Selfie Stick Senryu

tourist attraction

pointing the way

with her selfie stick

Cattails, October 2023

Airport Window and Summer Clouds Haiku

airport window

summer clouds come and go, 

come and go ...

Acorn, 45, October 2020

Flights Delayed Senryu

yawns travel
from gate to gate
flights delayed

Cattails, October 2019

Great Wall of China Senryu

Great Wall of China
tourists dodging tourists
at every turn

Cattails, April 2019

Selected Haiku Sequence: Journey through the Land of Melting Clocks

anything new
under the Barcelona sun
Casa Milà

a line of tapas
where does her love begin
and my desire end?

the full moon
at La Sagrada Família
unfinished me

Occupy Madrid
returning
to my mother tongue

Seville Cathedral
above a sea of heads
chirping swallow

Dante in Thought
is it possible to take
refuge in poetry

Dalí painting
on my water-stained wall
hometown memories

Modern Haiku, 44:1, winter/spring 2013

Tales of the City Tour, A Haiku Sequence

a boy crossing
the line where the Berlin Wall
stood for decades

the end
of Checkpoint Charlie --
Golden Arches

first time tourists
under a canopy of cranes
Berliner Dom

alone,
spinning a postcard rack ...
old Berliner

hedgerow, 99, December 9 2016

Selected Tanka: Leda and the Swan Tanka

tourists crowd
around Leda and the Swan
I wonder
if our first kiss
was a real one

Atlas Poetica, 10, Fall 2011


Note: Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology.  In the form of a swan, the god Zeus, seduces Leda.

Heat Haiku about Lisbon

Lisbon heat

a trolley shivers

up and down the hill

Alfama heat

old flats congested

with migrants

NeverEnding Story, November 13, 2014

Note: During my June trip to Portugal, the temperature there could reach as high as 40 °c. The Alfama is the oldest district of Lisbon, spreading on the slope between the São Jorge Castle and the Tejo river. It remains one of the most photogenic neighborhoods in all of Europe.

Journeys, A Haiku Sequence

for the country of my birth

Sintra at dawn
a carriage horse
clip-clop, clip-clops ...

Lisbon heat
taxis rattle and screech
through cobbled lanes

Belem in twilight
her sailor song tinged
with love and regret

Ilha Formosa ...
sailors and I cry out
in a fleeting dream

Cattails, 3, 2014

Note: In 1544, a Portuguese ship sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it "Ilha Formosa," which means “Beautiful Island.”

A Bittersweet Year of Travel, A Haiku Sequence

Calgary Stampede
her harsh words pile up
along my spine

Antwerp fortress
a raven's caw darkens
the autumn sky

its shadow
overlaps with mine
Minerva Statue

Newstead Abbey
under the starless sky
echoes of an old tale

listening to the sunshine
through the windows
Sagrada Familia

Manneken Pis
between tree-lined streets
winter drizzle

Bruges in Spring
a chair and I, a tourist
in the empty room

insects trilling
Musical Instrument Museum
in spring sunlight

summer in Brussels
Famous Beer Inspector
on their T-shirts

CN Tower
penetrating the moon
under and alone

NeverEnding Story, Oct. 20, 2013