A Room of My Own: Stadium’s Thunder Gembun

Ears ringing with  "Y.M.C.A.," a sea of red-hatted supporters carry the stadium’s thunder out into the streets.

a soup kitchen line

under slate-gray clouds

pigeons pick crumbs

FYI: Democracy Now, October 26, 2026: Number of People on Food Stamps Falls by 13% After One Big Beautiful Bill

The number of people on food stamps in the U.S. has fallen by 13% from 41.6 million people in July 2025, before the One Big Beautiful Bill Act took effect, to 36.5 million in June 2026. Advocates say more people are seeking help from food banks or going hungry. Currently, 47 million people, including one in five children, are living in food-insecure households nationwide.

And this poem could be read as a prequel to my tanka below

a MAGA pin

on this old man's breast pocket ...

his patience 

stretched to the limit

by a breadline blocks ahead

NeverEnding Story, July 13 2023

FYI: MAGA stands for "Make America Great Again." And Democracy Now, June 28, 2023: Poverty 4th Leading Cause of Death in U.S. as Calls Grow for Third Reconstruction.

Added:

thud, thud, thud

of his butcher knife

cutting red meat --

on the wall-mounted tv

war after war blaring

Added:

A wrong call: a drunk mumbling secrets intended for an old, dead flame.

sleepless again

I write emails trying

to get emails 

Added:

eyes on the phone

I wait for confirmation ...

my hamster

on the wheel to catch up

something yet nothing

FYI: This could be read as a prequel to my tanka below:

alone

holding a cup of tea

I look out the window

at new year's snow ...

this life on a hamster wheel

Scarlet Dragonfly Journal, January 22 2023

A Room of My Own: Dream and Reality Tanka

a yellow leaf

under the wiper blade

this migrant life

back and forth, back and forth

between dream and reality

Added:

a side-glance

at the beggar whose accent

is like mine ....

I recall the months spent

putting back pieces of me

Added:

books of poetry

stacked from floor to ceiling —

alone

together with past voices

to explore my future self

Added:

back home again

from a wellness center

alone, the neighbor

deadheading garden tulips

the colors of sunrise

Added:

winter stars

look closer yet far away

face to face

I see something hidden

behind my sick wife's eyes

Added:

alone

on this little island

in the lake:

water-blue, bird-singing

green-leafed wor(l)d of my own

A Room of My Own: Childhood Haiku

winding road home

my childhood

left in the rearview

Added:

moon and stars

not one that moves ...

midnight silence

Added:

morning stroll

a butterfly rides the tail

of my old dog

Added:

sunlit field trip

a school of pond koi

slipping in and out

Added:

train tracks

fading in the twilight fog ...

words half-spoken

Added:

rain on the roof

my child’s shoes by the door

no longer fit

A Room of My Own: "Deadline Eve" Gembun

Rain pitter-pattering on the roof all night.

deadline eve

the cursor blinks blinking

after I write

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

My fingers click-clacking — hail against the window.

what's left unsaid

between words and lines ...

alone at false dawn

NeverEnding Story, September 1 2026

At 6 a.m., a film of cold grease has formed over my untouched coffee.

I add three words

revise them then kill the line ...

paper-white dawn

NeverEnding Story, September 23, 2026 

Added:

first autumn chill

the ladder to my tree house

two rungs missing

FYI: This is a sequel to my haiku below:

tree house

a ladder leading

to the moon 

Stardust Haiku, 66, June 2022

Added:

further in

and further in ...

moonlit fog

Added:

a begging bowl

outside the temple gate

rows of shoes

A Room of My Own: For Sale Tanka

on the driveway

all hopscotch squares

except one

fill with crimson leaves ...

for sale sign askew

Added:

a dollhouse

at the rain-streaked window ...

foreclosure sign

Added:

roof cobwebs

threaded with rosary beads —

foreclosed house in mist

FYI: My tanka below could be read as a sequel to the "for sale" and "foreclosure" poems above:

foreclosure

and for sale signs

like scarecrows ...

wildflowers bloom

in rioting glory

Gusts, 26, Fall/Winter 2017

Added:

somewhere, someone

shadowing me through twilight

faint buzz overhead

Added:

distant sirens ...

from one dream to another

no blinking exit

FYI: it could be read as a prequel to my haiku below:

echo of footsteps

in the psych ward hallway

EXIT blinking

NeverEnding Story, September 16 2026

Added:

winding dappled trail

through a green-leafed breeze

I'm off the map's edge

A Room of My Own: All-Night Laundromat Gembun

Distant blue flashes ripple on wet asphalt—a low echo.

half-asleep, alone

yet not alone enough

all-night laundromat

Added:

On a cul-de-sac, a detached house with gardens in front and back.

pension, high-tech stocks ...

the first day of retirement

under a gray sky

FYI: This could be read as a prequel to my tanka below:

first day

after retirement

the brush

is dipped deeper

in Chinese ink

Tanka Honorable Mention, 2016 San Francisco International Competition for Haiku, Senryu, Tanka

Added:

my wife's tears ...

