Special Feature: Selected Poems for Reflections on America 250

On the Brink of Trumperica, XII

the people of Trump

                  by the people of DOGE

                  for the people of the SuperRich ...

sun-bleached stars and stripes

atop the Capitol fencing

NeverEnding Story, February 8 2025

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is an initiative by the second Trump administration in the United States. It was first suggested to Donald Trump by Elon Musk in 2024, and was officially established by an executive order on January 20, 2025

And

The New Yorker, July 2 2026: The Unprecedented Profiteering Revealed by Donald Trump’s Financial Disclosure

Donald Trump released a 927-page personal-financial-disclosure report for 2025. It recorded more than $2.2 billion in earnings.

The President cashed in on his office to the tune of billions of dollars last year, largely through the sale of crypto tokens. His investors weren’t so fortunate...The fine print revealed that seventy-five per cent of proceeds from token sales went into the pockets of Trump and his family.

Politics of Distraction, XVII

In the land of the free, dreaming ...

To American midterm-election voters

The poor and middle class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the super-rich pay lawyers, and the ultra-rich pay politicians.

smell of muggy noon —

the Reflecting Pool's blue sky

turns algae green

Trump news on mute ...

in the soup kitchen mirror

a twentysomething's stare

NeverEnding Story,  June 23, 2026

The Atlantic, June 26 2026: Trump’s Peeling Green Gift to America

The Reflecting Pool fiasco says everything about how the Trump administration operates.

Donald Trump, trying to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool for America’s 250th birthday and, instead, scoring a tax-payer-funded, $14 million-over-[close to $15 million-dollar] budget own goal in the form of a cracked and peeling, green-algae-riddled, potentially duck-killing militarized zone in the nation’s capital. One of the firms hired for the renovation is named Greenwater Services.

And

University of California, Riverside/UCR study, April 17, 2023: [Cumulative] Poverty is the 4th greatest cause of U.S. deaths: Only heart disease, cancer, and smoking were associated with a greater number of deaths.

Trump Empire, Inc., XCV

the White House roof

shadowed against sunset skies

America First banner

NeverEnding Story, June 24 2026

From this day forward, it’s going to be only [Me] First. [Me] First.

-- Donald Trump, 2017 & 2025 Inaugural Addresses

And 

The Guardian News Clip, June 30, 2026: How Trump is making the US's 250th anniversary about himself

... there's something more insidious too, which is Trump and his allies are seizing on this as an opportunity to rewrite American history, to make it a story of heroic white male Christian men on some providential journey pursuing their destiny. That's what American greatness is about....

Trump Empire, Inc., XCVI 

Pursuit of Happiness

for MAGA cult and Christian Nationalist in Trumperica

gated cul-de-sac

lined with wavy green oaks

in golden sunlight

diverse shapes and heights

of white picket fences

whitewashed fence

taller by two feet this year …

neighbors equipped

with security cams, bulldogs

and stars-and-stripes rifles

FYI: Stars-and-Stripes rifles refer to limited-edition or custom American flag-themed firearms. 

And "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase from the United States Declaration of Independence. Like the other principles in the Declaration of Independence, this phrase is not legally binding, but has been widely referenced and seen as an inspiration for the basis of government.

Added: Trump Empire, Inc., XCVII

an eagle spirals

into the gathering dark

this fireworks night

a one-armed veteran

stares beyond his front yard flag

Biting NOT Barking: Hyphen Haiku by Fay Aoyagi

English Original

spring mud

the hyphen

before American

Frogpond, 44:2, Summer/Spring 2021

Fay Aoyagi

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

春天的泥漿

放在“美國”之前

的連字符

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

春天的泥浆

放在“美国”之前

的连字符

 

Bio Sketch

Fay Aoyagi （青柳飛）was born in Tokyo and immigrated to the U.S. in 1982. She is currently a member of Haiku Society of America and Haiku Poets of Northern California. She serves as an associate editor of The Heron's Nest.  She also writes in Japanese and belongs to two Japanese haiku groups; Ten'I (天為) and "Aki"（秋), and  she is a member of Haijin Kyokai (俳人協会).

