1. This morning’s beauty
Sun shining on pallid flesh
Time for Coppertone
2. Four years for J-Franz
And still there’s no new novel
Remnick, why publish?
3. Sam, earn your brownie
You’re good enough to take risks
So why play it safe?
4. Bookpiles overflow
How will I read these authors?
Speedread? Not a choice
5. Ayelet needs journal
Or tranquil haikus. A therapist?
For personal woes
6. Haikus are nifty
They make me nice and toasty
No Foetry scam
7. Beatific books
Wall my hallways, line my bag
They like you too. Read.
8. Lazy Saturday
Don’t tempt me to do nothing
Weekends whoosh too fast
9. Drink too much coffee
Reliant on jitter gods
To not waste a day
10. People who send things
To my PO Box are sweet
Thanks. Will try to read.
11. To answer email
I’m trying, but there’s too much
Respond, if it’s months
12. Papers make me sad
No good news, just thugs and creeps
There are better folks?
13. Three overdue books
Librarians will ream me
Here, have my Visa
14. Will see my honey
Tonight, which is nice. Where to?
Must come up with plan
15. Three beer hangover?
I’m getting old, now cheap drunk
Drink lots of water
16. The hummer parks near
I have thoughts of smashing it
Teach it a lesson
17. Amazing how people
Waste time, money, energies
On picayune things.
18. Oh, that explains head
Forgot dinner. Despite friends
Telling me to eat.
19. Instead of violence
I’ll draft a law to fine fucks
Who park hummers here
20. Twenty haikus here?
Well, why not? Hope others will
Take up the pen now
Haiku-smaiku, my friend! Quite aside from the content, you really need to try 2-3-2 or 2-4-2 beats. Google my name and go to google print and read the preface of either of my two books of translated haiku (you can choose between sea cucumber and flies, not that it matters for this)and see why syllables are wrong.
And, please note, too, that there is NOTHING wrong with more nonfiction than fiction books in a review. The question is whether the books reviewed are worth reviewing. Nonfiction can be not only stranger but wilder than fiction — like that brownie shirley gave me in hawaii 25 years ago that turned me into a salmon going up a waterfall (the shower) and then put me into an igloo. And it wasn’t a cut away igloo like Nanook was photographed in . . .