The Cracked Door – Daily Haikus
Reflections on life, the world, and society. Come explore with me.
I thrust my phone through
The throngs of tourists to take
My selfie alone
Context (if you’re interested):
This haiku is based on this Japanese haiku:
From the window of the departing train,
I first thrust my head out,
so as not to lose.
Welcome all
We want to serve you better
Bingo extreme
Context (if you’re interested):
This is a compilation of ads I saw driving around Manila. I assembled them together to get a sense of the surreal kind of feel advertisements can have when you stop to think about them.
After all of these years,
It feels like you are still right
Here by my side
Context (if you’re interested):
This is based on the Chinese song, “Night in Ulaanbaatar”, a song about missing one’s love while traveling only to feel their shadow around them.
To a toddler,
Everything is a castle, a knight, or dragon
That they clasp with their hands,
These same hands that now
Type in this keyboard
Context (if you’re interested):
This one is about how our childhood curiosity often transitions into adulthood sense of responsible work. Never loose your creativity. Is what this narrator does on the computer less creative now then playing as a toddler? Work on the computer can be really creative or not. I left it ambiguous to think through what we do with our time as adults and how to foster a sense of play and creativity.
Sitting in the heat
Still sweating though the sun set
Waiting for the start
Context (if you’re interested):
The weather was simmering in August in Central China. Normally, I could look forward to the temperature and humidity dropping once the sunset. That evening, neither would.
Those with a purpose
Are better at worshiping
Idols than the rest.
Context (if you’re interested):
I have noticed how living with a purpose can lead one more susceptible to be swept into ideology. Not simply because they can take too far whatever they find purpose in, but because those with a purpose have something to lose, so they can end up endorse problematic things when that seems necessary to maintain what they have
Some people you meet
Possess the same look of the
Demon you just fought
Context (if you’re interested):
I don’t know if you have also seen this in the eyes of anyone else you see walking down the street.
Climbing one sand dune
So close I can reach the top
But my legs won’t move
Context (if you’re interested):
That day, I climbed a giant sand dune in the Gobi Desert. This was about the difficulties getting to the top. I was almost there when I needed to take a break.
You already wrote
Your book. I’m just the guy you
Needed to insert.
Context (if you’re interested):
This is based on a poem I read while in Manila about being the player in someone else’s romantic script.
Walls of our old home
Full of so many stories
Left there unfinished
Context (if you’re interested):
This poem is about the nostalgia of looking back at an apartment of a relationship that didn’t quite work out.