: Lovers' Lane Haiku Noir

lovers' lane
a baby crying
in the garbage

"Urban Haiku and Senryu," World Kigo Database, 2011

Selected Haiku: Dog Carcass Haiku Noir

autumn sunset
stray dog carcass
cut in two

"Urban Haiku and Senryu," World Kigo Database, 2011

Note:  Below is an excerpt from my June 2012 Lynx interview with Jane Reichhold:

L: Recently you were working with “darker themes” in your haiku. Why did you want to do this? And how did it work out for you? Do we need to enlarge the subject matter used in the Japanese genres?

CL: I've been writing a series of haiku noir on darker themes, such as sudden death, suicide, psychiatric illness, violence, homelessness, alienation, estrangement, racism, rape, …etc. I've had first-hand or second-hand experiences of dealing with most of them (Note: A haiku noir is a narrative haiku, i.e. a cinematically dark flash non/fiction in verse. I gave an in-depth analysis and examples in my  “To the Lighthouse” post, entitled "The Arranged Marriage of Haiku and Cinema" . For further information on the relationship between haiku and cinema, please read my Haiku Reality essay, titled "Haiku as Ideogrammatic Montage: A Linguistic-Cinematic Perspective").

I am most influenced by Takuboku's conception of "poems to eat." He defined them as "poems written without putting any distance from actual life,...and they are not delicacies, or dainty dishes, but food indispensable for us in our daily meal."

In terms of dealing with one's dark moments, the difference between poets and other people is that poets can convey their feelings through poetry. As Graham Greene stresses, “writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those, who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear, which is inherent in [that] human condition.”

Every time when I put my tangled feelings, stress, or anxiety on paper, I feel relief in the moment. Especially when writing about dark moments, I connect them to the feelings of the past and of the present, and in doing so, it enables me to discover the wholeness of things and the connectedness of human experience. This view of writing about dark moments as a way of healing is well explored in Louise DeSalvo’s Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our stories Transforms Our Lives. My review of this book can be accessed at http://scr.bi/owyOEI .

As for enlarging the subject matter used in English language haiku, I think there is an urgent need to do so. most English language haiku are based on a narrower definition of haiku. Professor Haruo Shirane discusses this in his famous essay, titled “Beyond the Haiku Moment: Basho, Buson and Modern Haiku Myths:” “English-language anthologies of haiku are overwhelmingly set in country or natural settings even though ninety percent of the haiku poets actually live in urban environments. This would seem to discourage haiku poets from writing serious poetry on the immediate urban environment or broader social issues.”  His essay reminds me of Shiki’s , titled “Haiku on Excrement,” about discovering -- or rediscovering -- beauty in excrement. In the essay, Shiki demonstrates that the old masters had great capabilities of producing beauty out of ugly material, “citing 41 poems (most of them haiku) on feces, 18 on urine, 4 on farts, 24 on toilets, and 21 on loincloths.” In the concluding section, he makes clear that he is not particularly fond of writing haiku on excrement; but he mainly uses this topic as an example to show how the poet can explore a wide range of themes (Makoto Ueda, Modern Japanese Poets and the Nature of Literature, pp. 29-30)

I identify with Shiki’s approach to writing haiku. Most of darker themes in my recent haiku are, directly and indirectly, related to urban life issues that are experienced by all of us and covered by media on a daily basis. For me, they are legitimate subject matters for haiku writing.

Winter Shadow Haiku

foot by foot
the winter shadow
reaches a body

PoemHunter, August 7 2015

Suspended between Life and Death

On my way to work at the meat factory, a dewy green leaf is shaken loose and blown away from a maple tree. It floats along the sidewalk. Suddenly, a wind whips it about and sends it soaring skyward. Then, the wind stops and the leaf falls to the ground.

evening chill ...

pressing the razor

against my skin

Cattails, 4, January 2015

Toys for Guns Drive Haiku

toys for guns drive
pop, pop, pop … filling the sky
with blood-splattered doves

Micropoetry, Dec. 5, 2013

Christmas Haiku Noir

Christmas morning
my neighbor's kid cuts off
his snowman's head

Sketchbook,7:2, March/April 2012

Christmas Haiku Noir

Christmas Eve
silhouettes in the window
with a bullet hole

Sketchbook,7:2, March/April 2012

Dream Haiku Noir

I see a man
in the black hooded robe...
Christmas dream

Sketchbook,7:2, March/April 2012

Relationship Haiku Noir

shouting match...
a boy drums his fingertips
on the windowpane

Sketchbook,7:2, March/April 2012

Dance Floor Haiku Noir

blood-dotted dance floor...
somewhere in the distance
a lone mating call

Sketchbook,7:2, March/April 2012

Winter Haiku Noir

winter solstice...
she cuts her hair off
in a hot bath

Paper Wasp, 18:2, Winter 2012

Fly Haiku Noir

a slant of sunlight
on my basement window sill
the dead fly

PoemHunter (May 13, 2012)

Shadow Haiku

the shadow
divided into two
sirens wail

PoemHunter (May 13, 2012)