I looked up your profile on
a whim, wondering

what your view was like
that side of everything,

who you were these days,
who you were with. And,

did you have kids, a home,
a where in all your what.

The bird sang out, the bird
that calls and sends away;

it only called to close the door.

Not longing did I look,
for future unspoken, past

too spoken. No, in rest
I looked because my where

is here, prepared and planted
in a garden far from doors.

I hoped you might be planted too.
The thrush sang true;

there are some things we're
not intended for.

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

In this failure I find myself
a sapling trembling,
bent before the gale.
You, the unsparing storm;
you, the earth that binds me
to endure the buffeting,
rooted and ruined at once.

What other whirlwind
spends itself against itself,
bolsters as it batters?
You surround my straining
with shackles of your strength.
Hidden to my length in you,
how can I fail to hold?

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

Halfway to my funeral
I’ve stopped a while, just where
a backward stare lays bare
only the arch of cedars,
knobby roots laid out at length
like anchor chains across
the way. The sea swells
fathomless and glittering
beyond the forest, round
who knows how many turns.

I might have meant to come alone,
but my companion carries light;
mystery of mysteries, the sea
has put on flesh, and walks
beside me on the way.

Who, now, have I come here
to become, and who am I
now that this rooted road
has carried me along, far
from the sunny meadow
into shade? The clouds are
pendulous and grey above,
between thin cedar crowns;
though they promise plenty,
still I thirst.

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

Suddenly, every limber tree
  has a voice, exultation freed
    from minor key to major
    by the sweeping transposition
  of a breeze and slow submission
to the sun’s unsought ardor.

This liberation ebbs and flows:
  a melody in concerto,
    subito crescendo. Raised
    are limb and life; the spirit sings
  into the wind and boldly brings
all green things to render praise.

This poem is written in Cywydd llosgyrnog – a Welsh form that, translated, means “feverish poem.” Its rules are:

Syllable count

• Lines 1, 2, 4, and 5 are 8 syllables long

• Lines 3 and 6 are 7 syllables long

Rhyme scheme

• Lines 1 and 2 end-rhyme

• Lines 4 and 5 end-rhyme

• Lines 3 and 6 end-rhyme

• Line 3 internally rhymes with lines 1 and 2

• Line 6 internally rhymes with lines 4 and 5

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

O God who waited for the sun to rise
in old creation’s sky, then for the man
to name his beasts, to hold his lover’s hand,
and listen to the snake’s impatient lies;

who waited while the line of Abram died
within his body, while the promised land
seemed farther from him than his promised clan,
and while resentment crept into his eyes;

who waited while the cries of infants ceased
beneath the waters of the Nile, beneath
the flames of your own kings, beneath the blades
of conquerors, with justice rarely paid;

have mercy.
                      While we wait, break not yet’s teeth;
meet us in the now of our high priest.

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

How good, this burgeoning of urge in things
that carry the wounds of winter
like provisions on their backs,
frothing, falling

as cascades in the crave and thrill of spring
and pooling on the ground
in cloisters of rain’s anamnesis,
stilled and sprawling.

Awakened, would rises ardent in trees,
flinging free a wooing
tide unprompted, unrestrained,
in bract and bloom;

the weight of winter's waiting rests behind us.
We walk among plaits of now,
settled where their frenzy sent them,
spent like spume.

With thanks to Richard Wilbur, whose beautiful poem, “A Song” provided the metrical pattern and rhyme scheme for mine.1

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

The dead are not where I remember
putting them. My grandfather
has moved from bedside table
to the kitchen sink. He drinks
while squinting out the window, barks
about the over-growing of the garden
pavers, notices how low the privet
trails her laterals. In the living
room, my grandmother purses her lips.

I walk into the driveway, where the slender
slips of tulip leaves foretell the season
of my future dead and there, honest
as a vulture’s croak, the fragile husk
of a cicada embraces the oak, a casket
with no body.

