Remembering

"doctor, please

the sounds, they won''t leave"

a boy mutters …

buzzing of drones, roar of jets

screams of Gazans, living and dead

For days he lies curled in a shelter bed, staring at the pockmarked wall as if it could answer him, until the sounds lodged deep inside his head finally overwhelm him.

When the razor wire outside glints with the first light of a new day, silence enters his head … and his life, five years older than the war that claimed it.

Ribbons, 22:1, 2026

Between Heaven and Earth

I'm soul-tired

before this wooden Jesus ...

Time is frozen

in St. Peter's Church

with frost flowers on the windows

What is Time?

alone and calm

before a leafy riot

of garden plants ...

my old friend and Time

are of the same race

If no one asks me, I know; if I need to explain it to one who asks, I don't know.

a mile-long lineup

of trucks at the checkpoint

in smoky sunset

inch by inch Time crawls through

the Kerem Shalom Crossing

What then is Time? In the present, the past presses forward; the future leans back toward me. I stand between them—no nearer to an answer than frost on glass.

Contemporary Haibun Online 22:1, April 2026

In Broad Daylight

Politics of Distraction, VII:

Any resemblance to current events or actual locales, or to living persons, is NOT coincidental. 

a poll sign

against the White House fence: 

Pope vs Dope

a mangy stray corks its leg 

marks Dope with a yellow stream

NeverEnding Story, April 14 2026

FYI: The Nation Magazine, April 13 2026: Trump’s Deranged, One-Way Feud With Pope Leo

He’s finally met someone he can’t bully.

To conclude today's "Special Feature" post, I would like to share with you Pope Leo's post on X, April 14:

God’s heart is torn apart by wars, violence, injustice and lies. But our Father’s heart is not with the wicked, the arrogant, or the proud. God’s heart is with the little ones and the humble, and with them He builds up His Kingdom of love and peace day by day. Wherever there is love and service, God is there.

Stand with Pope Leo XIV. Even the Iran War!

Added: Politics of Distraction, VIII:

Blocking the Blockade to Break the Blockade

      Donald Trump

            $ 20,28

          per gallon

White House entrance

         No Parking 

          all     quiet

              on

        frontal lobe

FYI: The third smol, “all quiet on the frontal lobe,” playfully echoes the iconic anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front, which depicts the realities of World War I. The idiom “all quiet on the Western Front” has since come to suggest that an outward sense of calm may conceal deeper, and sometimes troubling, underlying realities.

Anything New outside St Peter's Basilica?

a magical-realism tanka prose written on Pope Leo XIV's first day

as dusk deepens

a white-haired refugee's shadow

slips into the church ...

after mass, a priest muses

if he ranks love for others

Half awake yet half asleep, he glances at the LED bedside clock: 03:00 flashing red. Flanked by LED numbers, a blindingly bright human figure starts chanting:

Religion says don't hope

outside this whitewashed wall.

But then, once in a lifetime,

these longed-for tidal waves

of justice, peace and love

can rise up under the morning sun

if faith and action rhyme

Chrysanthemum, 35, 2025

German Translation:

Gibt es Neues vor dem Petersdom?

Eine magisch-realistische Tanka-Prosa, geschrieben am ersten Tag von Papst Leo XIV.

bei zunehmender Dämmerung gleitet

der Schatten eines weißhaarigen Flüchtlings

in die Kirche ...

nach der Messe sinniert ein Priester darüber

ob er die Liebe zu anderen über alles stellt

Halb wach, halb schlafend wirft er einen Blick auf den LED-Wecker: 03:00 blinkt es rot. Flankiert von LED-Ziffern beginnt eine blendend helle menschliche Gestalt zu singen:

Die Religion sagt: Hoffe nicht

außerhalb dieser weiß getünchten Mauer. 

Doch dann, einmal im Leben,

können diese ersehnten Flutwellen

der Gerechtigkeit, des Friedens und der Liebe

unter der Morgensonne aufsteigen,

wenn Glaube und Handeln sich reimen

An Immigrant Poet's Reflection on Writing the Suffering of Others

"Merely to say, to see and say, things 
as they are,” grows loud ... and louder in a corner of my mind as moonlight slants through the study window.

[decades-long

inhuman occupation compressed]

to one-day attacks

reponding with the red glow

of missiles in Gaza's night sky

this endless loop:

October 7, October 7 ...

