Two years ago, I started writing haiku (poems) in sets of four. I stopped when I started work on my novel, and I’ve picked it up again now that the novel’s finished… in addition to the longer poems I’ve been writing, that is.

These haiku sets adhere to the classic three-line, 5-7-5 syllable count, with the four haiku centering on a single theme. This is just the way I’ve been working with the form. I’ve taken liberties with it. With each theme, I’m basically writing a poem with four stanzas that happen to follow haiku structure.

Anyway! I know I’d said I would no longer publish new work here, but it seems I’ve been doing it again, so here you go – today, I’m sharing “Regime,” one of my recently written haiku sets.

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Haiku 18: Regime

Kristi Garboushian, August 11, 2018

1.

Vision: thresholds lost,
kindnesses overtaken,
old pockets ripping.

2.

Possibly, maybe
likely – blind faith severing
children’s daisy crowns.

3.

Redwoods on fire.
Semiotics gone awry.
Glass of cabernet.

4.

Otherwise in thrall.
Spinal columns buried deep
beneath lost cities.

roses (23 August 2018)