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

The day falls quickly, just a sigh
and shadow has wicked through the sky,
black into blue like oil consumes a cloth.
White moths gust through the gloom,

scudding toward the window like comets twirled
by the sun’s gravity. They swirl,
soft bodies sounding the glass, incarnate
the weighted night, and pass.

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

O God who sits beside the shaking saint
on persecution’s bloody prison floor,
body ruined and reviled; who paints

the stone a cruciform display, and scores
a symphony from all the riven chords
of suffering behind that iron door,

to play it in the throne room where the Lord
throws coals on retribution’s growing flame,
and hones His double-bladed silver sword;

who claims again for noble use the maimed
and broken, torn and pierced, that by their stripes
you are revealed, and their tormentors shamed;

who stores up vengeance ‘til the time is ripe;
have mercy. Come, Lord, soon—let go restraint.
Restore your faithful. Let their tears be wiped.

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

This eastern forest clamors
dusk to dawn, textured

as jute netting laid out
overhead and underfoot,

the fabric of the living
demanding answers. Screams

of owl and prey; atavistic
earth’s basest impulse

flung against the screen
of the occulted night.

They say the west sleeps silently,
dreaming like an icon hidden

between the pages of a book.
I have heard that silence,

awakened in the woods
to the moon's interrogation

as it moved through its stations
embossing trees across the ground.

Unfolded in the vacuum
of the clearing, I saw the trees

standing vigil, watched the stars
glide the satin sky—

heard my breath and nothing more.

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I originally published this poem late at night (surprised? you shouldn’t be) and forgot one important thing: my thanks to for workshopping it. Her feedback was incisive, insightful, and inspiring as usual.

A community of fellow writers is a beautiful thing.

The poetry here is always free to read, but I do offer paid subscription options for anyone who would like to support my work.

If you wish to show your support but a paid subscription is out of reach, you can simply buy me a coffee and help me stay awake so I can write more.

¿Café por favor?

Whether or not you choose either of these options, I’m grateful that you’ve chosen to spend time here. Your presence is support enough!

This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

Even among the ruins shall begin the work,

Large in the level morning of the light

And beautiful with cisterns where the water whitens,

Rippling upon the lip of stone, and spills

—Archibald MacLeish, The Sheep in the Ruins1

I.

Old is the wreckage of unsettled minds,
Thrown from foundations older still and stronger, stone
Waiting in stubborn silence while the dogs
Dig dens among the tragic grandeur of the rubble.
Whether to build them up again or not—
No, but a city never runs its course reverse.
Here, where enduring walls once flung their shade,
The ground is fertile; sun and rain supply it now. When
All lies in ruin, those who sow are near;
Even among the ruins shall begin the work.


II.

Now see: What gardens will uncoil their tendrils here, what
Profligate impulse will be brought to bear
Into the zenith of its flourishing, and ours,
Work though it be. The harvest basket tells
The truth; whatever would be done must be done well. We
Kneel to remove the hasty bloom and weed
Early and often ‘til the vine is hardy, climbs
High, and the calyx lengthens to a pod.
Come summer, we will wake to find our labor waving
Large in the level morning of the light.


III.

Stand on the old foundation stones, survey
The marketplace where bells once rang—an ostinato
Sounding in memory. Here, merchant stalls
Haunt the imagination’s eye and barkers hail
Wares of amazing value. Look, the well
Still holds the center of the square. The garden calls for
Water, and we who tend it earn our thirst.
Clear the debris away, rebuild the pool for use;
Trench and cascade it down the hill, flowing 
And beautiful with cisterns where the water whitens.


IV.

Who can contain renewal once it leaps
Hungrily into ruination’s realm
To overthrow its rule? The city was a wasteland,
Scorched and abandoned; never will it cast
Shade from its towers here, yet even here the sun
Blazes with purpose where the green exults.
The garden spreads abundance over desolation’s
Haunt like a cloak around bare shoulders, climbs
Over the foundation like a trellis, lightly	
Rippling upon the lip of stone, and spills.

