early autumn,
color shift begins —
green days numbered.
Last Green Days [Haiku]
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Category Archives: poem
Wake Ripples [Haiku]
Half Moon Haiku
Lonely Mushroom [Haiku]
lonely mushroom
climbs out from under a rock;
after autumn rain.
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BOOK: “Bruce Springsteen’s America” ed. by Robert Coles
Bruce Springsteen’s America: The People Listening, A Poet Singing by Robert ColesMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Publisher Site
This book assembles ten reflections upon the role that Bruce Springsteen’s songs have played in the lives and thoughts of everyday Americans. It’s presented as the views of Harvard Psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize winner, Robert Coles, but while Coles contributed both front- and back-matter as well as editing, the bulk of the book consists of the thoughts of a diverse assemblage of Americans — a lawyer, a teacher, a police officer, a grandmother, a student, a salesman, etc.
The degree to which Bruce Springsteen’s music is central to the book varies both in Cole’s contributions and in those of his contributors. Sometimes, it’s heavily about those songs, but other times it drifts into territory in which Springsteen seems to have little relevance. That’s okay… unless one bought the book primarily to read about Springsteen’s cultural influence, and one might easily be forgiven for thinking that’s the book one was getting.
Few, if any, musicians have images more intertwined with what it means to be American than Bruce Springsteen. This is, therefore, an interesting topic, though it may have been more interesting with a bit more focus.
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Tree Face [Senryū]
American Beautyberry [Haiku]
Beautyberries,
dense clusters of fuchsia,
lure hungry birds.
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Autumn Shadows [Haiku]
autumn long shadows
of a tuft of tall grass
etch rocky ground.
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FIVE WISE LINES [September 2026]
Luck, diligence, spontaneity, and inspiration
Mary oliver; A Poetry Handbook
are all needed to write a poem.
…above all let us never accept as cause for what we do not comprehend something we comprehend even less.
Marquis de sade; Juliette
…wise people don’t tell us what to do;
david brooks; How to know a person
they start by witnessing our story.
The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,
Hunter s. thompson; The Rum Diary
but to those who can see it coming and jump aside. Like a frog evading a shillelagh in a midnight marsh.
We do not see things as they are,
Anaïs Nin
we see them as we are.
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Autumn Afternoon [Haiku]
Autumn afternoon,
light warms a copse of pines;
beyond: crisp blue sky.