I peel the onion 

one layer at a time

Added:

The kitchen refrigerator hums a low drone.

slanted moonlight

on my wife's post-it note:

I need more space

Added:

eviction notice

a stack of poetry books

overdue

Added:

autumn garden

one sunflower leaning

against the fence

A Room of My Own: Kraa-Kraa-Kraa Senryu

Realm of Contagious Stupidity, IV

For Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945)

neo-orthodox theologian and anti-Nazi dissident

who wrote in Letters and Papers from Prison: “Against stupidity we are defenseless.”

ravens' kraa-kraa-kraa

as one stray outbarks the rest:

Trump TV on

FYI: Bonhoeffer's remark isn't simply saying that people are unintelligent; he distinguishes the phenomenon from an intellectual defect and describes a condition in which people surrender independent judgment and become impervious to contrary facts. 

The Guardian, September 21, 2026: US TV networks suspend White House pool coverage over Trump media ban

White House promoted its own ‘Trump TV’ feed online after ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC decline to participate

And it could be read as a prequel to my haibun below:

Trump Empire, Inc.: C

a senryu-inflected, visual haibun

Dayandnightmare

A red brick wall fills my field of vision; its perimeters are out of sight.

MAGAMAGA

echoingback

MAGAMAGA

NeverEnding Story, August 17 2026

Added:

half-awake

and alone again ...

no sound

in this mindstorm, yet

my thoughts darken

Added:

twilit underpass :

between spray-painted hearts

blood dripping

Added:

lakefront trail

my shadow strolls through 

clouds and trees

A Room of My Own: Crimson Sunset Glow Haiku

hospice garden

crimson sunset glow

across her face

FYI: This could be read as a prequel to my haiku below:

hospice garden

the wishing fountain fills

with fallen leaves

Ink Sweat & Tears, April 17, 2025 

Added:

echo of footsteps

in the psych ward hallway

EXIT blinking

Added:

hushed silence

before and after

a midnight scream

Added:

war cemetery

in slanted moonlight

new row of graves

FYI: This could be read as a prequel to my haiku below:

war cemetery 

birthday on this tombstone

uncarved

NeverEnding Story, September 5 2023

Added:

the other shore

of surging Pacific waves ...

years in exile

A Room of My Own: Moonlit Kiss Haiku

our moonlit kiss ...

that first time years ago

and the last

Added:

sultry night

a couple knee-deep

in stars

Added:

jasmine breeze

tonight smells of her

gone for years

Added:

moving day

the backyard swing 

slows to a stop

Added:

summer's end

the blue morpho

under a pin

Added:

sky tinged smoky gray

alone, I drive slowly past

what's left

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

cliff edge —

a burning sky

behind us

Honourable Mention, IHS International Haiku Competition 2022

Marion Clarke 

A Room of My Own: Sweat-and-Tears Life Tanka

another

mid-sentence silence

this muggy noon

our thoughts of returning

to sweat-and-tears yet sure life

Added:

cubicle glass

the stare of my eyes

the stare of my eyes

FYI: This could be read as a sequel to my haiku below:

a fly battering

at my cubicle window

this 9-to-5 job

Haiku in Action, Weekly Prompt:"Primordial Fears," July 2nd-6th  2025

Added:

in giant letters

think outside the box

on the wall

of this newbie's cubicle 

on my wall, actions speak louder

Added:

After three years of walking my boss's bulldog, I imagine all I can imagine and then keep on going.

corner glass cubicle

new self growing larger

with afternoon light

A Room of My Own: Stonehenge Tanka

a full moon

between the sarsen stones 

of Stonehenge

one silhouette ghosting

across the gravel path

Added:

a thrum of rain

on the old van skylight 

in a parking lot

I murmur, the life I dreamed

yet the life I'm living

Added:

flash after flash

of midnight lightning

my dream and I

rippling

in the vodka glass

Added:

words are only air

dissolving as they are said ...