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

Here are three of mine that didn’t make the cut. I submitted the first and withheld the other two. You’ll have to let me know which is best, because choosing one over the others wasn’t easy. My poems are all untitled.

Take my hand, my dearest friend.
I forget so easily,
and often struggle to extend
my hand; my dearest friends
are fewer now. It’s hard to mend
such distance if it falls to me,
so take my hand, my dearest friend,
I forget so easily.

To love all seasons of the year
attend to each one while it blooms.
Some may think us insincere,
who love all seasons. Every year
we hear the fallow field’s austere
adagio like summer’s tune,
and love all seasons of the year.
Attend to each one while it blooms.

Together, let us cross the hills
and find a place to call our home;
we'll find it where the rivers spill
together. Let us cross the hills
and hope that when the shadow fills
the hollows, we will know shalom
together. Let us cross the hills;
we’ll find a place to call our home.

Read the Contest Winners

Verdurous Glooms

Triolet Contest Results 2026

Preface…

Read more

4 months ago · 68 likes · 19 comments · J. Tullius

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

What I’m about to write goes against everything they teach you in “how not to be boring and annoy people” class. No one likes a pedant, they say. But sometimes, the pedant serves his purpose. We’re all better artists when we understand our medium.

In 2003, I lived and taught ESL classes in Osaka, Japan. That summer began my love of the Japanese aesthetic, fittingly illustrated by the poetic tradition of haiku. Ever since returning, I’ve written these fleeting moments—even when other poetic inclinations were a dry well.

In the spirit of shared pursuit and out of a desire to better our craft, I’m pleased to present this essay on haiku and adjacent Japanese forms. In it, we’ll look at haiku’s rich history—its classical roots and modern branches in both Japan and the West. Then, we’ll explore what a haiku is and what it is not. Finally, we’ll cover a few related forms: senryū,1 haibun, and hainka. Each of them takes something essential from haiku and stretches it in a different direction.

If you’re up for a craft discussion on poetic forms that we struggle to grasp from our souls (especially since we live in the West!), welcome. Don’t worry: it’s not all rules.

Table of Contents

1. Why Haiku?

2. Classical Haiku Origins

3. Modern Japanese Haiku

4. 20th Century Japanese Haiku

5. Bridge to the West

6. Defining the Form

7. Senryū: Human Nature

8. Haibun: Narrative

9. Hainka: Hinge of Perception

10. Conclusion

Why Haiku?

Writing haiku poetry is a practice of observing universal truths2 without saying them. Using nature and subdued expression, we point to what is evident.

It’s up to each of us to find our own “why.” For some, cultivating habits of attentive observation is a large enough—and rich enough—reason to write haiku. The vast majority of this essay can be understood and applied agnostically.

But every reason I have depends on what I believe about God. So, here’s my “why.”

My premise is: that God made the world as a panorama4 to display His divine character and eternal attributes,5 that we are called in His image6 to clearly bear witness to it,7 and that haiku poetry can be one of the most eloquent songs8 in a Christian poet’s repertoire.

That said, now we can explore haiku’s origin story.

Classical Haiku Origins

Haiku began as the opening stanza (hokku) of renga, a collaborative, syllabic linked-verse form that was usually one hundred stanzas in length. A good hokku demonstrated the “link and shift” technique that still defines haiku today. The hokku had a specific job: to set the tone, establish the season (kigo), and offer a shift in attention—all within three short lines. These lines followed the traditional 5/7/5 structure, comprised vertically of on, or sound units. For example, “haiku” is two on: hai and ku.

