starting verses (haiku)

today is international haiku day - there's even a NaHaiWriMo every february.

some of these are brand new haikus, and some are reconfigurations of some previous lines of poetry. anyway...enjoy.

*

my poems are getting
shorter. everything
is more measured now.

*

this is the moment
promises are made lightly
and i hide from view.

*

some words were exchanged
and emotions hard bartered
for scraps of meaning.

*

please come home and spend
whatever time is required
to make your way clear.

*

lay down your burden
at your enemy’s feet
and find yourself alight.

*

you are mostly empty
space and light traversing
the gap between hearts.

*

then come take my hand
and eat the words i lift to
your lips with longing.

*

the only thing known
to shift story from whispers
to a memory.

*

this and this and this
longing and desire for joy –
a settled embrace.

*

walking the slow path,
i stop to smell a flower –
a reminder of you.

*

the way to carve space
is to assign it new names
and set it loosely.

*

i only wanted this –
this thing i now desire –
this unending joy.

*

your mouth, delicate,
dances lightly across skin
all electrical.

*

the way a shell breaks
and light enters like a thief;
each desperate thought.

*

and then the flag raised
and trumpets sounding the depths
as we brace ourselves.

*

the earth will own me,
will claim my songs as ransom,
a verse to all change.

*

my face set like flint
against or towards mountains
and valleys and seas.

*

until our bodies press
next to time and flesh weakens,
spirit and blood rise.

*

again, the promise
to have and to hold and to
never walk away.

*

again the path, again
the light and sound of drumming,
echoing the bones.

*

and thus I am known,
and perhaps rejected, and
perhaps too, embraced.