Haiku for a Spring Snow Storm

Yes, there's a cold front blowing through New York. Places like Fargo, North Dakota and Iron Mountain, Michigan are getting snow. And somehow so is New York City. Boo to you, Jack Frost. These are not all weather related I guess but inspired by its mood.


we are drunk on night
the bridge holds, fastened to rivets
white hot in the sky

please, cold suns of streets
if you keep me, light me home
I’ll keep the day watch

the overplush couch
an impromptu deathbed
an open casket

the moon is deaf
now to night made promises
the sound of breaking

I am only hurry
I am the flint of my bed
where a pretty stone cools

static is called snow
so let’s not watch that channel
turn on the covers

new ice will turn black
if it finds cold reception
a lonelier road

If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Haiku

For non-Brooklynites, these take a little intro. The BQE is an elevated highway, hideous and inspiring running like a gray ribbon between those boroughs. Sufjan Stevens wrote a whole symphony about it. It's an eyesore and frustrating to drive on and your only option and wonderful and unique to Brooklyn.

The Gowanus Canal is the filthiest piece of water in America. It's a national health hazard and the EPA has stepped in. The bottom is covered with shopping carts and rusting iron. The top is floating with grease and algae that has living samples of gonorrhea in it. That's right. You could get an STD from swimming in it. Also a baby whale got stuck in it once and was cut apart by the metal maze in the water. Very sad.

I wanted to write some romantic verse about them.

Haiku for the Gowanus and the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, Winter 2011

1
Brooklyn winter breaks
slow as iron in water
hide me Gowanus

2
night traffic mezzo
headlights point home, cars yawning
circling for some sleep

3
the moon on dimmer
how needy the limbs of night
caught in wan spotlight

4
canal full of eyes
bodies adrift in freezeless sleep
I will find you all

5
great grey artery
if I cut you, would you spill
all your red riders

6
whale catcher, release
or clench, keep your dinner tight
be jealous of now

7
canal means lost vein
the moon said it could mean much
the moon is bloodless

Day 17 - Missed a Day

I'm falling asleep into my notebook. Things to say tomorrow. Something small for now.

Aurora

I told you of
the Northern Lights

How the sky bent
to catch all
the stars' splash.