Haiku was first written separately from the renga form in the 16^th century. Then, in the late 17^th century, Matsuo Bashō composed many hokku that stood on their own. While he still wrote linked verse, he treated the opening stanza as a complete poetic insight, promoting the “single moment” philosophy that would endure for centuries. One of Bashō’s most famous haiku demonstrates his emphasis on the natural world:

old pond—
a frog jumps in
water’s sound

That last line is often simply translated as “plop” in line with what seems to be Bashō’s intent. Chiyo-ni, writing a century later, offers another moment:

morning glory—
the well bucket entangled,
I ask for water

Bashō is recorded as writing, “The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never tire of.” Whether apocryphal or not, that quote gets at the nature of haiku. These poems don’t explain or summarize; they just offer. Each one is a scene, a sound, a shift in perception, or all of the above. That habit of observation without comment remained a pillar of the form, even as haiku itself changed shape.

Modern Japanese Haiku

In the late 19th century, Masaoka Shiki wrote essays, along with many haiku that pushed the boundaries that had previously been recognized. It was he who renamed the stand-alone hokku as “haiku”—a shortened version of the Japanese phrase haikai no ku, which means “light verse.” To his credit, he convincingly redefined haiku as a modern poetic genre, formally freeing it from linked verse and emphasizing realism. In his essay, Haiku on Shit, Shiki made much of haiku’s ability to beautify the mundane and even the disgusting. He wrote,

In paying attention to the humble and unlovely, Shiki also opened the door for haiku to look closely at other aspects of life.

20th Century Japanese Haiku

Early in the 20th century, haiku evolved to become even more flexible—less bound to nature, season, or structure. Taneda Santōka wrote:

I pick up grains of rice
spilled by a sparrow

The sparrow here is an embodiment of everything a haiku should be: small, familiar, and simple. Notice that, in this poem, Taneda has made himself the recipient of generosity from such a humble creature. The image carries deep meaning, especially when you consider that Taneda spent the last 16 years of his life wandering around Japan, an alcoholic Zen Buddhist priest who never knew where his next meal would come from. He was indeed dependent on the humble creatures of the world, just as a good haiku is.

Writing later in the 20^th century, Kaneko Tōta brought generational tragedy into the form without leaving its constraints:

anniversary of Hiroshima—
tofu beaten
in the dark

Can you hear the grief? Pressing water out of tofu in the dark is not a social activity. In the reserved space of a moment, Tōta was mourning one of his closest friends, who had died of radiation exposure.

What all of these poets had in common—from Bashō to Tōta—is that they used image, brevity, and juxtaposition to carry meaning. That same logic shaped haiku as it moved across cultures and languages.

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Bridge to the West

Meanwhile, western poets increasingly sought the primacy of “The Image” over the wordiness characteristic of Victorian poetry. Haiku found a warm welcome in the current that swept Imagism along. Think of Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro”:9

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

It’s not a haiku, but it shares the spirit. No exposition. Just two images linked and shifted. As Pound wrote, Imagism upheld three principles: “Direct treatment of the ‘thing,’“ using “absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation,” and writing like a “musical phrase” and not like a “metronome.”10 He also gave us this proposition: “The image is the word beyond formulated language.”11

Later, poets like Gary Hotham and Peggy Willis Lyles developed a contemporary approach to haiku without importing Western poetic devices. Here’s Hotham:12

pulling weeds—
the feel of the earth
letting go

Where some modern haiku poets have distilled haiku to one or two lines in English, Hotham and Lyles overwhelmingly retain a three-line structure to approximate the three vertical lines of Japanese on. As Hotham writes in his essay, “Why Haiku?,” he feels that “At least visually—and even when read aloud the lines make one pause, giving some space to the sounds. Perhaps the space around a word or between phrase [sic] is like water on seeds or boiling water poured on tea leaves.”13

Lyles writes like a kindred spirit of both Hotham and the Japanese greats:14

empty porch swing
creaks in the wind—
late summer

Through poets like these, English-language haiku found its own path—not by mimicking the Japanese exactly, but by learning what to preserve: immediacy, compression, silence.