yet my chest tightens

as if I’ve swallowed a rock

lodged beneath my breath

Added:

belief is a bridge

built across surging waters...

yet my shaking hands

cannot find the wooden rail

to the altar in dim light

Added:

emigration eve

the last notes

of Home Sweet Home

fading once more

into this moonless stillness

A Room of My Own: First Summer Rain Tanka

(

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

Daniel Blatman, Opinion, August 24, 2026: From Armenia to Gaza: The Language of Denial That Makes Atrocities Possible

From Nazi 'language rules' to the American military's 'collateral damage' and Israel's 'voluntary migration' policy for Gaza, euphemisms do more than conceal crimes. They allow ordinary people to live with them

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCCV: "headlines"

headline after headline

of situation, event

and incident ...

body parts on the blood-stained floor

of a half-flattened classroom

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCCVI: "neu-tra-li-za-tion"

neu-tra-li-za-tion

a new recruit mouths

with a middle finger —

a gray-haired Gazan's back

pockmarked with bullets

FYI: Below is a relevant excerpt:

In 1947, two years after the collapse of the regime that had threatened his life, the German Jewish philologist Victor Klemperer published a short book titled "The Language of the Third Reich" ("Lingua Tertii Imperii"). Klemperer, who escaped extermination because he was married to a non-Jewish woman, did not write about extermination camps or SS death squads. He wrote about words.

Nazism, he argued, penetrated society not only through speeches and posters in the streets, but primarily through expressions that people unwittingly internalized, like tiny doses of poison entering the bloodstream. Individual words, expressions and syntactic patterns were imposed on the masses through millions of repetitions, then adopted mechanically and unconsciously. The poison, he wrote, does not act immediately. It accumulates....

The Israeli media now has a complete, efficient and polished lexicon designed to implant euphemistic descriptions of the state's crimes in the minds of Israelis. Mass killing in Gaza falls under the heading of "operational activity." The destruction of entire neighborhoods becomes "mowing the lawn" or "flattening," images borrowed from gardening and construction. A targeted airstrike that kills dozens of innocent people is described as a "thwarting" or "neutralization," terms from the world of intelligence that imply the prevention of some greater evil. An area that continues to be bombed, such as Al-Mawasi in southern Gaza, is called a "humanitarian zone." And when it becomes clear that uninvolved civilians, including children, have been killed, passive formulations take over: "were killed during an operation," "lost their lives," "fatalities were reported." ...

This is precisely what the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu meant by "symbolic violence." It is not a lie that someone decided to sell or an instruction handed down from above, but a set of categories of thought internalized so deeply that both the person doing the classifying and the person being classified accept them as natural. A news editor who writes "hikers" or "terrorists" does not feel that they are choosing a word. They feel that they are describing reality. That is the power of symbolic violence. It requires no administrative enforcement because it is already embedded in our vocabulary.

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCCVIII: "torn pieces of Star of David"

asleep

on torn pieces of Star of David

a stray 

The New Yorker, July 28, 2025: Israel’s Zones of Denial

Amid national euphoria over the bombing of Iran—and the largely ignored devastation in Gaza—a question lurks: What is the country becoming?

Added: Realm of Contagious Stupidity, III

he hides “files”

sleeps through meetings, yells be quiet

trades stocks and golfs:

this ball-size-brained con man smirks

behind the Resolute Desk

)

a child's hand 

outside the car window

to touch

the first summer rain ...

bumper to bumper to Exit

Added:

a midnight moon

glints in the skylight

turning once more

I listen to her breathing

as the night stretches on

Added:

packing

and unpacking my suitcases

for three hours —

this life without my love

yet still within my love

Added:

we all move on

then the story carries us —

still I stand still

at the bend of her street

hearing her door close

Added:

home from vacation

it takes three moonless nights

for my heart and mind

to adjust to living

in a room of my echoes

A Room of My Own: Dayandnightmare

Trump Empire, Inc.: C

a senryu-inflected, visual haibun

A red brick wall fills my field of vision; its perimeters are out of sight.

MAGAMAGA

echoingback

MAGAMAGA

Added:

The Sound of Absence 

a senryu-inflected, visual haibun

Bedroom door slammed shut, I'm left to my own devices.

finger scrolling

OnlyFansSexTubePornDude ...

one stray outbarks the rest

Added:

the moan of a dove ...

my wife replies, I fake it

until you make it

Added:

one more blue pill --

in slanted moonlight my wife 

on top of me

Added:

close to urinals

close to civilization

drip, drip, drip ...

