Bowing patiently
with their arms at their sides, shirts
on a clothesline wait.

Through a singular
expression flow many tides
of common feeling.

rain rain rainy rain
rainy rainy rainy rain
rain rain rain rain rain

Reinvent the wheel,
but know that you must also
reinvent the road.

After a long nap,
the cat yawns, stirs, and searches
for a place to nap.

The price of a thing
confronts us with a value—
ours if not its own.

Someone ought to tell
American schoolteachers
English haiku suck.

We watch over you
because we care—mostly that
you look suspicious.

Poor Darwin—so much
about sex lost on a world
obsessed with violence.

A grove of pages—
Dark insects crawl with intent
among turning leaves.

Too soon to get up
Too late to go back to sleep
Guess I'll just lie here

distant wanderer
turn back and back as from war
red dust from red stone

The dead baby bird
saddens me, yet I hope that
something will eat it.

Mythic crackerjacks
contain your lost toys and all
that you lost with them.

Blossom on blossom
towers delicate purple
and sweet strong perfume.

First, five syllables;
Second, seven syllables;
Last, five syllables.

About the mountain
of answerless questions, we
tend to our small plots.

If Average Man
gets a comic, Mean Man will
be its Bizarro.

Release your anger
and its heavy burden, observe
how that looks onscreen.

Children, behave, and
wash up before bedtime, don't
make me call the planes.

Hearing the unmanned
plane circle above, my heart
suddenly goes out.

Human hearts are large
and four-chambered. Much passes
through, and they beat on.

The world is against
us, but if it weren't, we'd
never stop falling.

An ism isn't
an argument and provides
nothing of content.

Vulgar aesthetics:
Is it good? You don't fucking
ask if you're laughing.

Feeling together
warm sunlight and window cold
by my open hand.

Sharp pencils pursue
a life in quotation marks
traced within the lines.

The thinking reed has
many instruments and a
figure for figures.

A window in which
one's face is reflected—an
image of the mind

Music and laughter
are our household gods, pray now
let them ring through you.

Candy apple red
dapples laughing blossoms—clowns
bobbing for noses.

You can lead a horse
to water, but you can put
lipstick on a pig.

Being what is is
what what is is is being
being being what.

The gods are angry:
coffee so altered and burnt
stinks to high heaven.

Sex is recreation
That has many meanings
That's very human

Stir, wake, sigh, listen:
Street sounds, bird songs, neighbor steps.
Listen, breathe, stir, rise.

Night minds make mischief,
move reason's furniture, and
hide absurd candies.

Job, you have it bad,
but what were you expecting?
You're only human.

There's no accounting
for money doesn't grow on
a bird in the hand.

Life is like a box
You can't fit a square peg in
One good turn deserves.

The early bird gets
There's no use crying over
Beer before liquor.

You can't have your cake.
Don't put all your eggs in one
If you can't beat 'em.

Surprise grabs life as
wet snow grabs thin boughs in an
early spring blizzard.

I get a lot done
avoiding things I should do.
Is that productive?

It makes sense to act
like nothing has happened when
nothing has happened.

See them walk so tall—
They walk with ease and purpose,
Walking through the world.

Infinite breadth is
known and encompassed by a
firm rule and fine point.

The devil is in,
The road to hell is paved, but
a stitch in time saves.

Long up top, clipped sides,
I had that haircut. It was
silly on me too.

Words on wooden tongues
promise to reveal fresh dirt
and buried secrets.

Long rows wind around.
Oh, how long lines go so slow—
so so so so slow.

Don't mix apples and
If you can't do the time, don't
When the cat's away.

Nothing to be done.
It is what it is is all.
Nothing to be done.

Why buy the cow, when
Money is the root of all
A penny saved is?

I have seen the rain
come down on a sunny day.
It is beautiful.

Are there so many
songs about rainbows and what's
on the other side?

Don't count your chickens.
You can't make an omelet
Until the cows come.

The note "personal
communication" transforms
it to something else.

There's more than one way
Variety is the spice
Good fences make good.

Love is the answer
to a question difficult
to formulate well.

We laugh at fools and
The world laughs at fools like us
All laughing like fools.

The ice relaxes,
lets its hair flow down melting
with warm wet kisses.

There is some sadness
in every sentence that a
joke does not contain.

Gas Affordabil-
-ity Service Program is
GAP, not GASP. Ha ha.

A truth meets a truth.
They pass time, converse, and part
convinced they are right.

A girl plays music
on chalk piano keys her
small shoes dance music.

You'll go out again.
The world is full of men of
military age.

The one-eyed snowman
Wants a stocking full of coal.
It's Bad Frosty time.

"We dress like students,
We dress like housewives, or in
A suit and a tie."

The chilaquiles
at The Lowry are tasty.
I suggest poached eggs.

"Obvious" has no
place in a well-written proof.
You're doing it wrong.

Our door we opened
For Elijah at Pesach—
Now we have no cat.

The mohel carries
a wallet that becomes a
suitcase—just rub it.

The ways in n lines
to fit k obscurities:
Pound-Stirling number.

Irony is nice
but distracting: Tantalus'
hell is the hunger.

Don't make a mountain
when life gives you lemons, make
an apple a day.

still again always
always only returning
melodies echos

All's fair in love, and
what's good for the goose is good;
laughter is the best.

The hypotenuse
squared is the sum of the squares
of the other sides.

Absence makes the heart
give a man a fish you can't
sew a silk purse from.

Events fossilize
into place—stopping here—here
is where it happened.

Nebraska in Summer or Summer in Nebraska: You be the Judge!

Hot Badminton Hot
Hot Hot Thunderstorms Hot Hot
Hot Barbecue Hot

On a City Hill

Amid the dead leaves,
A tear of foil, an ember,
Reflects still first fire.

For some damn reason
measurability is
a pain in the ass.

For Jimmy Smith

I got my mojo
working. Gon' try it on you.
Aw, Roogalater!

April showers: bring
flowers, sure, so long as you
also bring me warmth.

Movie and music:
mystic valley band extra-
-vaganza tonight.

By the Mississippi

From the bank, a branch,
a bag billowing white, wave
in gentle farewell.

Shopping for Wine

No Manischewitz.
I realize it's hard, but please
no Manischewitz.

Weird coincidence.
Recent New Yorker discussed
Cavafy at length.

Hmm, what New Yorker?
Poetry sale at the U:
read some Cavafy.

(Considered it, but
no. Neruda instead and
some Donald Justice.)

Oh, and by the way,
that haiku was written in
a C train T shirt.

Allergies

Spring comes and maybe
it's time to revive the blog.
Haiku! Bless you! Thanks!

Long time no Brian.
I read that New Yorker too.
I miss the E train.

Haiku for Cavafy

We grow infinite
tired and long and fear to rest
our souls forever.

Absent now, but still
In light, in dark, I see you
Adjusting my eyes

Dull leaden nonclouds—
A day when all the sun does
Is keep me alive.

nervous nervous nerv-
ous hearing continued judge
ok padlock off.

quiet tree branches
no squirrel or bird, the clock's
cuckoo gives one cry

In this place I've
always lived, today I see
light on its petals

Look! The shadows choose
this night, the moon is asking
for another dance...