Category Archives: Haibun

David Graham – USA (PJ32)

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Pain Believer

For a moment this morning, before I put on my glasses, I thought the aspirin bottle on the counter read “Pain Believer.” Which is exactly what I am, I suppose, especially as I age. Creaky knees and aching feet; stiff back, cataract-dimming eyes. It’s true I find my eyes as well as my joints steadily less reliable. And in fact I don’t much remember life before eyeglasses. But I do recall with prophetic sharpness the moment when the eye doctor slipped that first pair over my ears, then lifted the window shade. “Look out as far as you can,” he instructed. “What do you notice?”

I could barely answer. The world’s beautiful blur suddenly lovely in a whole new way. Distant trees, clothes lines, road signs all snapped into focus. Objects assumed individual identities. I could see single leaves trembling in the light breeze. But it was a strong wind blowing over me from then on, and delicious. I leaned hard into it.

tree limbs creak
against each other
in april wind

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John Zheng – USA (PJ32)

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curfew
rats roam
the streets

quarantine
more cars
at win job center

Two Notes on Language Awareness

The cruise ship sails upriver through the Qutang Gorge. Bored to death, John steps out of his cabin and leans on the gunwale to see the towering mountain peaks and cloudscapes. A few steps away, a young man, whose black hair has been dyed golden brown, is taking pictures of his girlfriend who poses with a slight smile. Printed on the back of his t-shirt is a Trojan ad in English.

“Do you speak English?”
asks the cop. “No!” answers
the handcuffed man

Reaction

In a filling station in the catfish capital of Belzoni, Mississippi, a man waits impatiently and mumbles outside the men’s room, “Usually women stay in there that long. How can a man stay in there long?” Standing behind him are two other men waiting to relieve their bladders.

shopping season
mannequins in new fashion
along each aisle
their eggshell faces
cold and cool

winter valley what i see is not what i’ve dreamed
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Keith Polette – USA (PJ32)

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going stag . . .
i follow deer tracks
into the forest

old growth . . .
her mother’s voice
under her own

birthday
reaching twenty-one
at blackjack

The River

The clear stream carried the morning sunlight to the bend where it disappeared.  I waded in and cast my line to the shallows of the opposite bank, hoping to hook Walleye or Bass.  After an hour of casting and reeling, catching nothing but time, I was ready to close my tackle box and call it a day, when a dragonfly landed on the tip of my rod.  Perched in a six-legged grip, it was a blue bloom at the end of a long stem.  The wings, glinting in sun, translucent, thin as a whisper, did not move, like a biplane grounded.  Its eyes looked like dark observatories.  Then, as quick as a blue-tipped match stuck to life, the dragonfly lifted, hovered for a moment, then disappeared into light, leaving me standing there, the first catch of the day, shimmering in water.

fishing lure
the flash of her leg
in fine-mesh net

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