Defining the Form

So, what actually defines a haiku? It turns out it’s not simply the 5/7/5 syllable rule most of us learned in school. That comes from a misunderstanding of the original Japanese on, which are shorter and lighter than English syllables.

If you write lyric or narrative poems, haiku may feel underwritten. That’s the point. It’s a practice of “not saying” and insists on the world over the self.

Instead of a syllable count, haiku depends on:

• Concrete language: Metaphor, simile, and commentary do not serve this form.

• Fragment and phrase: Most haiku divide into two parts. One sets the scene, and one deepens or shifts it. (old pond— / a frog jumps in …) These can be two images placed near each other without explicit connection. The poem lives in the tension between them.

• A break or shift in perception: In Japanese, this is marked by a kireji, or “cutting word” after the first or second line (not in the middle of a line). In English, we use punctuation, line breaks, or simply juxtaposition. Many poets use an em-dash or a semicolon. That “cut” is not just a pause. It’s a hinge to swing the reader’s attention.

• Season words (kigo): sometimes, a holiday will serve—or an event that is associated with the season, like “first frost” or “bare branches.” This is not a binding requirement, as Taneda Santōka demonstrated. However, it is part of what gives haiku its identity. Following his example (sparrow) and that of Kaneko Tōta (tofu), at least include an element from the natural world.

In his collection of essays, Favorite Haiku, H. F. Noyes writes, the season word “was a trigger word releasing a world of shared feelings.” Later in that same passage, he continues:

Consider this example, one I wrote as part of a series:16

dry season—

        on the breeze
    petrichor

• It offers concrete sensory imagery, avoiding concepts, abstractions, and generalities.

• It includes kireji, kigo, and linked images without commentary.

• The space around the words gives the reader opportunity to pause. Note that I use a broken structure to intentionally manipulate the “breath” after the kireji.

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Haiku’s Close Relatives

Senryū: Human Nature

Now we’re looking at the form that readers (and poets!) often mistake for haiku. It was brought into widespread use by Karai Hachiemon, who frequently replaced Hachiemon with “Senryū,” meaning “river willow.”

This is where you put all the poems that you think are haiku—but that aren’t actually haiku. Also, probably most of what your friends think are haiku. Maybe even some of what has been published in modern journals as haiku. I’m guessing, there—but I do know that misunderstanding of the form’s ethos is widespread.

Haiku embodies nature, perception, and emotional restraint. Senryū deals with the human, ironic, satirical, or comic.

If haiku is the Appalachian Trail, senryū is New York City.

If haiku is Mozart, senryū is Bo Burnham.

They share the same structure but have very different intentions. Where haiku avoids commentary, senryū indulges it, often adding a punch. You’ll often know one if it makes you raise an eyebrow.

In the public square of feudal Japan, those at the lower strata of society couldn’t say what they were really thinking. Japanese poetry critic Makoto Ueda17 writes that senryū gave the powerless a voice:

Here’s the perfect example of that release, as compiled in an anthology of the day:

the official’s little son—
how fast he’s learned to open
and close his fist!19

Haibun: Narrative

In haiku’s early centuries, some poets looked for ways to weave it into longer forms without losing its clarity or concision. One response was haibun—a prose/haiku hybrid often used for travel writing or memoir. Bashō himself used the form extensively in his travel diary, Oku no Hosomichi (“The Narrow Road to the Deep North”), blending poetic observation with personal reflection. Early-20^th-century Japanese writer Kenji Miyazawa said of that work, “It was as if the very soul of Japan had itself written it.”20 In a haibun, the prose isn’t just filler. It should be as precise and suggestive as the haiku that accompanies it. Together, they let you move between outer detail and inner world without breaking the moment.

