camphor tree
in full bloom--
the sting of your good bye

the heaviness
of winter rain
under streetlights

warm autumn
a foxtail
caught in my sock

the jade merchant's hand in mine the haloed moon





Modern Haiku
Volume 38.2
Summer 2007

stray kitten
the place in her abdomen
where her ribs touch

first bat
echolocating
the equinox





July 2nd, 2007 (No. 697)
Mainichi Daily News
Haiku In English

summer heat
her neglected garden
reshapes itself

hospital parking lot
my old Ford truck
springs a leak

heart surgery
cutting through the dead stems
of Okasan's roses

a white shoe
under the rubble
Baghdad moon

just-washed whites yellowing under the full moon

first cicaida--
calloused feet
on hot cement

premature birth
the moonflower opens
at sunset

Turkish moon--
losing my balance
on the squat-toilet

Camouflage

Dusty July fence-post shade, Horned Toads copulating—scale and claw interlocked. She, twice his size, pancake belly waiting to knit calcium into white leather. Twitch, swish, a flash of pink—still—hunker down big sharp beak flying over. An A-10 wing takes off from Davis Monthan Air Force Base, laboring over my yard in twos and threes. My house, just four miles north of the runway—I hear them coming even before they are airborne. Every day, all day, all night, until they go to the other desert. One hundred and eighteen degrees, JP-8 purged before an emergency landing. Ants build volcanic cones, bringing grain after grain of gravel to the surface, and sometimes the redness of a garnet among the granules of sand. Sunset, licking ants from their eyes, studded backs melting into desert camouflage.


A-10s rumble over--
the dull, red splatter
of anthill garnets


Autumn Moon

midnight
at the sake factory
silver moths take flight


Autumn Moon

dust mote
in a sunbeam
the orange kitten


Autumn Moon

one thousand full moons
in the gourd patch
summer solstice


Autumn Moon

hoarfrost
on the windshield
fingernail moon


Autumn Moon

Tien Shan mountains
unexpected autumn snow--
first taste of apple


Autumn Moon

Icelandic poppy
a salmon leaps
to the sky


Autumn Moon

chocolate bunny
the wind is alive
with flowers


Autumn Moon