Brooklyn Haiku

Dolphin in Gowanus Canal, 2013

[Listen to the poem]


Gowanus

Elevated skyway

A crane loading crushed cars onto a barge

The hush of ocean surf

Autumn Avenue

Monticello's Arboretum

White-knuckled fear

Sing-song three-year old

Visitation Place

Sludge in Gowanus Canal

Ominous thunderheads

Tarnished Lady of Liberty

Gravesend Neck

Log jam of river barges

Skinny white cat in field of Queen Anne's Lace

Carroll Gardens' hearts on fire

Owls Head Court

Rimbaud as a ten-year old

17th c. warned-out vagrants

Black jeans and blue raincoats

Joralemon Street

Golden Dragon bucket brigade

Mouth of Manhattan Bridge agape

Dumplings, friends, full moon

Old Love Lane

The waterfall at the Brooklyn Bridge

Kayaking eighth graders

An army of red crabs

Cortelyou Road

Coffee, books, democracy

The bewitching waves

Blueberry pancakes, twig tea

Mermaid Avenue

Looming Democratic landslide

Ear bone on cracked sidewalk

Encyclopedia of lies

Red Hook Lane

Tin-type Napoleonic soldier

Butterflies up Third Avenue

A sea of sore throats

Force Tube Avenue

Raucous narrative (laughing gull)

Pall of sleep over train travelers

Purple flowers in the snow

Anchorage Place

Squalor of lost thoughts

Fatty at Coney Island

Gravesend clouds pulling me back

Oriental Boulevard

Brooklyn street names

German archeologists

Some cum on cobblestones

Marcus Garvey Boulevard

Lost in haiku

Stand Clear of the Closing Doors

I miss my stop

Pig Town Lane

I look up from a book

A plane lands on the Hudson

Like it was meant to

Coney Island Avenue

Somali pirate coast

Flakes of snow

Loss of consciousness


Ocean Parkway

Winter parakeets,

Sirens of the city

All heads turned towards Coney Island Hospital

Prospect Park

Farm to table people

Uzbek chess game

Steam heat and bus groans

Church Street F Stop

A bevy of cement mixers

An abandoned blue jaguar

Pan flutes madly piping

Greenwood Cemetery

A grove of weeping willows

Cracked, overturned urns

A sense of peace and sorrow

Flatbush Avenue

A million tons of garbage

An abattoir for prize cattle

Dinghy, boy and fishing bob

Eastern Parkway

Uber chariot on fire

Persian bust of swimmer

Fifty types of roses

North Berry Street

Tae Kwon Do master class

Glint of light on the river

Two kids, roller-blading home

Mill Basin Blues

Nesting egrets in the fog

Windmill, shepherd, hog

Salamander on a log

Brownsville

Magyars walking over ice

Black Panther Party party

Pushcart through New Lots

Cadman Plaza

Student driver stalled

Stalls of Morgan horses

Shakespeare at the library

Newtown Creek

Fresh Direct deliveries

Glue factory stench

Sailboat, still silent

Blissville

Reading Richard Wright

Bike spill on tarmac

Hands covered in creosote

Sunset, Sunset Park

Ten taco trucks

One eye on Staten Island

Tears, a girl’s trust

Jamaica Bay

A paradise for glossy ibises

A hundred years of silt, sand

A coconut floats by, all the way from Mauritania

Greenpoint

I race the mackerel clouds

Coffee smells sift East

A man is reading a newspaper

Brooklyn Bridge

Traffic jam on Roebling

Snowfall from Lake Erie

Eerie caterwaul in DUMBO

Fort Greene

A birth on Cranberry Street

History of Western Civilization

Shady Elms, river breeze

Park Slope

Geese on the frozen Hudson

Mid-air collision, 1960

Three witches’ brew

East River Slip

Rowboats, shrimpers, shallows

Good weather for a swim

Barrels line the bulkheads

Vinegar Hill

Belgian chocolate stands

Steam from a Con Edison plant

Waterfront sea shanties

Canarsie Pol

Ecstasy for tiny owlets

Cobblers and kooks keep out

A dandelion in the grass

Flatlands

A Port-au-Prince hair boutique

The city bus to Seagate

A prayer rug facing Mecca

Clinton Hill

Children crowd a roundabout

A saxophone laments

A fox runs up the alley

Cypress Hills

A German brewery is closing

Dish rags on a clothesline

Crowds gather for a song

Beverly Road

Fried momos for breakfast

Social democrats jogging

Brooklyn College thunderstorm

Sheepshead Bay

Sunday noon on the high seas

Lifeline for Uruguayans

Ocean Avenue barbeque

Cobble Hill

Four Harley Davidsons idling

Thanksgiving Meals-on-Wheels

Ask the belle of Brooklyn

Dead Horse Bay

A pow-wow at the airport

Summer bullfrogs croaking

A woman nods to her beau

Crown Heights

Two men walking and talking

A mob of tricycles on Empire

Sullen Spanish seamstresses

Eastern Parkway

Museum, heist, getaway, crash

Life in the carpool lane

Sodden teens after downpour

Brighton Beach

Russian lumpfish caviar

A toe in salty undertow

Three ladies in slim bikinis

Red Hook

Gantry cranes, Atlantic Basin

Blues in Buttermilk Channel

Navy seal on Governor’s Island

Bath Beach

PS 163, Bath Beach school mates

A nurse meets her mom for lunch

Humpbacks near the Verrazano

© 2009