Kerplunk

18 October 2021

Sad instrument of

Empire, watering his lawn

I waved--he waved back.

Haiku clarinet in road

Small branch laced with holes, no one

To play it but tires.

Haiku goes walking

A mud-puddle’s clarity

Japanese school house

Red wood reflected

Palimpsest of hapu`u

Lilith bends to drink

Haiku’s in or out

Of parentheses: bent wire

On fence comforts web.

Tap dance rain drops plunk

Can’t make the same rhythm twice

The cymbal’s a splat

SPLAT: graffiti on

Flashing traffic sign. Robots

In Japan look real-

ish. So much depends

On ish-ness, hour’s isthmus

Or a minute’s mask.

My friend writes she hides

Inside her death, when I asked

To know the weather.

Whether or not is

Also weather: cloud breaks then

Gathers like glass fog.

Beneath hapu`u

Fern a broken mirror blinks

Eye detective—spy--

Pretty as a wood-

pecker and always busy

Do you favor caps?

How a mushroom is

Like a poem, emerging

Roof first, then a leg

We like Ginsberg’s ver-

sion best, where Basho's frog jumps,

Makes the sound KERPLUNK.