Haiku: Autumn 2007
(1) From: DaJoShap
To: DCLehman
Subject: preface Shapiro / for our haiku. I'll think / Now why not write yrs
yes you may publish
our haiku but I think
preface needs finish!
for example our
haiku might seem dour:
no seasons, flowers
well, maybe a bug
it landed on us while snug
we counted haiku
Even thinking haiku
I miss writing the haiku
even in haiku
inside the haiku
a bug, a host, a guest, more–
all fits –even you!
We hardly ever meet
we hardly ever greet, yet
poets love the beat
but that's too dry, I
know – the first haiku should fly
like Keene's sharp short dry
in English ice creams
might be important as dreams —
as Kyoto stones
As we joke, we say
don't write every day, write
all day and don't stop
at morning, haiku
in the afternoon, haiku
sleep, baby haiku
how I would like to
write the color of the voice
of the haiku bird!
or disappear like
a prince executed fast
Must it be today?"
Yes it must, Haiku
We must let you end, today
Though you've more to say!
KANA PILLOW
— David Shapiro
(2) September 8, 2007: 8:25 pm
from: DCLehman
To: DaJoShap
I think we should start
a new series of haiku
before the leaves drift
before the leaves fall
in that one moment when all
of nature stands tall.
"You are the poet,"
C. said to J. "I , the scribe."
Birds build but not I.
Eye of hurricane,
or all-seeing bug on top
of lean apple tree,
look at me and think,
this is life this wait this day
in haiku heaven
with my friend you: why
miss writing the haiku when
we can write new ones
and live within them
as the guest hosts of a late
night talk show you hear
from the room next door
to yours in no-sleep motels
full of books, the books
we want to write, you
and I, alone together
for the first time since
the night of sharp knives
the November night and dawn
on Riverside Drive.
– David Lehman