Aye.
contemporary haibun online, issue 21.1
Glowing white below a greyish sky: magnolia buds. Large, spindle-shaped, and vertical. In the week they open, the pink on their petals counts all the more as it almost always rains, and the splendour is less splendid and quickly over; the petals soaked wet. The pedestrians walking past duck under their umbrellas or into their hoods or into their thoughts.
Then all the green, in a shower.
washing up
former sea shells
morning dishes
spider spoon sweat in June
The sun becomes strong overnight. People pull on thin jackets in the shade and shiver a little; in the sunlight, they throw them on the ground and close their eyes before they are blinded. The skin screams red in the evening. Soon it’s just one, not the other. Then the jacket again, off or on? Mosquito nets… (I make a
mental note.)
a paper plane
out of the open window
debit side daisies
Clouds race across the sky, and leaves rustle on the ground, and that’s too much or too little. Some trees cling longer; others, the thirsty ones, are already ahead. There is no stopping here, only a letting go. With the wind come people checking on the old bricks and untied flower pots, that which cannot be controlled. It all expands.
not naming how
anybody feels
it novel
People have speech bubbles in front of their faces with no content, and they tell stories, again and again, cupping hot mulled wine: of snow and frost and sleigh rides, footprints and sun and ice, and it’s not like that anymore, not like then. They tell new stories of what is gone; the world changes.
The Question of the Magnification Factor
The Other Bunny, June 19, 2025
I raise the shutters… the morning is that of individual sounds… in a sea… in an empty glass… my intention was… my intention is… I believe… it’s Friday… February… l’exil de soi… construction workers on the property across the street… deliberately… the things I have to do today… African elephants live in the savannah and forage for food 17 hours a day… I sit down beside myself at eye level… leave it to chance to build a bridge… perhaps a paper straw… T.S. Eliot writes paratactically… the motif on the mug almost completely faded… except for the outline of the cat’s eyes… don’t tell me that people’s actions… make sense… when searching for literature about literature… proof of a degree is required… lukewarm coffee… in the depths of a calyx… a long night… l can fix them… headaches… the sky above the city… remains… only that… the taste of butter in comparison to no butter… matter… for whom…
Lungs and Liver
Prune Juice Journal, Issue 48
No one tells you exactly how to dose your child, except for the average.
Amount.
Timing.
Duration.
No one tells you: Are these side effects? Overload? Fluctuations in an avalanche of everyday life?
Get a read on it. Weigh up. Tell the psychiatrist. Tell the doctors. Translate for your child. Set the right priorities, don’t forget anything.
You stand there, having to trust your child’s ability to say whether and how it helps.
Can you concentrate? (Yes. (On far too much.))
You seem more balanced. (Don’t know. (I don’t feel anything.))
You’re getting a lot done. (Yes. (Driven. No choice.))
We cry a lot, yell at each other. I don’t understand. We’re exhausted. There’s this pressure: to get things done, to go to school. Not a single teacher tries to keep in touch.
How are you? ((I’m lonely. I have nothing to hold onto, no goal.))
No one tells you that help can be a big, rough stone. Right in your way. No one tells you that, or your child.
The cross
in the calendar
erased
the next day—
the glimmer of snow through glass.
Although The World Stood Up And Stopped The Bastard, The Bitch That Bore Him Is In Heat Again.*
Prune Juice Journal, Issue 48
There is a lot to say when it comes to Berlin. About walking down a street, from west to east and back again. Pigeons nod, here and there, pecking at chips from newspaper cones on the ground. A man on heels runs past. A tram jingles. The protest march drums and hisses some blocks of houses away, closer, then more in the distant again.
The white of the sun. A giant cloud creeps along the mirrored windows of a youngish tower.
Amongst other things,
the weather report tells us to
prepare . . .
weeds, running riot,
building walls.
*Bertold Brecht, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
pi & anne 