Faded Hopscotch Chalk

Here’s the first poem from my index card boxes for poems that start with the letter F:

faded hopscotch chalk—

the neighbour’s Maine Coon

stalking a pigeon

Most of the haiku and senryu I write arise from personal experience, memory, prompts, or encounters with inspirational ideas. This poem is an example of something written for an external purpose or project, in this case for one of Corine Timmer’s Zodiac-themed haiku anthologies. The focus this time was tigers, for which cat poems were invited, and I wrote this poem on 29 May 2022 in Sammamish, Washington. It wasn’t accepted, but I was able to publish the poem in Geppo in 2023. I like the image in the first line here, and the image of a cat stalking a pigeon is effective, but I’m not sure that these two images create enough synergy together. To some degree, the poem feels too much like a report, perhaps also a bit contrived, even if the pigeon may soon become as “faded” as that hopscotch chalk. I’ve written better poems, but I share the poem here as an arbitrary example, for better or worse, of all poems I’ve published and keep track of using index cards.

—19 May 2025 (previously unpublished)