Author Archives: Greg Hack

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About Greg Hack

Writer of verses in 5-7-5 haiku meter. I hope this is my epitaph: A guy with passion / Heart on sleeve, in awe of life / And he never changed

Broken haiku

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I’d never heard of Sam Baker, though I listen to “Cyprus Avenue” pretty regularly. (For any out of towners, that’s Bill Shapiro’s great Saturday music show on KCUR, our gem of a public radio station in Kansas City.) But some friends had tickets and asked my wife and me along to Sam Baker’s show Saturday at the Folly Theater (our beautifully restored, 112-year-old gem of a venue). I’m so grateful I got to see him. Quite a moving show, by a unique talent. A little haiku tribute:

Sam Baker sings it
Plain, plaintive, talking on pitch
A hushed, dusty twang

Sam Baker plays it
Plucked notes set the atmosphere
For tales to unfold

Sam Baker writes it
Cut, bloodied, scarred — mosaics
From life’s shattered shards

Sam Baker knows it
Meaning’s elusive amid
The beauty and pain

Sam Baker sees it
The smallest details reveal
Emotions so deep

Sam Baker lives it
Stories that haunt, love that heals
Though we’re so broken

Rest in peace, Neil Armstrong

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Neil Armstrong, Aug. 5, 1930 — Aug. 25, 2012

Neil Armstrong answered
Moon’s timeless pull, fast footprints
In history’s tides

In heavens made real
Eons of human dreaming
Now he joins the stars

And from July 20, 2011

The man in the moon
Joined by first men on the moon
Forty-two years back

In that one small step
All-American Armstrong
Made our giant leap

Footprints forever
Mark triumph of our spirit,
Unquenchable quest

In tight-fisted times
Fear and division threaten
What’s best inside us

Which call is answered?
“We’re all in this together”
Or “We can’t right now”

Great countries don’t cruise
— Except into outer space —
They work to achieve

Time to quit fighting
And start pulling together
To reason, not hate

Follow those footprints
Leave our forever markings
On lives of others

Look to the heavens
But the miracle is this:
That we walk on Earth

“Rest not in peace” haiku

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Joe Strummer, Aug. 21, 1952 — Dec. 22, 2002

Fury of the hour
Still lives in the grooves, echoes
Joe Strummer calling

“We could use some laughs” haiku

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Phyllis Diller, July 17, 1917 — Aug. 20, 2012

‘Bye Phyllis Diller
Blazed trail of tears (of laughter)
Queen of one-liners

Self deprecation
And domestic disasters
Made thousands of jokes

“Bury the laundry”
“Skip baby’s bath — he won’t tell”
Among your fine tips

“Goodnight, We Love You”
DVD captured career,
Your many talents

Mom and I watched it
In her final days — maybe
The last laughs she had

Hope now you’re having
The last laugh because no one
Could laugh quite like you

‘Bye Phyllis Diller
Loved your alligator shoes
Or were you barefoot?

http://youtu.be/cF30wZpift0

A hunk-a hunk-a burnin’ haiku

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Written Aug. 16, 2011

Can you remember
The day Elvis died back in
’77?

Elvis changed it all
Genie of youth, rebellion
Out of the bottle

Many hated, feared
What he symbolized, said he
Really couldn’t sing

Long list of haters:
Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen
And Frank Sinatra

Elvis proved ’em wrong
They came around, whether
They meant it or not

Elvis changed it all
But then what? Life isn’t easy
Even when you’re King

Elvis was the pup
Who caught that car, didn’t know
What to do with it

Ill managed, ill used
Bad movies, material
Tarnished the King’s crown

Elvis made comebacks,
Proved he still had it, and yet
Something was missing

No one who really
Loved and reached him, could lead him
To reality

The King died alone
On his throne, you couldn’t write
A sadder punchline

Talent, tragedy
How often they are married
In this crazy world

My aunt passed this year
She loved Elvis like the sun
She never forgot

The King is dead, long
Live the King, in every heart
Ever touched by him
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZBUb0ElnNY

Robert Plant remembers Elvis in the second half of this clip.

Lots of people still do Elvis, but seldom this well. Bob Walkenhorst sings “Suspicious Minds” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”

“Arrow through head” haiku

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Wishing Steve Martin
A wild and crazy birthday
He’s 67

Happy birthday, Steve
Some guys have a way with words
Some … oh … not have way!

Sure the guy’s funny
Here’s the true test: Can he do
Balloon animals?!

A Renaissance guy
Comic, author, film actor,
Total banjo stud

Philosophical,
Sophisticated beneath
All the goofy gags

Quite the movie man
“LA Story” to “Roxanne”
Serious roles, too

And “Born Standing Up”
Told us his triumphs, setbacks
In life and show biz

Happy birthday, Steve
Not bad for a guy who was
Born a poor black child

Hourglass haiku

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Kids grow parents die
Looks jobs bosses partners change
In this dance of time

It’s true normal’s just
A dryer setting meaning
Tumbling in hot wind

So we all need things
To hold onto — tumbleweeds
Are so hard to hug

Friends dogs coffee God
Things that don’t just blow away
When storms are brewing

Spaces inside, out
Spaces life can’t rearrange
Unless we say so

We all need our rocks
To build our peace on, knowing
The sands will get in

A.C. haiku

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Windows broken out
Or as we say in the hood
Air conditioning

He heated up when
Asked size of his unit, but
She meant Btu

Air conditioning
One time in life it’s good to
Be a Carrier

Evaporation
Of body’s perspiration
Natural a.c.

But it sure is nice
To put this heat on ice through
Refrigeration

AE haiku

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Amelia Earhart, July 24, 1897 — July ??, 1937

Nikumaroro
75 years later
The search continues

Mystery, adventure
Derring-do, lust to take wing
Amelia Earhart

Her birthday today
Incarnate in Atchison
Baby girl inspired

From first shed-roof “flight”
To last over Pacific
Spirit blazed, undimmed

And then she vanished
Landing on the wrong island?
Ditching in the sea?

The search continues
Hope they find what they’re seeking
If even they know

Perhaps it’s all right
When a dream runs out of gas
To keep chasing it

But I think she would
Move on, lay the dream to rest
Beneath waves and sand

Trailblazer haiku

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Sailing to the stars
This one last time, for all time
Liftoff, Sally Ride

The NPR report on the death of Sally Ride is here.