These poems, surprisingly enough, are all parodies, homages, or allusions to (mostly) well-known poems. Can you identify their progenitors? All poems published in Modern Haiku 38:3, Autumn 2007, except for “mime” (Cicada #20, 6:3, July 1994), “dust” (Woodnotes #13, Summer 1992), “what can happen now?” (Haiku Canada Review 2:2, October 2008), “after the puppet show” (Modern Haiku 44:2, Summer 2013), “spring breeze” (Modern Haiku 46:1, Winter–Spring 2015), and “what computers feel” and “New Years Day” (both published in Frogpond 23:3, Fall 2000 and in Countdown, the 2000 Haiku Poets of Northern California members’ anthology), the second version of “the street-corner preacher” (Skylark 6:1, Summer 2018), and “snake” (The Heron’s Nest XXIII:1, March 2021). See also “14 or 15 Combs.”
for you going
for me going
two urinals +
a bitter loss—
college football players
without any necks
hermit crab:
out of its shell
out of itself
dust hovers above the road at sunset
the parking lot gate
rises
falls
mime
jumping
frog
September tide—
how delightful to wade
with Birkenstocks in hand
indigo sky—
there must be 14 or 15
cumulus clouds
the street-corner preacher
points the way
with his Bible
what can happen now?
in the forest
a redwood has fallen
after the puppet show the puppets
spring breeze—
the pull of her hand
as we near the pot store
what computers feel,
clocks feel, I don’t know—
millennium’s end
New Year’s Day—
the computer keeps working
I feel about average
the street-corner preacher
points the way
with his tablet
snake
out of its skin
out of itself