Synapse gap haiku

Thought about my brain
But didn’t look at my eyes
Get to hear my ears

Couldn’t smell my nose,
Taste my tongue, but I could feel
All of my fingers

What part of the brain
Thinks about the brain? Can’t wrap
My mind around that

Does a different part
Think about the part that thinks
About how we think?

If you sort that out
Please explain it to me, I’d
Like to know — I think

Japan, redux

From a year ago:

Life-giving waters
Transformed in a flash, become
Japan’s wall of death

Lands lurch and seas surge
Turn nature into monster
Devastatingly

Terror, anger, grief
Emotions crash like the tides
Overwhelmingly

Thousands lost, millions
Ever changed, a giant tear
In the Earth’s fabric

The sakura weep
Nuclear tears, radiant
With history’s haunting

Japan like a bird
Without a branch to land on
Pray its wings stay strong

Women’s Day haiku

Dignity to claim
Power to tap — Women’s Day
International

The truth for millions
Obscene beyond all telling
But truth should be told

Pains of oppression
Rape, mutilation, bondage
Poverty, hunger

Mothers and daughters,
Sisters, men who stand with them
Rally on this day

Imagine a world
Of liberty, justice,
Non-violence, peace

Education, hope
Freedom, opportunity
True equality

Slogans are just words
But if they move us to act
They have done their work

And so much good work
Awaits to bridge the canyon
Between real, ideal

International
Women’s Day — power unleashed
Dignity reclaimed

March 6 haiku

March 6: Michelangelo born (1475), Missouri Compromise (1820), Dred Scott decision (1857), Bayer patents aspirin (1899)

Gazing at ceiling
Reminds me: Happy birthday,
Michelangelo

Devil’s day doubled:
The Missouri Compromise,
Dred Scott Decision

Bayer gets patent
Excellent pain reliever
Lousy birth control

Speaking of Missouri …

Missouri shows us,
Picks Limbaugh for Hall of Fame,
Reverts to “Puke State”

And at random …

While meditating
I wait for enlightenment
To speed the heck up

“Instant (Plastic) Karma” haiku; “Sweet Dreams” haiku, redux

March 5, 1963: Hula-Hoop patented; Patsy Cline dies in plane crash

Patented proof that
What goes around comes around:
Wham-O’s Hula-Hoop

And these, written on her birthday last September:

Patsy Cline, Sept. 8, 1932 – March 5, 1963

Patsy Cline sang ’em
Just right every time — a voice
That never gets old

“Country-politan”
Arrangements didn’t help her
Still, her vocals shined

Honky-tonk, heartaches,
Come hither, her voice conveyed
So effortlessly

Didn’t need music
She could sing it all by ear
And with perfect pitch

But most of all she
Could cut through a song’s layers
And lay its heart bare

“I Fall to Pieces”
“Why Can’t He Be You?” “Heartaches”
“Crazy” — crazy good

With just the right pause
She brought down revelation
Singing “She’s Got You”

Last gig, KCK
Then a plane crash took her life
Falling star heartbreak

So tonight let’s go
Walking after midnight, say
“Sweet dreams, Patsy Cline”

One -koo, two -koo, low -koo, haiku

Theodor Geisel, March 2, 1904 — Sept. 24, 1991

Theodor Geisel
We knew him well — not a moose
Our pal Dr. Seuss

Neither goose, caboose
Nor mango juice — books never
Called a rhyming truce

The Cat in the Hat,
Green Eggs & Ham — ate them up
Like hot toast and jam

He wrote with delight
And that was just half — wrote so
We would learn and laugh

Wordplay was worthy
Made kids see — lesson lives on
For big kids like me

With words and rhymes what
That man could do! But never,
I think, in haiku

Short stack haiku


Felt flat till I heard
It’s National Pancake Day
Make mine blueberry!

“Ex- chromosome” haiku

Double helix found
Gene genie unleashed this date
Watson, Crick get wish

“Double Helix” book
Tells story, not all agree
Watson, Crick quarrel

Double helix splits
Bad feelings replicate till
Watson, Crick divide

“This Date in History” entry is here.