One Man's Maple Moon: Flicker Tanka by Christine L.Villa

English Original

every now and then

the flicker of a firefly ...

still in my hand

all of you I need

to let go

The Bluebird’s Cry, 2016

Christine L. Villa

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

不時地

螢火蟲閃爍的光芒 ...

依然在我手中

你的所有一切

我需要現在放手

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

不时地

萤火虫闪烁的光芒 ...

依然在我手中

你的所有一切

我需要现在放手

Bio Sketch

An animated story teller and an artist by nature, Christine L. Villa dabbles in children's writing, Japanese short-form poetry, and photography. She is the founder and editor of Frameless Sky -- a video journal showcasing poets, artists, and musicians in collaborative projects. She blogs her haiku, tanka, and haiga at Blossom Rain.

Poetic Musings: Following the Moon to the Maple Land by Chen-ou Liu

for my first Canada Day, July 1, 2003

Name: Chen-ou Liu (phonic);

Country of Birth: R.O.C.;

(Cross out R.O.C. and fill in Taiwan) 

Place of Birth; Date of Birth; Sex;

simply more technocratic questions

the Immigration Officer needs to pin down my borders.

He is always looking for shortcuts,

more interested in the roadside signposts

than in the landscape that has made me.

The line he wants me confined to

is an analytically recognizable category:

immigrant. My history is meticulously stamped.

Now, you're legally a landed immigrant.

Take a copy of A Newcomer’s Introduction to Canada.

from Lake Ontario

I scoop the Taiwan moon

distant sirens

Contemporary Haibun Online, 10:2, July 2014

Chen-ou Liu

Commentary: The title and dedication, "Following the Moon to the Maple Land / for my first Canada Day, July 1, 2003," immediately establish a dual physical and symbolic journey. By grounding the piece in a specific national holiday, the author infuses the narrative with cultural resonance, allowing the historical weight of the date to speak for itself without heavy-handed exposition.

The opening lines mimic the sterile, clinical language of official immigration forms. This technical data entry stands in stark, poignant contrast to the narrator’s rich inner life. The parenthetical intrusion, "(Cross out R.O.C. and fill in Taiwan)," instantly injects geopolitical and personal complexity into the scene. Through a simple bureaucratic instruction, the text captures a profound crisis of identity, sovereignty, and displaced history.

The haibun’s emotional core lies in its central metaphor:

He is always looking for shortcuts,

more interested in the roadside signposts

than in the landscape that has made me.

In this layered yet accessible image, "signposts" represent rigid, official categories, while "landscape" embodies lived history, culture, memory, and personal identity. The strength of this passage lies in its emotional restraint. The speaker never explicitly states feelings of diminishment or alienation; instead, the prose trusts the reader to infer the subtle violence of being reduced to a bureaucratic category.

The concluding haiku delivers a powerful, unresolved finish:

from Lake Ontario

I scoop the Taiwan moon

distant sirens

Here, the moon acts as a bridge rather than a barrier. L1 anchors the speaker in their new geographical reality ("Lake Ontario"), while L2 preserves their internal, emotional geography ("Taiwan moon"). The action of "scooping" suggests an active attempt to hold onto one's heritage. Crucially, L3—"distant sirens"—cuts through any potential sentimentality. This auditory disruption yanks the reader back to an unfamiliar, urban present, serving as a reminder that immigration is an ongoing psychological negotiation rather than a static, completed event.

The title itself warrants deeper appreciation. By choosing "Following the Moon to the Maple Land" over explicit prose terms like "immigration," the author favors poetic suggestion over documentary literalism. The "moon" serves as a universal constant linking two distant shores, while "Maple Land" gently invokes Canada through its natural landscape rather than its political borders. This opening choices primes the reader for a narrative focused on emotional topography rather than legal status.

