Global Haiku • January 2017
Dr. Randy Brooks

Things On My Mind

by
Nathan Heppermann

The inspiration for my haiku are based off of the emotions that I feel and have felt. I try my best to recall experiences were I felt the most emotion and really trying to capture those moments into a few lines. I also like to write about the things that I ponder or wonder about and what it is like to drift away in those thoughts. Even in those wandering thoughts, I try to link them to things that I have observed others do, or things that I have just seen in nature or daily life. I guess you could say that I am more of a traditional writer, where I write about what I know about. However, what separates me from tradition is that I embrace free verse and the use of spacing and indentation to show physical separation, difference in emotion, or to emphasize a play on words. I will write to feel emotion or relax the things that I regret or wish that would have occurred. As an already observant person, writing haiku fuels my passion for looking at the differences among things in daily life and struggle or beauty of relationships.

the distance between
our                 hearts
only separated by miles
not lies

apologies crash
        along the waves
                 into cold stone

she rolls
            over
just to hear his heart

 dig your hole
 the only rope
   to pull you
        out
         is
         a
      noose

not even a bigger
bed    would keep
her from sleepingclose

throwing all the best
parts of me
out the door you     walked out of

a piano
in the woods
only preforms in the rain

seeing clearly through
the water
your depths can't      me
                         sink

walking
grandpa’s boots
ten more miles

first spring morning
a baseball    flies
across the the yard

permanent ink
tingles
she flexes her muscles

the fog
sets in on campus
thoughts on my mind

following dad
with wide eyes
into the darkness in front of us

trees creak and groan
under pressure of the wind
below I soundly sit

finished
the college writer
cracks his knuckles