542

Oy I feel so bad
I asked how his mother was
forgetting she died

When I see someone
that I really connect with
it makes me smile

540

Someone says something
I explain it in my head
I upset myself

May G-d save us all
from the tests others go through
that we just don't get

Pre Storm, Pre Sleep

Good night and G-d bless

the snow, the slush, all the mess

those who plow through it

Play Haiku (Haiku 533 - 537)

When I was a child
I liked to play the game "Peace"
but my friends liked "war"

Hey won't you play a
somebody done somebody
wrong song, Neil once sang

"You play ball with me
then I'll play ball with you too,"
a teacher once said

Some recreation,
without a concrete purpose...
Don't you want to play?

Don't play the game best
play it like no-one else plays
that's the way you win

Prompted by Haiku Horizons

532

A cryptic message
Was she asking me to meet?
I sent back a Q (?)

I so want for you
to speak to me in the way
you sparingly speak

530

I love my father
and the man he has become
and how we connect

525-529

Going with the flow
is something we have to know
how to navigate

My turbulent soul
resists leaving my body
just for over night

He told me tonight
about our friend who's dying
but at peace with it

Here I am breathing
awake and not yet sleeping
Restless time keeping

Night ends and day starts
when we can distinguish the
face of our neighbor

Little things lift me
Like words from former students
Connection is key

Show Haiku

Peter Frampton sang:
I wonder if I'm dreaming
You- show me the way

Did Frampton mean G-d
asking to be shown the way?
That's what I'm thinking

So much is for show
but what counts is what's for real
before the show ends

Sometimes I think that
I don't need to show you much
except that I care

AND A SHOW TANKA, HERE

456- 519

She's no longer 12
It's 40 years for me too
and yet and yet and...

Or friendship or death
said the Sages of Honi
stuck in the wrong time

I so want this pen
to fall out of my hand and
me to fall asleep

Maybe change the game
from victim to something new
like human being

Take away one thing?
Okay, just please not the glue.
I said not the glue

Messiah complex
Something to be avoided
Or contained better

Know you are not G-d
Know you can't even come close
Then get close to him

The friendship is there
I've got that part down.  And yet.
There's got to be more

She got special shoes
She was happy. Then she died.
So he exchanged them.

I ordered a Coke
and then dad freaked out at me.
What was I thinking?

She was in his drawer
then she was in his handbag
with us on the plane

The disappointments
go back to things I was told
that I should resent

"I'd water your plants,"
she said to me years ago
"-but I don't want to."

They live in a book
in fictionalized Brooklyn
I read them for real

He looks at it and
realizes all at once
that this is his life

I look at it and
realize all at once that this
right now is my life

"Your work honors breath"
I breathe in and read her words.
All I have is breath.

I must mention it
so that I can manage it:
My family hurts.

Just one more haiku
I've never had a coffee-
unlike Bob Dylan

My heart is beating
between my ear and my bed
hard on my pillow

I want to write truth
without worrying about
what the facts may be

I'm not Harvard smart
and I'm not new Yorker smart
I am simple-smart

I know what I know
Paul Simon wrote in a song
and I know the song

G-d please protect me
with a light that surrounds me
the light of my soul

455

So I keep breathing
Mixed with a little wheezing
As my stomache purrs.

452-454

Try Haiku! Inspired by Haiku Horizons

Yoda had it wrong

All you can do is to try

You can't always do

Try to understand

I am not a magic man

I just have a heart

Try to remember

A bad Off-Broadway show line

There is no trying

451

They are insecure
Both Lucy and Charlie Brown 
And they each have strength

450

Super Treat Kale Chips
Seems like an oxymoron
That's why there's chia!

449

those i admire
have a quiet and controlled
element to them

There's as many ways
to pray as there are to breathe.
Pick one and do it.

Our lives, our circles

Groups next to groups within groups

Circles in the sand

5-5-7

Saying no and yes

the man and child

made his bed and slept in it

stop eating poison
and embracing the fire
you're smarter than that