[and yet

the decades BEFORE

and the day AFTER] bloodshedding

each bombed-out house:

an album with no photos

but with people

living, wounded and dead

pressed between its pages

anything new

under Gaza's smeared sun?

smoky rubble

beyond smoky rubble, and yet

again smoky rubble

I etch each pain with a borrowed tongue, then every word becomes a betrayal; but all the silence will turn into a heart wound. Turning my gaze from writing, then looking out the window at the moon, its fullness, I mutter, "what is the use of useless poetry when it cannot stop the killing?"

Cattails, October 2025

The old war comes to "an end"

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCXLI: "the wars, old and new"

"Now we're trapped in a new war." An aid worker draws a breath and resumes in an uneven voice, "the battlefield is in the wounded bodies of survivors, in the broken hearts of mothers, in the hungry eyes of children, in the distant stares of elderly people. We're just fighting to live, simply to live, and we have nothing to do so..." Before the aid worker finishes her answer, boom, boom, boom interrupts the interview. The TV screen goes black.

chilly rain

stalks the edge of his dream

my Gazan friend

still waiting for the phone call

I know won't come

NeverEnding Story, October 21 2025

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCXLII: "on my hands and knees"

On My Hands and Knees

"I crawled through a crowd of hundreds to scavenge a small bag with scraps of food ..." The gray-haired man pauses for a moment to take a deep breath, then continues, "I had to gather whatever had fallen to the ground -- lentils, rice, chickpeas, even flour mixed with dirt. My bones ached and my heart beat fast; I almost collapsed due to exhaustion. However, in my mind the sound of my children's hunger grew louder and darker ..."

a sack of flour

on the muddy roadside

just beyond reach

of an old Gazan's hand

in a pool of blood

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCXLIII: "the wounded land"

The Wounded Land

ceasefire for now ...

dew-drenched blades of grass

hold the sky

first rooster crow

on a bombless day

skeletal farmhouse

an old man's fajr

hangs in the dusty air ...

withdrawal line

bombshell shards 

glint at the morning sun

the edge of peace

Note: The fajr prayer is one of the five daily Muslim prayers, and it is performed between the break of dawn and sunrise. 

And the IDF physically marked the initial withdrawal line in Gaza, known as the "yellow line," to clearly delineate it and alert both Hamas and Gaza residents. The IDF has killed dozens of Gazans who crossed the line.

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCXLIV: "charred photo frame"

charred photo frame

my friend's Gazan ancestors

stiff faced, straight backed...

Added:

the Peace Wall patterned

with shifting leaf shadows

this world in flux

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCXLIV: "pyramids of rubble"

pyramid 

after pyramid of rubble ... 

again "ceasefire" strikes

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCXLV: "mutilated bodies"

detainees

returned to Gaza

in gathering dusk

at least 135 

mutilated bodies

FYI: Haaretz, Opinion,  Oct.23 2025: Israel's Government Prides Itself on Sadism, Abuse and Torture

Added:

fence line 

crowded with baseball caps

World Series eve

The Ree/al World

before leaving

you cry, our life's a mistake ...

yet in dreams my train

runs in circle after circle

and each station is you

"It's inevitable. One might break someone's heart on the way to opening one's own." Now I recall your remark after the curtain glided up and screen light poured forth as music swelled ... The Fault in Our Stars.

"It's always worth it, isn't? Love never ends, but it changes. It's a passage, not a place to stay," I mumble to myself in the moonlit dark.

Contemporary Haibun Online, 21:2, 2025

A Night, Forever?

show me yours

you first, no, you first ...

wrapped in moonlight

you and I, teen explorers

undress each other mentally

three words uttered ...

our bodies listening

to moonlight

as the summer grass bed

holds the shape of our night

Drifting, drifting in and out of my dream. 

My first love, now merely a number I can reach, and a door I can knock.

