I want to read these haikus, and then I'll
read this poem, this last poem, which is, I like to close with.
These haikus are down under the ground where
these people come in the morning,
and they go under the ground.
And they come out, and it's 5:00.
And then other people come in at 5:00, and they come out
and its dark.
So when I went to talk to them, when we all
talk to these people, talk to these men who work there,
and I ask them how it was to work underground all the time.
And they said it was really daunting.
It was daunting.
Down there it was dark all the time.
They wanted to think of something nice.
So I thought about that, and I thought about that.
And I also thought because the bureaucrats-- you know,
bureaucrats don't understand poets.
They're always saying, don't write nothing long.
Do not write --
Just make it short.
I had never seen that much energy out of it them.
They were always passive until they thought about the poem.
Then they were like write short.
Something short or we won't put it up there.
So I said haiku.
That's short.
So this is what I call the Point Loma
series of haikus and tankas.
And they're down underground, so I'll read you a few of them.
And one is not a haiku or a tanka,
it's just about five lines but it's not either one.
And I'll just pause in between.
"Beauty, all places here.
Look inside yourself now.
Look deeper, it's there."
"Gray day underground in the tunnel.
Bright, warm sun outside in the blue.
Inside your own deep working, time, thoughts of making sweet
love."
"Think of making love to the work that you do here.
Think of it as song, music whispering, a breeze,
a tongue of someone you love."
"Think of a sweet place now that you are here
in all this darkness.
Light where you are standing with yourself,
wherever you have to go."
"Smile whenever you think of the sweet love
blooming inside your hard head.
Think of it as a flower you will hand to someone soon."
"Down here in darkness think of roses
when you look at these concrete walls."
"Your mind a window to look inside yourself.
See a rich garden there bright with flowers whose faces pop
the air like sweet music."
"Deep rumblings in air is sound of sea waves
smashing skulls of wet black rocks."
"Your lover eyes speak to you so softly in this place
of wind, sea, bright blue sky, sunlight after the gray lifts
stuns your face into smiling."