The haiku doesn’t summarize the prose. It should deepen or contrast it, as in this haibun I wrote in 2024:21

She sat on the rocks before the sun made his approach, beneath the spattered white canvas of a master impressionist. Orion hunted Taurus above as the powers of this world began to wake for another day of waging wars of words, of spinning spins, of stoking furnace fears and grasping, grasping, grasping for ashes and straw. The stars peered at their reflection in the lake before her and thought not of such struggles. A goldenrod stood station through the Stygian pre-dawn, tall and slender, brimful of begetting power as wine is full of joy. 


   sun crowns cedars
           revealing golden blooms

          the loon
                        calls

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Hainka: Hinge of Perception

There’s also a form that pairs haiku with a tanka. When combined, they create what’s now called a hainka, a relatively new combined poetry form pioneered by poet Pravat Kumar Padhy. According to him, “Hainka poetry explores nature, human aspects like love, emotion, etc.”22 I’ve also found it to be ideal for exploring memory.

In a hainka, the haiku opens the poem with a moment of direct perception. The tanka follows with five lines that shift the reader toward subjectivity, offering reflection, emotional contrast, or narrative depth. The transition must be both smooth and purposeful.

Tanka is a five-line, non-rhymed lyric poem with a short-long-short-long-long rhythm, typically totaling 21–31 syllables in English. It’s divided into two parts: the kami-no-ku (first three lines, often nature-focused) and the shimo-no-ku (last two lines, more personal or emotional).

Unlike haiku, tanka is more subjective and expressive. Its defining feature is the pivot or swing line between the two sections, adding depth and movement. This combination should use coherent images to portray the “link and shift.” An absolute must is a “symbiotic line” that recurs verbatim in both the haiku and the tanka—not simply as repetition for emphasis, but in order to link perception and reflection.

Here’s one of my hainka, with the symbiotic line in italics:23

cold hands
        an empty chair
    fireside

slender flames
    flicker beneath
        falling leaves

                an empty chair
            holding space

This blending of haiku and tanka creates a layered effect: haiku for perception, tanka for broadening. The shared line becomes the hinge that links the outer and inner—the moment and the meaning. In this hainka, I was reflecting on my brother’s absence.

Tend the Slender Flame

As we’ve seen, haiku has given rise to a small constellation of related forms—senryū, haibun, hainka—each taking haiku’s habits and sending them in a new direction. Haiku remains rooted in seasonal attention and intuitive perception, while senryū shifts the lens toward human nature with wit or irony. Haibun lets us build a narrative around haiku’s stillness. And hainka, with its capacity to blend haiku with lyric or confessional elements, can stretch the form toward the emotional textures of contemporary poetry.

Together, these forms24 show that brevity doesn’t have to mean limitation. Rather, it’s the opposite. A slender flame can provide surprising heat if tended well.

If you haven’t yet experimented with these forms, I’d challenge you to give them a try. That’s not because any of them are necessarily better than any other form, but because they offer something we can all use: a setting to sharpen the attention, say more with less, and trace the ephemeral now.

Sit outdoors and observe one moment in time without explaining it. Then cut it in half. Do that again. Then cut it even further and see what you’ve added by subtraction.

As a practice, I’ve found that haiku can be useful to clarify thoughts about what really matters. For Christians, the focused act of distilling an image into its most precise expression can be a meditative way to “see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living”25 and recognize the work of His hands.26

There is truth in every tick of the second hand—God’s first book, His character revealed through nature. And there is beauty in the most mundane setting, the most insignificant creature, the slightest breath.

It’s our task to see it and bear witness.

Putting this together has been a joy. Thank you for your generous attention.

The poetry here is always free to read, but I do offer paid subscription options for anyone who would like to support my work.

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Whether or not you choose either of these options, I’m grateful that you’ve chosen to spend time here. Your presence is support enough!

This essay was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement in the writing process. AI did involve itself in search results as I researched primary sources.

And yes, I’ve been using the em-dash since before AI was born.