The Pan Haiku Review, 5, 2025

My Lucky Seven Night

Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Venus, Neptune, Mercury and Saturn will align and be visible from Earth late tonight. The scientists say planets always appear in a line in the night sky, because they orbit the sun in a relatively flat, disc-shaped plane. However, seeing them simultaneously with the naked eye is an extremely rare occurrence.

in slanted moonlight

I utter those three words

to my housemate ...

where her lips are silent again

my heart has a thousand tongues

putting a finger

to her crimson lips ...

the eyes of my heart

now see the actions of love

first with the silence of words

Cattails, April, 2025

The Burden of Peace

"When Time crawled to reach 8:30 AM on Sunday, a cascade of relief, joy and hope washed over us. Fifteen months of horror now come to an end, at least for six weeks. And yet, as cry after cry erupts around us, echoing “Allahu Akbar!” into the air, I can't shake the inky heaviness that lingers in my heart when I see what's happened to us..."

I gaze at the ellipsis at the end of my friend's X post. It speaks of falling into the spaces, untold and foreign, and strikes me with its longing.

each bombed-out house:

an album with no photos

but with people

living, wounded and dead

pressed between its pages

Before I log out, another bit of viral Gaza news appears on my X feed: "At least four Palestinians were allegedly shot dead by the Israeli snipers since the ceasefire went into effect." The embedded video shows a man trying to drag a boy’s lifeless body before he too is shot.

anything new

under Gaza's smeared sun?

smoky rubble

beyond smoky rubble, and yet

again smoky rubble

Ribbons, 21:1, 2025

Relationship is not about continuing

"It's about re-inventing," I reassure myself. Always being at the brink of making something new.

I shaved my head

when her hair started falling out

and we weren't scared ...

five years later, our life bears

the weight of a question mark

I'm sleepless again as the moonlight slants through a gap in the bedroom curtains. And in her sleep, she seems to murmur something about a stable life.

It aches when I close my eyes and let myself glimpse, just for a moment, that there is an alternative life in reality, not just inside my mind: carefree and always on the move.

awake, alone

I look out the window

at early snowfall ...

what if this, what if that swirling

in a dark corner of my mind

Contemporary Haibun Online, 21:1, 2025

Re-Homing?

During his much-anticipated debut appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, bantered with the host throughout most of the interview. Answering trivial questions Americans might have for Canadians, he got canned laughter and applause as he tried to set Canada apart from the U.S. His host prompted, "But I don't know everything I should know about Canada. Imagine I come from a country that think mostly about themselves. I hear really good things about Canada, then sell me."

The Prime Minister's response was typical at first. "Canada is the best country in the world, has beautiful mountains, rivers, lakes, ...Oh, and Canada has three coasts: east, west and the Arctic." Then he paused for a moment with his media-trained smile and continued to emphasize Canadian uniqueness. "The thing is, everyone focuses on the land, but really, Canada is about the people. It’s a range of people from every possible background who come together and -- a little different from the melting pot in the United States where everyone gets to be American -- we try to celebrate differences, and people keep their cultures and keep their languages."

I turn off the TV and go to bed, but I cannot sleep and stare through a hole in the attic roof at a dreamless sky. The Prime Minister's photogenic smile and lofty words keep hovering my mind, recalling his 2015 campaign slogan: "My friends, sunny way, sunny way! Real change is on the way."

stuck in traffic

as lines of protesters chant

"no more immigrants" ...

I wonder if beside my name

the hidden asterisk re-emerges

during lunch break

I drink another cup of coffee

dark and bitter ...

behind my back coworkers mimic

"you're flawed not a fraud"

streaks of crimson

swallowed by the night sky ...

the cries of snow geese

again rewilding

my immigrant heart

contemporary haibun online, 20:3, 2024

FYI: Chinese Mandarin speakers often have a tough time learning l's and r's later in life.

A Corner of This Broken World

After a long pause, her voice cracking on the phone, my Israeli friend tells me, "I don't know how to calm my two girls. We're near the border, and they're frightened by the piercing sound of fighter jets constantly flying over our community. Sometimes, they can hear the boom, boom, boom from a distance just minutes after fighter jets fly past our house. I can only comfort them by saying that these are good booms. I feel guilty, I... " My friend hangs up the phone.

the sunset

in a blaze of orange and red

across the sky ...

Gazan children's faces raw

with fear of the unknown

Ribbons, 20:2, Autumn/Winter 2024

FYI: For more poems about the Israel-Hamas War, Special Feature, October 7: Selected Poems for Reflections on "CeaseFire Now" and "Saving the Children"

it’s peaceful now

M-16 rifles are blooming, 2000-pound bombs singing, and Merkava tanks sweeping the streets.