Added: The following is my reflection on Canada Day, 2026

the Maple Leaf

billows on July First …

the added hyphen

weighted with ancestral names

before Canadian

A Room of My Own: Drifting in White Ribbons Tanka

Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XLIII

written on Canada Day Eve

twilight mist

drifting in white ribbons

over the river ...

thoughts of staying or going

tangled in my immigrant past

FYI: This could be read as a sequel to the following gembun

Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XLII

A new life in this promised land of milk and honey, where my veil of forgetfulness drapes like a shroud.

shoppers come and go

“I used to be” in the folds

of my Walmart smile

NeverEnding Story, December 14 2025

This gembun could be read as a sequel to my tanka below:

at winter twilight

should have, could have, would have

are a boulder

rolling down the hill of life

I push it up, and yet ...

Gusts, 39, Spring/Summer 2024

And this tanka could be read as a sequel to my tanka prose below:

The Point of No Return

On the day of my emigration to Canada, a land of maple leaves and snowflakes that will eventually bury my past.

a parting

of summer clouds

mother

lets go of my hand

. . . and of my heart

Ribbons, 16:1, Winter 2020

Added: Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XLIV

a fork in the road —  

thoughts of returning

to my homeland

as a blue butterfly veers

into the narrower trail

Butterfly Dream: Mountain Path Haiku by Dave Read

English Original

mountain path ...

I slip a little

into the past

Fifty at Fifty: My Haiku, 2021

Dave Read 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

山路 ...

我漸漸地回到

過去

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

山路 ...

我渐渐地回到

过去

Bio Sketch

Dave Read is a Canadian poet living in Calgary.  He writes short poems with an emphasis on the Japanese genres of haiku, senryu, tanka, and haibun.  His work has been published in many journals, including dust devils: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2016.  You can visit his blog, davereadpoetry.blogspot.ca.

Special Feature: Selected Poems for Reflections on UN's Report on Israel Committing Genocide and Other War Crimes

"Israel's oldest daily, Haaretz," which was was sanctioned by the Israeli government on Nov. 24, 2024

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CLXXXVIII: "A Gazan baby"

written in response to Haaretz, May 20, 2025: Opposition MK Says Israel Risks Pariah Status, "Sane State Doesn't Kill Babies as Hobby"

a Gazan baby

the glitter 

in a sniper's eye

NeverEnding Story, May 21 2025

first frost …

a Gazan baby’s face

in pixels

Commendation, 15th Polish International Haiku Competition 2025

a dull-eyed baby

with loose skin over bone ...

red glow of Gazan skies

NeverEnding Story, July 21 2025

(reprinted in Haikuniverse, July 26, 2025)

On June 18, 2026, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry published a major report titled “The essence of childhood has been destroyed: Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023”. 

The paper describes the deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian children, including post-ceasefire since the October 2025 Gaza peace plan. The Commission also examines a sharp increase in violence perpetrated by members of Israeli settlers against Palestinian children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CIII: "settler violence"

          under        slate-gray            skies

                                   |                          

a settler aims his gun | a boy throws his rock

                                   |

          tank track marks on the grass

NeverEnding Story, October 4 2024

it’s peaceful now

M-16 rifles are blooming, 2000-pound bombs singing, and Merkava tanks sweeping the streets.

Gaza is cleaner than ever, clean of blood-covered children. Yet, somewhere among the rubble the only moving thing is a boy’s eyes that look up to Heaven.

a mural

on the separation wall

of the West Bank:

in midair a girl grasps

a bunch of rainbow balloons

contemporary haibun online, 20:2, 2024

Contemporary Haibun Anthology 20

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CXC: "ghostly memory"

inspired by a short documentary, Severed: The Story of a Boy From Gaza,  premiering on The Nation Magazine website this week for free.

awake alone

with the ghostly memory

of skeletal houses ...

this one-legged Gazan teen stares

into the borderless sky

NeverEnding Story, May 27 2025

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CLXXXIX: "Heaven and Gaza's ruins"

an armless boy's stare

midnight lightning links Heaven 

and Gaza's ruins ...

