Van Allen Belts-Friendly Haiku

William Keckler

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3 min read

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Feb 3, 2019

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zen retreat
can’t stop not talking
about it

spring day
an app for flying kites
is popular

immigrants trim
wildflowers
floating across a wall

untangling
my dead dad’s fishing line
for no reason

autumn walk–
a ghost app shows
half my neighbors are haunted

cherry blossoms
she deletes Tinder
for several hours

naked
watching the sparrows dine
in formal dress

summer evening
we learn the app to fool mosquitoes
is a joke

spring hike
butterflies in my stomach
gender unknown

zen date
we watch stones slim down
in his garden

but do the fish
know they are fish–
we worry

steak plate left out
the cat hums
as she drinks blood

planetarium
a light pointer
touches a nipple

planetarium
kids only interested
in the dark

planetarium
in the darkness a boy
touches Venus

lifting a letter
its sunlight
stays in place

dinner argument
going outside to think
about other planets

book in sun–
light we use to read
part of the words

being young
the maple does it
every year

cat sits
in a rainy window
quietly reading

crow says something
it can’t take
anything back

winter therapy
running the pipes
to avert freezing

snowy night
watching time
it drifts

spring day–
newborn insects
don’t guess they’re orphans

water in my hands–
how old
are you, really?

the mellow cat
given a sibling
becomes Beyonce

sluggish fly
on February’s window–
early or late?

blue rainpot
three goldfish
know your shadow

what’s left
of this life–
a drip in a room

the seconds
listening to an airplane
without me

off-season funhouse
no one there to make a face
at distortion

blue paint
chipped off shutters
wood drinks

moonlight–
a lover that won’t
tarnish

finding an old key–
jaywalking
a memory

handing you
a green sprig-top
the carrot below

three-hundred-year-old
floor cradle
diets on dolls

we thought the house ours–
carried out
we see we were its

old house
cracking its knuckles
in our sleep

two girls swimming
in a creek haunt a prison
long years

touching morning
wanting (peonies)
out from under skin

once a ranked diver
he flees to a bathtub–
the lonely mermaid

white noon wall
you know only
my shadow

freezing
on a winter windowsill
Pablo Neruda

summer clouds
the sky’s unreliable
narrators

secret gender
frozen onions
thawing

meteor shower–
cold headlights
on a hitchhiker

weed cutters
in a graveyard
battling presence

death whistles in snow–
groundhog below earth
dreams green things

graveyard wind whistles
a father
calls a child home

rainy day
memory
and its checkpoints

we drive past
blue chicory
I say the same thing

cuckoo nestling
dying amid
strange accents

winter friends–
more birds than people
know my face

spring dreams
a bear knocks the trail’s phone
off the hook again

loving your shawl
frayed edges
of you

winter stew
all we turned down
in a single pot

snow’s brightness
in Shaker windows–
chairs hung on walls

the secrets
cherries sweeten
all winter

on my porch
an iron pot
older than my country

rainy night
your pronunciation
changes

rainy night
dark promises
leak from everything

the railroad tracks
never touch the horizon
mono no aware

forest bathing–
pond bubbles
instead of thoughts

morning’s shells
on sand–
behind on reading

beachcombing,
we find a door from Japan–
where are the sides?

the oldest dad
waves the longest
at the school bus

you crush
a Dixie cup
on a certain word

my needless worry–
black gums
on a black cat

after
a meteor shower
a metaphor shower