Added:

                my

               blind

               date 

new snow on old snow

                 top

                 of 

                 me

A Room of My Own: Hum of Summer Clouds Haiku

rippling sunshine

a hum of summer clouds 

in the mountain stream

FYI: It might be interesting to do a comparison reading of my haiku below:

the sky dappled

with cotton candy clouds ...

summer fair

Autumn Moon Haiku Journal, 6:2, Spring/Summer 2023

And 

summer mind

I hum along

with the meadow

Frogpond, 49:1, 2026

Shawn Blair

Added:

a loon call

held by the mountain lake

summer moonlight

Added:

predawn darkness

the silence between me

and a world to come

Added:

For Sale askew

a porch dreamcatcher

gathers dust

Added:

waiting room smell

patch by patch summer sunlight

slips out of the door

Added:

love affair

the dappled trail widens

into a road

A Room of My Own: One Stray Blossom Haiku

breezy sunshine

in a field of poppies

one stray blossom

FYI: My haiku is allusive to the following:

across the road

from a field of sunflowers:

a sunflower

Basho

Bashō's haiku relies on spatial juxtaposition ("across the road"), making the lone sunflower unmistakably distinct from the field.

My haiku relies on selective perception. The "stray blossom" may be physically separated, but the haiku leaves that open. The emphasis is on the act of noticing one flower within abundance.

Furthermore, "stray" in L3 introduces a different emotional coloring. Bashō's solitary sunflower is simply there; it is not described as aberrant or misplaced. Stray adds a sense of deviation, which makes the haiku more dynamic. It invites metaphorical interpretation.

A reader might see the stray blossom as:

an individual within a crowd,

someone who does not conform,

an outsider,

a free spirit,

or simply the one who catches the observer's attention.

None of these meanings is stated. They arise naturally from the image itself. 

Added:

red balloon drifting

over skyscrapers, a child's gaze

from the wheelchair

Added:

miles apart

loons calling each other ...

a sea between us

Added:

inside

the sea turtle shell:

salt crystals

FYI: This could be read as a prequel to my haiku below:

the life

I leave behind ...

a turtle's shell

On down the Road: HSA Members' Anthology, 2017

Added: No More Fairy Tales, LVII

smoky sunset

cloaking the country road

while birds scatter

in the rearview mirror

all that I was behind me

FYI: This could be read as a sequel to my poem below:

No More Fairy Tales, LVI

What has been will be again

Acrid black columns choke the morning sun. Trapped in a valley of smoke, cars barrel past leaping tongues of fire. Across Northern Ontario, wildfires burn hotter, bigger, and deadlier than ever. More than one thousand miles away, their smoke casts an orange haze over New York's crawling traffic.

Meanwhile, silhouetted against smoky skies, the Premier’s mouth opens and closes for the camera lights, broadcasting word after word into the heat.

tongues of forest fire

there is no Plan[et] B, the rest

blah, blah, blah...

NeverEnding Story, July 18 2026

A Room of My Own: Gliding Kayaks Tanka

gliding kayaks ...

ripple after ripple

overlapping

summer stars that bridge

what words never could

Added:

one tide cycle

after another and another

across the Pacific 

pulling out, returning anew ...

my heart still on the other shore

Added:

to stay or to go

I murmur to myself

again and again 

through the autumn wind 

each leaf zigzags its way down

Added:

all things must pass,

the seasons teach me this —

yet I still press

my face into her lingerie

forgotten in the basket

A Room of My Own: All the Feelings Tanka

(FYI: The following is the first installment of Realm of Contagious Stupidity, an ongoing series of contemporary, satirical kyōka examining modern culture and politics.

Realm of Contagious Stupidity, I

In response to Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "Against stupidity we are defenseless."

at the gallery

a plane mirror with a sign:

the DUMBEST --

no one stands before it

except a Trump lookalike

FYI: The Guardian, Oct. 2 2025: A critique of pure stupidity: understanding Trump 2.0

If the first term of Donald Trump provoked anxiety over the fate of objective knowledge, the second has led to claims we live in a world-historical age of stupid, accelerated by big tech. But might there be a way out?)

I was told

to hide all the feelings

once grown --

carrying this silver casket

I shed tears for her, and me

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

with each sob

his body convulses …

in the hospital

for the first time

I embrace a man

Ribbons, 7:4, Winter 2011

Added:

my brain humming 

with scraps of Sappho  

while Eros stirs ...