NeverEnding Story, May 21 2025

The United Nations has officially placed and kept the Israeli military on its annual "blacklist" (formally known as the Children and Armed Conflict report annex) for committing grave violations against children, including killing, maiming, and attacking schools and hospitals

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, XLIV, "hospitals destroyed"

written in response to the destruction of Gaza's biggest hospital, Al Shifa

between blood of birth

and blood of death

a new life

on the hospital floor ...

a Gazan mother's last look

NeverEnding Story, April 4 2024

collapsed school wall

a butterfly

in shades of charcoal

First Place, 2025 Porad Haiku Award

To conclude today's "Special Feature" post, I would like to share the latest entry of Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCXCIX: "Ceasefire: You Cease, I Fire"

Ceasefire: You Cease, I Fire

Boom, boom, boom ... trailed by intermittent night-piercing screams, near and far. 

an armless boy's stare

midnight lightning links Heaven 

and smoky ruins 

hazy day moon

an orphaned girl, her world

of paper cranes

There is no ceasefire in Gaza; the world has normalized the genocide of Palestinians.

-- Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine and author of UN Report, "Anatomy of a Genocide"

And

There comes a time when silence is betrayal.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Butterfly Dream: Prayer Haiku by Christine L.Villa

English Original

moon cradle

the prayer that becomes

your lullaby

The Bluebird’s Cry, 2016

Christine L. Villa

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

月之搖籃

你的搖籃曲

成為祈禱

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

月之摇篮

你的摇篮曲

成为祈祷

Bio Sketch

An animated story teller and an artist by nature, Christine L. Villa dabbles in children's writing, Japanese short-form poetry, and photography. She is the founder and editor of Frameless Sky -- a video journal showcasing poets, artists, and musicians in collaborative projects. She blogs her haiku, tanka, and haiga at Blossom Rain.

Butterfly Dream: Moonglow Haiku by Debbie Strange

English Original

moonglow

a thousand jellyfish

in an ocean of sky

A Year Unfolding, 2017 

Debbie Strange

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

月光

千隻水母在倒映天空

的汪洋大海

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

月光

千只水母在倒映天空

的汪洋大海

Bio Sketch

Debbie Strange is a chronically ill Canadian short form poet, haiga artist, and photographer. Snapshot Press released her first full-length haiku collection, Random Blue Sparks, in 2024. It received 3rd Place honours in the 2025 Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Awards. An archive of awards and publications can be accessed at http://debbiemstrange.blogspot.ca/ and you are welcome to follow her @Debbie_Strange on X and @debbiemstrange on Instagram.

Poetic Musings: Mother and Ocean Haiku by Kobayashi Issa

mother I never knew,

each time I see the ocean,

each time --

The Essential Haiku, 1995

Kobayashi Issa 

Commentary: L1 establishes both the emotional atmosphere and the biographical context: Issa’s mother died when he was only two or three years old. The phrase translated as “each time” in Ls 2&3 comes from the Japanese "miru tabi ni," which Issa repeats in the original text (naki haha ya / umi miru tabi ni / miru tabi ni). This repetition conveys an unending, recurring sense of longing. The ocean in L2 also functions powerfully as a metaphor for the mother he never knew—vast, deep, and ultimately unreachable.

My haiku below may be read as a counter poem to Issa’s:

wind-torn clouds

the surging winter ocean

between mom and me

Wales Haiku Journal, Winter 2024/25

Where Issa’s ocean evokes yearning for an absent mother, mine suggests emotional distance and estrangement. The “surging winter ocean” becomes not a symbolic connection, but a barrier separating mother and child, while the “wind-torn clouds” reinforce the haiku’s atmosphere of turbulence and fracture.

