Me: "Sun Ra is playing at Nightfall next week. Or at least, Sun Ra's band is... didn't he die?" M.A. Turner: "Didn't he die like... 3000 years ago?" Me: "Well played. Well played."

I spent some time last night (this morning/what time is it anyway?) making the poetry page look pretty. I'll be adding more content as I type it up, transcribing from my gritty little notebooks takes some time. Being a page of poems, I tried to minimize the amount of scrolling you'll have to put up with. I didn't check IE PC yet, so if you guys have issues with it working, please let me know. And for future reference, there's a link to the poetry page in the handy sidebar to your right, just in case you don't pay attention to things.

Sleep falls sweetly, all summertime content, intent on waking dreams up.

I have really cute feet, but they rarely get me anywhere it seems.

Counting the musicians, there are 26 people at the altar. One catches my eye. And no, it's not the bridesmaid I think is the cutest of the baker's dozen. (Don't judge me. Every guy does this at weddings. We make a sort of mental note of which bridesmaid we might talk to at the reception if given the invitation. We have a back-up maid, too). The only life of this party that I see is the flower girl. Glowing white and innocence, yawning, stretching, arms crossed adorable, comfortable in her skin but not in the dress. Too young to have picked up insecure. The only one in the entire room more bored than me.

1. Words 2. When I Write I Am 3. We Will Watch The Universe Die I'm not sure why all the titles are starting with "W" these days. "W" isn't really a letter that gets much play, so maybe it's my not-so-subtle subconscious attempt at helping it get out there on the scene. Or maybe it's completely coincidental. Or maybe... it isn't.

Can we talk about haiku? And senryu, too? Like brothers, so close. I figure some of you might not be in the know about such things, so I thought i'd explain so you wouldn't zone out everytime I post haiku or, if you are in the know, say "You know, that's really not haiku." Haiku is a traditional Japanese literary form consisting of 17 syllables in three lines of 5, 7, and 5. Haiku also contain a word (called the kigo) which is descriptive of the season in which the poem is set. Typically haiku combine two different images, are written in present tense, have a focused description, and have a pause at the end of either the first or second line. Each of these rules are based in Japanese language and literary tradition and while most Japanese haiku poets don't break these rules, haiku written by non-Japanese poets almost always breaks one (or more) of them. Senryu is similar to haiku in terms of construction, but tend to be about human nature, minor weaknesses, failing of character, etc. They are often cynical or darkly humorous and such can dispense with the nature references. In other words, that sounds right up my alley so to speak. From a traditional Japanese, purely technical standpoint, I write senryu and call it haiku. And by doing that, I join in a long line of english poets who do the same. In fact, most of them don't even adhere to the 17 syllable thing, opting for more of a "Take a deep breath and you should be able to finish this three-line poem" structure. At this point, I still enjoy the syllable structure, as it's a challenge to communicate the singular thought in the best way in such seemingly limited ways. So now that you're in the know as to what they are and where they're coming from, I hope you enjoy these fun little excercises in poetry thrift that I will continue to call haiku simply because I can.

With change comes faith in things unseen, volumes unreamed. Words not yet thought yet.

Nervous thoughts consume scenarios I steal from an unknown future.