"I'll be a poet," I confess

to my river reflection

Added: This Brave New World, CXXVIII

another lineup

round the block near a foodbank

wall-mounted TV

blasting "sunlight on demand"

"orbiting data centers"

FYI: The Tyee, July 23 2026: 

Reflect Orbital's giant mirror to create “sunlight on demand” was just approved by the United States Federal Communications Commission, or FCC,

In February, SpaceX filed with the FCC for one million more satellites, for “AI data centers.”

Added:

dust motes  

in slanted moonlight—  

I settle  

into what remains

after bankruptcy

A Room of My Own: War and Peace Haiku

leafing War and Peace

front to back, back to front

summer whiffle

Added:

hillside and valley

flecked with cloud shadows ...

smell of sunshine

Added:

farmers' market

tasting a strawberry

then her lips

Added:

the ripe tangle

of wild strawberries ...

an urge to love 

Added:

overlapping hearts

on a summer train window

our reflections

Added:

first outing

after the breakup

on the beach

I trip on a heart

made of stones

Added:

alone again

on the moonlit shore ...

my shadow

stretches closer, closer

to lapping waves

Added: No More Fairy Tales, LVI

What has been will be again

Acrid black columns choke the morning sun. Trapped in a valley of smoke, cars barrel past leaping tongues of fire. Across Northern Ontario, wildfires burn hotter, bigger, and deadlier than ever. More than one thousand miles away, their smoke casts an orange haze over New York's crawling traffic.

Meanwhile, silhouetted against smoky skies, the Premier’s mouth opens and closes for the camera lights, broadcasting word after word into the heat.

tongues of forest fire

there is no Plan[et] B, the rest

blah, blah, blah...

FYI: Canada’s climate-change-charged wildfires are becoming a horrific annual event. 

Over 800 wildfires are burning across Canada, with one entirely destroying the northern Indigenous community of Namaygoosisagagun. 

Back in 2023, Emma Paling reported that the same Indigenous communities that gave early warnings against burning fossil fuels are among the first to be permanently displaced by climate change.

The Breach, August 24, 2023: First Nations say they’re not wildfire evacuees, but climate refugees

Indigenous communities that first warned against burning fossil fuels are now facing permanent displacement caused by climate breakdown

A Room of My Own: Before Jesus Tanka

a bare heart

and a humbled mind

before Jesus --

patch by patch filtered sunlight

slips beyond the chapel door

FYI: This could be read as a prequel to my tanka below:

in the chapel

I pray to Jesus

hour after hour

finally tired of me

Time leaves me alone

NeverEnding Story, September 15, 2017

Added:

The air in here twice-breathed, the taste of stale water in the waiting room. 

trapped wasp

thumping at the pane 

doctor’s gaze

Added:

Awake after a late muggy afternoon nap.

alone

yet the looping

of this fly

FYI: This could be read as a prequel to my senryu below:

summer cottage

after killing the last fly

I am alone

Failed Haiku, 2:16, 2017

And this could be read as a prequel to my senryu below:

summer cottage

everywhere the echo 

of me

Cattails, October 2025

Added:

By the lake of my mind, flower by flower ...

first homecoming

where wild bluebells bloomed

stacked townhouses

Added: No More Fairy Tales, LV

wildfires

hotter, bigger, deadlier

than before—

orange haze over Toronto

as multi-lane traffic crawls

FYI: This is a sequel to my tanka below:

No More Fairy Tales, XXXII

silhouetted

against the smoky forest

far away yet near ...

the Premier's mouth opens, closes

opens before cameras

NeverEnding Story, August 15 2024

A Room of My Own: Lovers' Quarrel Haiku

lovers' quarrel  

in the summer twilight  

knotted branches sway

FYI: This could be read as a sequel/counter-poem to my haiku below:

dappled trail 

a summer breeze humming

our sweet nothings 

NeverEnding Story, June 28 2025

Added:

summer stars 

tangled in my love's hair: 

skinny-dipping 

Added:

starry midnight ...

summer rain

into the silence

Added:

rippling sunset

the far-off sound

of a fishing boat

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

summer dusk

fishing boats set their nets

around the sun

First Place, Fifth Setouchi Matsuyama Photo Haiku Contest

Marietta Jane McGregor

Added:

late afternoon light

the snarl 

of lawn mowers

Added:

monsoon rain

my toddler wanders

from room to room