A Room of My Own: Oriole Song Haiku

hiking alone

I'm lost except for

oriole song

FYI: This is a sequel to my haiku below:

the scent 

of dappled sunlight

redwood hike

Autumn Moon Haiku Journal, 5:2, Spring/Summer 2022

Added:

weeks since the layoff 

I step out of myself 

into bluebird song

Added:

me in her eyes

the bite

of a strawberry

Added:

red juice dripping

from her lip to my tongue —

strawberry moon

Added:

strawberry moon

rippling on the ocean —

with wing-soft strokes

my love and I skinny-dip

through its silver path

Added: Trump Empire, Inc., XCV

the White House roof

shadowed against sunset skies

America First banner

Hot News: New Milestone, 3. 75 M Pageviews and Call for Submissions

My Dear Friends:

NeverEnding Story reached a new milestone early this morning: 3.75 M pageveiws (FYI: yesterday's pageviews: 20, 710; last month's pageviews: 173,514; and on May 24, 2026, it reached 3.5 M pageviews) 

I’m grateful to everyone who has shared this poetry journey. NeverEnding Story now seeks haiku and tanka with teeth—poems that bite hard.

No More Fairy Tales, LIV

sky tinged gray

a heron high-stepping

through plastic

It seems to me that one should only read [poems] that bite and sting you. If the [poems] we read don't wake us up with a fist to the skull, what’s the point of reading them?

-- paraphrasing Franz Kafka 

And

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

-- Emily Dickinson

The accepted haiku and tanka will be translated into Chinese and posted on NeverEnding Story and X. And you are welcome to follow me on X at @ericcoliu (5 following, 5,211 followers).

on the windowsill

two canaries singing

to each other

I tweet and retweet

NeverEnding Story  😋

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

-- Thomas Mann

all-night wrestle

with this blinking cursor curse —

alone

at morning’s lightfall

I glimpse a swift's skywriting

A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t QUIT. 😎

-- Richard Bach

Finally, the muse knocks me out 😂

Politics of Distraction, XVII

In the land of the free, dreaming ...

To American midterm-election voters

The poor and middle class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the super-rich pay lawyers, and the ultra-rich pay politicians.

smell of muggy noon —

the Reflecting Pool's blue sky

turns algae green

Trump news on mute ...

in the soup kitchen mirror

a twentysomething's stare

FYI: CBS News, June 22: Company owned by Trump donor won $1.7 million no-bid Reflecting Pool cleaning contract

Politics of Distraction, XVIII

American “Carnage”

A 15-million-dollar resurfacing—pool reborn in flag-blue paint. It peels at once, thin skins of coating unthreading into the water.

No Trespassing

in the lingering smell

of muggy noon

a chain-link fence around

the Reflecting Pool’s green sky

Microbes revise the budget in silence. A 1.7-million-dollar, no-bid cleanup contract follows, awarded to a company owned by a Trump donor.

A super El Niño presses toward Independence Day.

FYI: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed El Niño conditions in mid-June, with a “super” event expected to develop over the summer and peak in the fall.

And The Atlantic, June 26 2026: Trump’s Peeling Green Gift to America

The Reflecting Pool fiasco says everything about how the Trump administration operates.

Donald Trump, trying to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool for America’s 250th birthday and, instead, scoring a tax-payer-funded, $14 million-over-[close to $15 million-dollar] budget own goal in the form of a cracked and peeling, green-algae-riddled, potentially duck-killing militarized zone in the nation’s capital. One of the firms hired for the renovation is named Greenwater Services.

Look forward to reading your poetry.