Gaza is cleaner than ever, clean of blood-covered children. Yet, somewhere among the rubble the only moving thing is a boy’s eyes that look up to Heaven.

a mural

on the separation wall

of the West Bank:

in midair a girl grasps

a bunch of rainbow balloons

contemporary haibun online, 20:2, 2024

Contemporary Haibun Anthology 20

The Message

at my friend's door

two military officers

in morning chill ...

his son and mine battle

with rows of toy soldiers

A long, heart-piercing scream shakes the living room. My friend's son starts crying uncontrollably in fear, and my son does, too. I am tongue tied and feel frozen in time.

In my mind's eye, I see my friend in a West Point cadet's uniform. His girlfriend, now his wife, stands by his side. His youthful, proud face mingles with his wife's tear-streaked face.

Cattails, April, 2024

The Cost of Writing

My friend, Chen-ou

I used to enjoy writing these Oliverian lines:

alone

linger for a while

out of a busy day

for the bluethroats

that have gathered among reeds

bordering the edges of the wetland

for a musical battle

to see who can sing the richest note

tacc, tacc and a hweet

Now, in order to hear the birds

the fighter jets and rolling fireballs

must be silent, be silent

I just want to be alive

on this fresh morning

in the world of broken hearts

fireballs drown out

my bloodied friend's question

what use is poetry?

I'm startled awake

this snowy New Year's morning

Drifting in and out of my daymare, he looks markedly thinner and paler. There is hunger in his eyes and ... in his heart.

Contemporary Haibun Online, 20:1, 2024

The Smell of Sorrow

all day rain ...

the puddles outside

and inside

these ripped plastic shelters

at the edge of Rafah

After the rain, at a camp located roughly a mile away from sandy terrain, strewn with rubbish and debris, men, women and children carry buckets of sand back and forth, back and forth, between their tents and the sandy area. A girl suddenly drops her bucket, then sits on the muddy groud, crying. For a moment, she stares up at the sky as if someone were listening.

Ribbons, 20:1, Winter 2024

Pushcart Prize Nomination by  the Tanka Society of America

Contemporary Haibun Anthology 20

Russia Will Be Free

Putin's critic

given sentence after sentence --

inside the glass cage

he gestures to his wife

with hands shaping a heart

Prompted at the end of the documentary to deliver a message to his supporters outside the courthouse, Navalny emphasizes, “If they decided to kill me, then it means we are incredibly strong. We need to utilize this power to not give up.The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing." He flashes a smile at the end of the film.

He is moved from one prison to another to serve his 19-year sentence on charges of extremism. On one occasion, the contact with him is lost for three weeks; it is rumored that he is being denied food and kept in an unventilated cell. Finally he is located at a prison colony above the Arctic Circle, and he dies there months later.

a pink-haired teen

dragged and carried away

by policemen ....

Navalny's youthful face glows

in flickering candlelight

Drifting Sands, 26, 2024

FYI: "Russia will be free" is a century-old political slogan used by Russian dissents. And the documentary, "Navalny," won the Best Documentary Feature at the 95th Academy Awards.

Life Just Goes on ...

isn't it vexing

not to know what plants will bloom

next year?

my wife murmurs to a lone rose

bent above near-leafless branches

I don't know what kind of question that is. My silence slows the pace of time passing; however, nothing is really unusual between us, a quiet couple as seen through the eyes of our friends and neighbors.

I go into the house, turn on the TV, and spend the rest of this afternoon drowning myself in the sound and fury of war news.

awake

in pre-dawn darkness ...

twenty years now,

I sleep side by side with her

this familiar stranger

Haiku Canada Review, 18:1, February 2024

A Chain Smoker of Few Words

My father, who was born in mainland China, quit his studies to defend his country against the Japanese invasion. Later, he fought his fellow countrymen for the sake of unifying war-torn China. Retreating to Taiwan along with the defeated Chinese Nationalist Army, he was separated from his family in China for four decades. He spent most of his adult life in Taiwan, worked hard to support his new family, died and was buried there without ever again seeing any of his family members from China.

this dream loop:

riding on my shoulders

into the Taiwan Strait

Father cries out, Mama

wait for me, I'm coming home

Contemporary Haibun Online, 19:3, 2023