O God who reaches down through all the cracks
earth wears just like a broken teacup, fills
them flush with gold and covers them until
your pleasure makes them plain; who slowly packs
the pantheon of heaven in the black
dominion deep beneath the arid hills;
who makes eroded boulders break and spill
with brilliance, more glorious in their wrack;

who hovers over steaming thermal springs
and scoops out hollows in the rock, then sings
to hallow each and every void with light
profuse and permanently out of sight;

have mercy.
                      Help me see my every fault
prepared to hold your treasure like a vault.

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If you wish to show your support but a paid subscription is out of reach, you can simply buy me a coffee and help me stay awake so I can write more.

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Whether or not you choose either of these options, I’m grateful that you’ve chosen to spend time here. Your presence is support enough!

This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

You have
been told

that winter is death
but also that death

is beautiful.
Reject the lie.

The frost
the cold

both glitter like breath
bitter white, light breath

that bears a chill.
But death will die.

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If you wish to show your support but a paid subscription is out of reach, you can simply buy me a coffee and help me stay awake so I can write more.

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

O God who filled the crystal hourglass
with every captive grain of transience
by name and kind, then gave them leave to pass

well-ordered past our embryonic sense
of plan and purpose; who controlled their flow
just so, that all might be fulfilled, immense

and small alike, that as the cone below
surpassed its upper part, it—by your art—
became in us a means by which we’d grow;

who shaped each grain precisely, to impart
all aspects of its transit and affect
on others in its path and, from the start,

compelled it to its resting place, unchecked;
have mercy.
                      Help me stand inside the glass
content with how it serves you to perfect.

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If you wish to show your support but a paid subscription is out of reach, you can simply buy me a coffee and help me stay awake so I can write more.

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

First, I’ll read today’s poem. Then, I’ll read Isaiah 53 in its entirety. Normally a passage we think of on Good Friday, Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering Servant is just as intimately connected to the pain the infant Christ experienced as He passed into the world to bear our sin and sorrows.

His suffering was not a single event. It began before His first breath.

Blood and tears have been the way of birth
since Cain dropped like an over-ripened peach
to Adam’s hands. They would have thought him earth’s
redeemer for a time, until with each
successive birth they realized the reach
of sin ran further than their line. Cain’s heir
as much as Adam’s, Christ was crushed to breach
the womb just as the rest of us—He shared
our pain, was born through blood before he breathed our air.

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If you wish to show your support but a paid subscription is out of reach, you can simply buy me a coffee and help me stay awake so I can write more.

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

俳句

nightfall

        sound of bells
    at the door


ボケっと

darkness on the quiet street
disguises imperfections
in each neighbor’s home and lawn
    shadow broken
where windowlight falls

curled within a maple drey
  squirrels keep winter’s chill at bay
    silently


五行歌

she sits
  to repair
      my sweater
    with
        arthritic fingers


ボケっと

shadows cross the windowlight
in likeness taking on a
lightness of another kind
    each one wearing
the face of a friend

curled within a maple drey
  squirrels keep winter’s chill at bay
    silently


俳句

slender moon

    the aroma
        of gingerbread

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In order of appearance

俳句 (haiku)

Three lines, broken if desired: short / long / short with no syllable rules. Nature as the overriding theme: a short poem describing a single moment in time. Includes a seasonal or nature reference (e.g. “empty trees” suggesting winter) and a kireji or “cutting word.” I’ve chosen to use a stanza break, because there are no cutting words in English as there are in Japanese.

ボケっと (boketto)

As an invented form that incorporates haiku (or senryu) and tanka, boketto means “to gaze vacantly into space,” and is intended to lyrically express the now. According to creator Walter J. Wojtanik, “boketto consists of two stanzas, one of five lines (30 syllables – 7, 7, 7, 4, 5) and a three-line stanza (17 syllables – two seven-syllable lines and a three-syllable line which becomes a refrain if a string of boketto are written).” The characters for ボケっと are written using hiragana, the script primarily used for native Japanese words, because it doesn’t appear in the formal kanji script.

