Here's this week's heap of haikus:

 

When you're looking for
familiarity's font,
Google sans serif.

 

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You know it's true if
you read it on a matchbook.
( Close before striking. )

 

 

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Labor Day double haiku:

 

Forty hour work weeks,
Safety and child labor laws …
a minimum wage.

Unions, walk outs, strikes,
picket lines, arbitration …
Which side are you on?

 

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There, on the sidewalk,
I spied a crumpled dollar
which looked a bit spent.

 

 

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They sway with the breeze,
which is why her little dog,
barks at sunflowers.

 

 

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It’s not the way I
don’t do things that matters, it’s
the way I forget.

 

 

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A suicidal
watermelon’s a sure sign
that Summer’s over.

(Actual un-retouched photo of W. 108th St. sidewalk – taken by me in Sept. of 2013)

 

 

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double haiku:

We struggle, at times,
remembering our loved ones,
but vow, they won't fade.

So, the old stories, though
familiar, are re-told, to
refresh our spirits.

 

 

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double haiku:

The tail fins really ...
I said, the tail fins really ...
Oh Hell, never mind.

Let me ask you this ...
Did you notice there is a
car in this picture?

 

 

 

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Clinging too much to
the Past, guarantees you'll be
bull-dozed by the Future.

 

 

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How ironic to
mourn a man's death with a song
called "Being Alive."

(Dean Jones died this week. Most remember him from TV or Disney movies like The Love Bug.  I remember him for what I think was his best work: Bobby in the Original Broadway cast of the Sondheim musical, Company in 1970.   He didn't stay with the show long, my parents took me to see Company two weeks after it opened and the lead role of Bobby was already being done full-time by his understudy Larry Kert, (who, btw, had originated the role of Tony in West Side Story.)  Rumors said the role of Bobby was an uncomfortable one for Jones, that it hit too close to home.  He did, fortunately make the cast album of the show and in the documentary of the making of that cast album you can see how he struggled to put across the big number, "Being Alive".  I think he succeeded.  I understand that some 20 years later, he briefly re-visited the role.  I hope that means that he had made peace with it.  What ever was going on for him inside his head, it made for an indelible theatrical experience, I believe more lasting than any of the Disney movies he made.)

 

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Friends who come to play
in my house, don't break my toys
or torture my cat.

 

 

 

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Up before sunrise,
he kept the lights off, so as
not to wake her up.

 

 

 

 

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Nineteen Fifty-five ...
A sound of the future; The
Monitor Beacon.

(Now it sounds like your old computer trying to sign on to AOL in 1995. We've come a long way.)

 

 

 

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He's considered dull;
just muddling through Life ... yet
his heart slays dragons.

 

 

 

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tanka haiku:

Sunny, Summer days
running through fields, resting 'neath
the shade of an oak.

    Then we rode bikes to the park
    and played baseball 'til dinner.

 

 

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A day for baseball
Suddenly, a thunderstorm!
Puddles at third base.
 
 

 

 

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In you, I see me.
Our thoughts are clearly in sync.
And that gives me pause.
 
 
 

 

 

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To amuse themselves,
she would sing, he'd whistle ... but
always diff'rent tunes.
 
 

 

 

 

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The pre-War building
stands in stark contrast to the
soul-less skyscrapers.
 

 

 
 

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Double haiku: 

Lush forestation
made progress difficult, and
hid the waterfalls.
 
But ... the explorers
finally found their way into
this "heart of darkness."
 
 

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Impulsive actions
are often triggered by what
echoes in our hearts.

 

 

 

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Conundrums collide!
Climactic catastrophes
clearly caused chaos!

 

 

 

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Yearning for peaches,
he settled for nectarines.
Second fiddle fruit.

 

 

 

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Voids are always filled.
Whisperers find Whisperees ...
( in the Library.)

 

 

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Heartfelt homilies
gave Sunday morning breakfasts
ample food for thought.
 

 

 

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Bonus Poem:

I posted this a couple of years ago, but I came across it the other day and it still made me chuckle, so I'm posting it again.  About a dozen years ago, I was lying in a hospital bed, and the television had not been hooked up yet, so I was listening to The Raymond Scott Quintet on my iPod ... Raymond Scott was a popular big-band leader from the late 30's and 40's, who, later, became one of the pioneers of electronic music. He was also married to singer Dorothy Collins and worked for Mo-Town in the 60's as head of their electronic music division. One of the songs on the album was titled, "Yesterday's Ice-cubes are Water Today." So I start making up this poem in my head, using the title of the song as the first line of the poem, but not having pen and paper handy, I had to keep repeating it over and over in my head until the next morning when I was able to write it down ...

Yesterday's ice-cubes are water today,
What once was cool has melted away,
Evaporation must come to us all,
Back up to the clouds so the rain can then fall,

Fall to the stream, flow to the river,
from faucet to freezer we soon start to shiver,
We're back being ice-cubes, don't know where or when,
we just know the process starts over again,

Our minds try to tell us there is only the Now,
As if Life after Now is a fiction somehow,
But the soul goes on being, though each time here is fleeting,
To glimpse the eternal, well ... that would be cheating,

For we are just ice-cubes,
at being cool, we're the best,
We can understand melting,
but have to trust all the rest.

 

and here's the song of the same name by Raymond Scott: