The Cracked Door – Daily Haikus
Reflections on life, the world, and society. Come explore with me.
Big boulevards, narrow streets
Grid layout, squirrelly alleyways
Big imposing rusty iron door, warm interior
Flat sprawl, many stairs
Snow in September, but it doesn’t stick
Context (if you’re interested):
Can you guess what city this is about? (Not the city where the image comes from; that’s just a stock image.)
Fine food costs hundreds of yuan
Fine delicacies on a plate of jade,
But I set my chopsticks down, unable to eat
My mind lost in a maze
I want to speak with the others,
To hear their stories and share adventures,
Not to sit here alone eating fine food
Context (if you’re interested):
Loosely based on “Hard is the Journey” by Li Bai, but I am not satisfied with it. I decided to write my own story in a poem that follows the story beats he set out. This is my first attempt to do that.
We were once two peas in a pod
But I grew in a few ways
You couldn’t match
As you returned to your real self overtime
I can no longer see how we fit together
Context (if you’re interested):
This is about how I and a significant other changed over the course of the relationship into different people.
The boundless Sea
Has no walls
It sprawls and sprawls
Until it can
No longer be
Context (if you’re interested):
The sea rushes to meet its boundary with nonexistence.
I endure
Swallowing my daydreams
Realizing there is no hope
In ever being understood
Context (if you’re interested):
This is an alternative version of my poem from yesterday with different themes.
I endure
Swallowing my daydreams
Dark pits in my throat that fuel
My long walk
Context (if you’re interested):
This is based on a poem my friend wrote.
It takes an ocean
To sink such a massive ship.
Oh what majesty
In the waters that it could
Swallow the Titanic whole?
Context (if you’re interested):
I frequently marvel at the ocean. It is both wondrous and horrific.
No new city,
No new climate
Can calm the storm
Inside your headDoes it matter if
The others are kind
To you as a stranger
If you can’t be kind
To yourself?
Context (if you’re interested):
This poem is based on “the tourist” in “You Are Here” by Dawn Lanuza.
The river rushes into the sea.
When will it ever return?
Why do we too expect
Our money to invest back to us?
Context (if you’re interested):
This is based on a poem by Lia Bai. I was thinking about how the flow of money in society is like a river. It flows in an endless cycle, congregating in certain places and leaving others dry.
My contradictions
Shall remain intact, yearning
For everything, beyond
This daily bread I hold
Context (if you’re interested):
This is a revamped version of the my poem from the day before. It expressed what I was going for better.