五行歌 (gogyohka)

Translates as “five-line poem.” It’s simple: just 5 lines, with 1 phrase per line. The length of a phrase is completely subjective. I tend toward very short phrases for these, because I find that brevity opens up the form’s potential. No subject matter rules, seasonal references, or kireji required.

The poetry here is always free to read, but I do offer paid subscription options for anyone who would like to support my work.

If you wish to show your support but a paid subscription is out of reach, you can simply buy me a coffee and help me stay awake so I can write more.

¿Café por favor?

Whether or not you choose either of these options, I’m grateful that you’ve chosen to spend time here. Your presence is support enough!

This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

They were not of soil, but from their eyes
poured forth the zeal of the firmament,
these messengers who trod the pungent sky
above the sheepfold where the heavens spent
their glory on the earth. All nature bent
its ear to hear the fateful tidings brought
to Yahweh’s image. Was this army sent
because a battle waited to be fought,
or was it sent proclaiming peace that had been wrought?

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The poetry here is always free to read, but I do offer paid subscription options for anyone who would like to support my work.

If you wish to show your support but a paid subscription is out of reach, you can simply buy me a coffee and help me stay awake so I can write more.

¿Café por favor?

Whether or not you choose either of these options, I’m grateful that you’ve chosen to spend time here. Your presence is support enough!

This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.

But joy isn’t without its tragedies. It’s often during the hardest times of our lives that we really learn what joy truly is—how it’s not simply the absence of grief, but the presence of something stronger and more eternal. And, it’s not simply delight in a pleasant circumstance, but a thankful heart and true delight despite a circumstance that seems dark.

俳句

morning storm

        out the window
    red umbrella


ボケっと

puddles fill the dimpled ground
connecting in their swelling
ruffled by the gusting wind
    noon comes gloomy
as cold as the dawn

perched within the holly bush
  sparrows share their warmth and sing
    cheerfully


五行歌
 
a hot cup
  of spiced tea
      given
  to a friend
        in a cold house
 
 
ボケっと

evening draws the curtains closed
to blur the line between our
waking and our need for rest
    shadows soften
and spread through the room

perched within the holly bush
  sparrows share their warmth and sing
    cheerfully


俳句

cold rain

    at twilight
  bright
            candle

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In order of appearance

俳句 (haiku)

Three lines, broken if desired: short / long / short with no syllable rules. Nature as the overriding theme: a short poem describing a single moment in time. Includes a seasonal or nature reference (e.g. “empty trees” suggesting winter) and a kireji or “cutting word.” I’ve chosen to use a stanza break, because there are no cutting words in English as there are in Japanese.

ボケっと (boketto)

As an invented form that incorporates haiku (or senryu) and tanka, boketto means “to gaze vacantly into space,” and is intended to lyrically express the now. According to creator Walter J. Wojtanik, “boketto consists of two stanzas, one of five lines (30 syllables – 7, 7, 7, 4, 5) and a three-line stanza (17 syllables – two seven-syllable lines and a three-syllable line which becomes a refrain if a string of boketto are written).” The characters for ボケっと are written using hiragana, the script primarily used for native Japanese words, because it doesn’t appear in the formal kanji script.

五行歌 (gogyohka)

Translates as “five-line poem.” It’s simple: just 5 lines, with 1 phrase per line. The length of a phrase is completely subjective. I tend toward very short phrases for these, because I find that brevity opens up the form’s potential. No subject matter rules, seasonal references, or kireji required.

The poetry here is always free to read, but I do offer paid subscription options for anyone who would like to support my work.

If you wish to show your support but a paid subscription is out of reach, you can simply buy me a coffee and help me stay awake so I can write more.

¿Café por favor?

Whether or not you choose either of these options, I’m grateful that you’ve chosen to spend time here. Your presence is support enough!

This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.