Global Haiku • June 2020
Dr. Randy Brooks

Broken-Brimmed Hat

by
Kathryn Bouxsein

As someone who has never done haiku before recently, I have found that I really enjoy using it as a way to calm myself down and think through my feel- ings. It’s helped me look back on parts of my life that I have enjoyed and that have hurt me, but which I reminisce bittersweetly. Because of this, I find myself trying to share haiku reading and writing with my friends, as I think everyone should see if this form of art can help them in any way. So because of that, I’ve named this collection Broken-Brimmed Hat, after the hat I was given as a child that was my father’s before it was mine. I’ve kept it until now, as I have the memories of my father who passed when I was younger. It’s because of the things I’ve gone through that I am who I am today.

The rest of the poems in this collection portray parts of myself. The happiness, the anxieties, my fa- vorite things, and times I felt I needed to put into words while I was feeling them. I hope that by read- ing these they can help some people find ways to use art for themselves as well.

whirlwind howls
in the eye
I find my mind

fall of dusk
a shadow is
cold cup of tea

summer sunset
streetlight moths
in a cobweb

lap cat
unaware
I breath with her

both aching arms
no wasted effort
in homemade wheat bread

eighteen sunrises
one-legged king pigeon
my hip still clicks

broken-brimmed hat
sits a bit taller
than when I was six

happy mother's day
she stares back
vacantly

misty summer midnight
the humidity
weighs my heart down

six used cars
in the yard
one empty battery

tears
streak across
the sky

twin twittering canaries
chime a fleeting cadance for
the handsome rook unawares