Another month of writing haiku has sped by and here we are on the cusp of Spring—ready to launch a new season. I’ve continued to write a haiku a day for the Haiku room.
Magic happens there—a (virtual) room full of essential strangers share their innermost longings, secrets, feelings. A room full of strangers responds, supports, delights together. We draw strength from one another, courage, encouragement.

Inhale images
***mystical fermentation***
Exhale poetry

I attend haiku church
Words and syllables offered, 
Received. Communion.

The haikus arrive
Droplets of oxytocin
Sacred addiction

The haikus I’ve written this month correspond to the work I’m doing with my therapist, the work I’m doing with my massage therapists (yes, you read that correctly, I have two massage therapists—each does amazing and unique work, each has succeeded in “fixing” me in ways that the traditional medical establishment could not).

She laid hands on me
Channeled a Divine spirit–
Broke through to my Soul

Opaque woman looks
Inward and finds her own light
Source, glows brighter now

My heart beats strong, true
Because of the scars woven
In, around and through

Without shadow I
am only that part of me 
I let others see

Old prisons crumbling–
Bars and chains and rank darkness
Opening to light

Some have to do with my rich (hahahaha) inner life. Some with my love and my wife.

I see you seeing
Me and in that gaze I see
You. Deep reflection.

This heart’s fragile terrain
Has no natural boundaries
Travel gently here

Woman’s voice, but girl’s
Fears: Silence, ache, and longing
After all these years

All of them are gifts—some I work on for hours, others come to me in flashes. Occasionally I will wake up in the middle of the night with an idea or a fully formed poem. Sometimes I exchange haikus with friends and the alchemic interactions produce poetry I could never have made on my own.

Silence spirals up
Rising like the heat of a
Clarifying fire

I am bigger than 
The box you’ve put me in. I
Can’t write on these walls. 

I just meant to tug
that one thread, not to make the
whole thing unravel

Twenty one days to
Break a habit—to forget
You, sweet tendency

A few have to do with the creative process—writing and self doubt, which seem to go hand in hand.

I tamp her down–yet
she rises in me, demands,
aches, pens poetry

Shadow self writes and
I wonder how she wrested
Control of the pen.

Taking a haiku
Holiday–away from psy-
Ku hai-ology

Words fall from my tongue–
Spilt, dance upon this altar
Freely sacrificed

Peel words from my tongue
Thoughts stuck in my throat, silence
Masquerades as truth

We construct our own
Prisons whether by longing,
Desire, inertia

A single pebble
Tossed carelessly can create
Ripples of longing

Fragile, frangible
My heart’s porcelain terrain
Travel gently here

A few just have to do with life in general—living in the neighborhood, running, that sort of thing.

Early morning run
I can do anything for
one hour. Anything.
 

Chainsaws, wood chippers
Shattering this afternoon 
A storm’s noisy toll

I hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed writing them.