Haiku Confab

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Bonus Day 31 Reflecting the times. The beginning is ending and starting again. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 30 Inhospitable sunbleached, gouged by spikey boots. Alien launch pad. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 29 Could it happen here, diaspora USA? We could go back home. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 28 Freshly painted cells where our subconscious is caged can't contain our hopes. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 27 Buddha's has eight spokes Catherine's is covered with spikes BK's comes with fries. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poem 30 images 30 days - Day 26 Ladies, gentlemen, an explosion of sparkles blinds you to the facts. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 25 You'd go if you could? Blast off and aim for the stars. Leave this soulless place. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 24 gold, silver, diamonds. murderers, sex offenders. governments, people. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 23 true believers sing el rey está muerto shout, viva el rey! Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 22 Youse not welcome here. No bums, no bull, no buzzer. Fuckin' a . That's right. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 21 Enter here, young man. Break open the locked red door. A kiss with sharp teeth. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poem 30 images 30 days - Day 20 No no no... hmm. Yes? No no no... Well ok,  maybe. Uhhh, changed my mind. No. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 19 happy love lives here walking tall by fear, filth, loss. crushing hate. badass! Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poem 30 images 30 days - Day 18 Wanted: cage dancing haircutters for nude review of short and curlies Image: Heather Protz , 2011

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 17 red leads anger past pink's plump loveliness into gray's dark labyrinth. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 16 Bombastic taco that's what a burrito is don't be so fancy Today's haiku brought to you by Frederick Merrill Samuel Bailie, age 11. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 15 Containers, coffers bottles, bags, cities, people. discard when empty. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 14 redemption is found under the sign of the cross, where drunks, pigeons sleep. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 13 Stripped cleared scrubbed swept stacked sorted divided arranged discussed settled sold Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 12 In hell's fifth circle eternity spent rowing for t-shirts and hats Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 11 Deconstructing truth. Identity. Certainty. Logic of despair. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poem 30 images 30 days - Day 10 Who lived here, loved here? Can you hear that? It's the sound of our dreams dying. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poem 30 images 30 days - Day 9 When does metaphor morph into reality? We're the red menace. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 8 Forget herbicide. Your poison won't stop us from coming for you. Image: Heather Protz , 2011.

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 7 I'm looking for God anywhere everywhere unlikely places Image: Heather Protz , 2011

Collaboration - 30 poem 30 images 30 days - Day 6 dirt, crow, humble pie my shorts, your words, my hat, shit. you eat with that mouth? Image: Heather Protz , 2011

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 5  Cities are like hands nimble and strong in their youth gnarled near the end. Image: Heather Protz , 2011

Collaboration - 30 images 30 poems 30 days - Day 4 Brain cells flash and burn hot as a house fire, fast as a life spent waiting. Image: Heather Protz , 2011

Collaboration - 30 images 30 poems 30 days - Day 3 This ain't no peep show you can scratch your way into. Pay up or fuck off. Image: Heather Protz , 2011

Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 2   Harsh light of high noon disrobes our hidden places. Lays the widow bare. Image: Heather Protz , 2011

 Collaboration - 30 poems 30 images 30 days - Day 1 Daddy's little girl reflects a ruined culture that's for sale dirt cheap. Image: Heather Protz , 2011

Your sugary tears  have made me drunk and hungry. Let me lap them up. Like a purring cat begging for a bowl of milk, my mewing won't stop. You're hurt, let me soothe your wounded spirit with love. You can't resist. Touch. Photo: Sculpture at Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College.

She's been pushed over the metaphorical edge. Plummeting too fast. If you saw her fall while flying overhead, would you dive to catch her? Or let her fall while climbing ever higher as she shatters to bits. From ten thousand feet a tragedy unfolding can look alluring. Like oil on water blooming blue, orange, and red in the mid-day sun. Photo: (c) Cindy Bailie

Writing a novel is getting in the way of writing a haiku.

Crushed leaves of wild thyme scent of your essential oil is heady, sublime.

If able to fly what would I be? Dragonfly, angel, butterfly? Would my wings be built for speed, soaring, hovering over dense forests? Would I need wings to lift me high into the sky for quick getaways?

Stinging whip of rules keeps the untamed animals from showing themselves. We could benefit from unleashing some feral   creativity. Illuminating we've lost our way, down a path we've been forced to clear. Hacking at the brush that grows right back as we watch. Endless, meaningless. Take your inner beast for a walk in the tangle. Trample down a new path. Making up new rules. Following where it takes you. Revealing no fear.

Who cares about plot? One well chosen word contains an ocean of plots. Diving too deep breaks the surface tension of one beautiful word.