Happy Writing

Chen-ou

Added: reading between the lives and writing between the lines, XCIII

summer sunlight

pours through atrium walkways ...

flicker and flicker

on tired faces of back-alley youth

at the photo exhibit

FYI: This is a sequel to the following:

reading between the lives and writing between the lines, XCII

in held silence

the newbie bares, I used to 

love getting high...

until a certain point

a roomful of heads bowed low

NeverEnding Story, December 20 2025

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCXCVIII: "settler's silhouette"

billows of smoke 

against olive-grove sunset

settler's silhouette

FYI: "Israel's oldest daily, Haaretz," which was was sanctioned by the Israeli government on Nov. 24, 2024

June 23, 2026: Undoing History

A revolution is taking place in the northern West Bank. A decades-long settler project is becoming a reality – fast. Settler representatives in the Israeli government are reaping political gains, while the IDF enables and supports the effort on the ground.

Investigation, June 23: The Israeli Far-right's West Bank Land Grab and Why It's a Ticking Time Bomb

Butterfly Dream: Court Summons Haiku by John Richard Stephens

English Original

court summons—

I carefully fold it

into a crane

The Heron’s Nest, 28:2, June 2026

John Richard Stephens

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

法院傳票—

我小心翼翼地把它

折疊成一隻鶴

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

法院传票—

我小心翼翼地把它

折叠成一只鹤

Bio Sketch

John Richard Stephens has been an author for most of his life. His 25 published books are on various topics—mostly history and fiction anthologies—but so far none are on poetry. He enjoys the challenge of composing haiku, but also enjoys reading it. He lives on Maui in Hawaii but is preparing to return to Japan to study haiku, among other things. www.JohnRichardStephens.com

Special Feature: Selected Poems for Father's Day

My Dear Readers and Friends:

Today is Father’s Day. To celebrate, I’m sharing a curated selection of haiku and tanka. These poems capture the changing faces of fatherhood and challenge us to rethink the impact of fathers in our world.

her tiny voice --

the apartment fills

with dad-dads

John Hawk

a toddler climbs

onto father's shoulders

to reach the kite

Goda V. Bendoraitiene

the foster girl

colors me into her life

Father's Day card

Chen-ou Liu

father's newspaper

a constant refuge

from conversation

Mike Gallagher

all that remains --

dad's Chevy leaving

a trail in the dust

Marion Alice Poirier

shooting star -- 

father’s ring

slips off my finger

H. Gene Murtha

I’ve this memory --

riding my father’s shoulders

into the ocean,

the poetry of things

before I could speak

Michael McClintock

fifty years on ...

dad's old guitar and me

get in tune at last

Natalia Kuznetsova

withering

the sunflowers still

in offering

at my father’s tomb --

it’s shorter than I

Kaleidoscope, 2007 

Shuji Terayama

To conclude today's Special Feature post, I would like to share with you the following tanka written for my late father:

alone again

on this winding road home

in slanted moonlight

I try to imagine my place

in the world without Father

FYI: This is a sequel to my tanka below:

Father's breath

fades into forever ...

I gaze out 

his hospice window

at the moon, its fullness

Haiku Page, 11, 2025

reprinted in Charlotte Digregorio's Writer's Blog, February 12 2026

One Man's Maple Moon: Van Gogh Tanka by André Surridge

English Original

they made

Van Gogh want to dream

these stars ...

he’s there now amongst them

his smile thick with paint

Commended, 2009 Kokako International Tanka Competition

André Surridge

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

他們讓

梵谷想要夢想

這些星星 ...

他現在就在它們之中

他

的笑容濃重得像是塗了厚厚的顏料

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

他们让

梵谷想要梦想

这些星星 ...

他现在就在它们之中

他的笑容浓重得像是涂了厚厚的颜料

Bio Sketch

André Surridge was an award-winning playwright and poet who immigrated to New Zealand from Yorkshire, England in 1972. He was President of the Playwrights Association of New Zealand from 1998-2000. Widely published, some of his awards included: 1995 Minolta Playwriting Award,  2007 Elizabeth Searle Lamb Award, 2008 Tanka Splendor Award, and 2010 Jane Reichhold International prize. And his first collection of haiku and senryu, one hundred petals, was critically acclaimed in 2019.