Rectangle

Ms. Haiku

08 May 2025

A couple days ago, rock & roll talk,
Matt Cameron spotlighted, a second
induction into the Hall of Fame. One
time, as a member of Pearl Jam. One time, 
as a member of Soundgarden. Matt wore
a Nirvana shirt. Reincarnated
from a Shakespearian actor who met
all, worked with all, could pen a bestseller.
The Bookshop in East End Nashville displays
Grunge Tarot decks. A three-mile walk for who
knows the area. A bonus twenty
minutes earns a bagel, but who keeps score?
The included tarot book highlights songs
and singers. I regress to the evening.

Ms. Haiku

09 May 2025

Yesterday, a book, I closed. Few chapters 
consumed most pages. A walking chapter
ate one page. I included a couple.
The prose in a coffee cup brewed light roast
over ten pages. Bad coffee burned text.
I cleaned the AirBnB, written rules,
average chapter. The host expected
the apartment left behind unwritten. 
The favorite-thing text of a concert 
is pulled from drafts, and posted on the walls,
open accessed relatable stories.
Interpretive wall hangings seen each time
the note, song, album, or concert bootleg 
is played. The wall art worthy of its words.

Ms. Haiku

09 June 2025

I finally read The Declaration
of Independence. Fifteen minutes, tops,
and reread it for the thrill. What courage!
Entitled men, but nooses were swinging.
Read this, For cutting off our Trade with all
Parts of the World. Another good one is,
For transporting us beyond Seas to be
tried for pretended Offences. Under
the current administration, this book,
smaller than a chapbook, fits in fanny
packs, would be banned. Tyranny one time
written, and Tyrants two times written. They
ban the written word, and pencil stories.
Their flag burning organizes sewists.

Ms. Haiku

10 June 2025

Writers write devil poems every day.
They place their shadows in a box and shine
fluorescent lights. The first devil in line
leaves breadcrumbs directing the rest astray.
The administration houses devils
who send regurgitated hate to ICE
in LA, where they herd shoppers and splice
families. The Project's published playbill.
The administration spews vampired
discontent as social media spawn
sucking visual allegiance of pawns,
before they hear community choirs.
Community voices of one or all
are the sharpest tools for a devil's fall.

Ms. Haiku

12 June 2025

Six million six hundred thousand voters
selected Alex Padilla his last
senate race. Along with Senator Schiff,
they represent almost forty million 
people. On the world stage with ninety eight 
more senators, they represent over
three hundred forty million people. 
Senators swear to support and defend
the U.S. Constitution. Conversant 
senators electrify the guiding
document like proud streetlights flaring bright.
The administration shellacs voices
and sticks them to padded walls. We call on
our senators, unexpecting forced falls.

Ms. Haiku

17 June 2025

Three point five percent reflected poster
boards and paint pens, the colors of rainbows,
declaring commitment. What did occur
were massive No King protests. What a blow
to the regime's parade, but let's give props
to the Army, two hundred and fifty
No King years. D.I.P. before a fop,
napping, naughty, narcissistic in DC.
I listened to podcasts. I wore a shirt
with an eagle to protect me. They said
don't give them ammunition, to divert
potential violence one degree. Blades
of embarrassment poke me in my fear,
a soft hair shirt thrown behind protest cheers.

Ms. Haiku

10 May 2025

Washington, D.C., is across the street.
National museums and monuments,
and a half-empty-half-full coffee scene,
summon me southeast, from azalea scents
of Takoma Park, my home of twenty
plus years. Unknown to me until cafes
yelp-launch within walking distance. Coffee
is my travel buddy. Four miles away
to an iced americano. The gifts
of unfamiliar rivered left and right.
I question the alarm clock of knowledge.
The rope of curiosity pulls tight
my short circular historical view,
and expands pencil maps of what I knew.

Ms. Haiku

04 July 2025

Iron reeks from a blood-soaked wool tweed dress
of a dead woman. Her stained underwear 
matches piles of blood on her nude stockings,
and puddles of blood on her pumps. Women
dying from the law earn legal sainthoods. 
Her insurance card, her address printed
too feminine for scribble-letter laws.
Politicians quickly form signatures 
of red ties and blue jackets. All of them
roll the masculine scroll of ripping-laws
into a tourniquet of two people.
And, yet, women who speak rich nations die
from miscarriages today and tomorrow 
hearing birds call their final-breath welcomes.

Ms. Haiku

11 May 2025

The last Mother's Day with full grocery 
shelves. Grocery store absences include 
dry cereal, popcorn, crackers, pasta  
At least we know what is imported, but
what about Washington State apples, and
what about Florida grapefruit? Deport
the workers, tariff imports and we lose
weight. The weight of wedding feasts, Thanksgiving 
cranberries, hotdogs. Options weigh people
down. Potlucks will disappear without white
tangy mayonnaise. Donuts frosted grey.
Sometimes I bought a book instead of food.
I didn't know poverty of bookshelves. 
The high cost of a nation's dumbing down.

Ms. Haiku

16 May 2025

Eighty-three years ago they wrote haiku.
Maligned, round up, and incarcerated 
Americans, with legal documents 
julienned into sticks and mixed with dust.
Tower guards' guns melted in hot boredom. 
The government babysitters sighting
strangers who wrote haiku anthologies 
chronicling dust seasons in syllables. 
Before the xenophobic river swept
Japanese Americans to deserts, 
white supremists salivated green spit
into molds of the residential locks.
Some interned Americans divided
betrayal in Aha! form reprisals. 

Ms. Haiku

17 May 2025

When more directives are in pink neon,
we will bow down like gentle unicorns. 
When more emails smell like fresh ground coffee,
we will respond faster than AI bots.
We wait in line for poured caffeination,
and pastries. A pink neon sign steady
displays, "Drink More Coffee," infiltrating,
if not instigating, a pre-ordained 
jolly afternoon. The words bright in script 
of subtle cursive written signatures. 
I want to eat the words without dying,
or knit words into an inviting hat.
I will glow an eternal pink bouquet,
a tattoo of coffee encouragement.