Haiku (Never Published)

Drinking my tea

Without sugar-

   No difference.

The sparrow shits

   upside down

—ah! my brain & eggs

Mayan head in a

Pacific driftwood bole

—Someday I'll live in N.Y.

Looking over my shoulder

my behind was covered

with cherry blossoms.

       Winter Haiku

I didn't know the names

of the flowers—now

my garden is gone.

I slapped the mosquito

and missed.

What made me do that?

Reading haiku

I am unhappy,

longing for the Nameless.

A frog floating

in the drugstore jar:

summer rain on grey pavements.

       (after Shiki)

On the porch

in my shorts;

auto lights in the rain.

Another year

has past-the world

is no different.

The first thing I looked for

in my old garden was

The Cherry Tree.

My old desk:

the first thing I looked for

in my house.

My early journal:

the first thing I found

in my old desk.

My mother's ghost:

the first thing I found

in the living room.

I quit shaving

but the eyes that glanced at me

remained in the mirror.

The madman

emerges from the movies:

the street at lunchtime.

Cities of boys

are in their graves,

and in this town…

Lying on my side

in the void:

the breath in my nose.

On the fifteenth floor

the dog chews a bone-

Screech of taxicabs.

A hardon in New York,

a boy

in San Fransisco.

The moon over the roof,

worms in the garden.

I rent this house.

[Haiku composed in the backyard cottage at 1624Milvia Street, Berkeley 1955, while reading R.H. Blyth's 4 volumes, \