bonfires
of midsummer's eve
we wait
for the fortune tellers
to whisper their secrets

summer breeze
caresses the meadow
I lie down
and become a sunflower
for an afternoon

drums
of our ancestors
spirited rainfall

The Bamboo Hut, Number 3, 2020.

haiku book
in the mailbox
first crocus

total eclipse the moon feels the same as me

Under the Basho 2019

when she speaks
the butterflies inside me
flutter

one night stand with a shelf life half as long

Bones Issue 19

the mirror
has yet to learn
what to hide

tears of joy
rain drops run up the window
of home bound plane 

21st Kusamakura Taisho Winner (Grand Prize)

village churchyard
she now wears the clouds
for a wig

lilacs on the breeze . . .
you just never see
a pigeon smile

crows
the dead suddenly
more dead

dandelion wine
this heart
and its orgies

new love
plum juice runs
into the cracks

turning her back
to men
a nursing mother

phone screen
going blank
waiting for the bus

spring twilight
winding around
the power pole
a hundred locks
of purple wisteria

Shackleton
locked in sea ice—
the carpenter ant
probes the pools
of last night's rain

twenty seconds
the melody of water
over my hands


little blue can
the mighty band sound
of Miles Davis


dried-up
hydrangea blossoms
the old family album

dew on daisies
she places on
his grave

finding one in the many sunflowers

something
of my energy toward life
gone astray,
I look in grim moroseness
at the tsunami debris

 
the Japanese
talk to the death portrait
of the loved one,
why is it that not once
have I talked to my lonely wife's?

old man
snoring in his garden
thunder overhead

the last leaf leaves the tree the last time

snowfall
birds shivering in trees
coated white