I've got nothing now. Spent my money betting on love, hope, the future.

Red pomegranate, your seeds may be bitter, but your nectar is sweet. Green watermelon heavy with succulent flesh, spill your sticky seeds. Spiny skin be damned. Prickly pear, give up your pink luscious sweetness, now.

I want or I need. Mutually exclusive? I don't think so. No.

Free falling through night's celestial sky, your journey ends on dawn's mossy bluff. Scratching the earth with fingers and toes, you're more beast than divine spirit. Birds take to the sky. Forest floor comes to life with creatures escaping. In a feathered nest made from your wings and bone, you coil around the night God's thundering voice still ringing in your ears, Go. Find a life to guard. Photo: (c) Cindy Bailie

Wild overgrown hedge, green tendrils like fingers reach out to stop us. Sunken sidewalk, bog of wet leaves, moss, and mud. We cross, watch from other side. Scary side of street. Houses with eyes watching us, and whispering,  go . A light flickers on a cat appears, we cross and call, kitty, kitty. The cat watches us padding uphill to the woods eyes glowing green blue. Here kitty kitty. Don't follow it. Come back. Run. Around the corner... We find normal life a hat shop where church ladies buy pink feathered crowns.

Sticker warning reads: Taking with alcohol will unleash the harpy. Yellow eyes ablaze, she'll flap, squawk, peck at your eyes. Take food from your mouth.

Cherry's mom drinks beer day and night and night and day angering, sour breath. Twenty-four bottles fat, brown, icy and cold for us, when she's out. Till then we listen watch her engines rev and spark fueled by alcohol. Itching for a fight she spews a slurry of words: ...You're not my child. Drink. Your real mom's crazy. She left you, wandered away. ...In my house now. Drink. You cut that picture from a magazine. Not her ...You're pathetic. Drink. Buddy's my real child. You're taking food from his mouth. ...Yours is dirty. Drink. Sweet Cherry Candy we'll survive this nightmare. Friends. It's dark. She's out. Go. Bare feet on wet grass we run into the black night. Mud between our toes. Down a gravel path it cuts but we can't feel it. Grit between our toes.

A girl named Cherry loves Jesus, howls at the moon. Sloe-eyed gin fizzy. Her gal pal Candy recites Pledge of Allegiance her hand in his pocket. Hey cherry candy sticky-sweet, pink candy floss. You know you want some.

Ground down to fine dust words crush spirit to powder, mixed with dynamite. One spark lights it up, ignites the fuse that is the rope we dangle on. Cut the cord and fly into nothing. Cut the cord, the noose we hang from.

Dreamed of sailing through slate blue water to a garden filled with hummingbirds. In tiny nests their bellies resting on the ground. Feathers teal, fuschia. Stepping gingerly towards a plum tree alive with screeching and flapping I look up to see hundreds of black birds, red eyes on fire. "Hummingbirds, fly now." Watching a blur of tiny wings plow through the air black birds fill the sky.

Friends, like chocolate are sweet but temporary. Bitter when burning.

Smart ones buried deep under a load of stupid. Most seats are vacant. Who's driving this bus? Under it, five bodies deep. Someone, hit the brakes. Here comes another dazed from lack of direction. Throws herself under. Better right this thing stop the barrage of pointless. You, step on the gas.

Lips part to inhale smoke from burning angel wings. The story starts here.

No goblin, trickster conjurer potions needed to provoke magic. Charming, misleading beguiling, tempting, lying easy as breathing.

To a well-lived life, you walk in the light of day like an upright man. No belly slither No horns, hooves, or full-moon beasts. Open deceit, no. Skin smooth velvet, breath honey mead. Tormenting and irresistible. Alexandrite eyes aqua green in the daylight rubies in the dark. The slow, setting glow of an orange red sun builds anticipation. Sounds of rushing souls their shadows growing, then gone when night's curtain falls. Tap at my window an invitation to fly deep into the wild. In the pewter sky stars blink, look away, ashamed of their nakedness. Thirst for nourishment a gulp of your dream herb is intoxicating. Beneath your black wings in a thicket in the dark blood rises, fire rains.

Liquid fire of fermented dandelions, honey, lavender. Candy of strangers goes down rough, like swallowing a thistle abloom. Bloodied, not beaten wine-stained hands give way to the rosy-fingered dawn.

Rattling dry bones in a forgotten boneyard  best left undisturbed. The crushing weight of experience, memories tarnished by rain, air.

Holy tyranny! The guv'ment, out ta get me. Saw it on you tubes.

Rushing water, stream. Ideas bubble and flow. Where do I spill them? Here? Destination desk, chair? The creative process, disrupted.