Global Haiku • Spring 2009
Dr. Randy Brooks

small things

by
Ryan Murphy

Moving from a writing style focused primarily on the abstract to haiku was difficult. I was heavily influenced by the magic-realism of Salman Rushdie and workings of the subjective in a world culture defined greatly by the effects of Globalization and the Internet. The world is flat, and creative writers are lost in a sea of information and creative output, growing more disconnected from the audience than ever before. Amidst this confusion, we lose ourselves.

Haiku returns to the Japanese traditions (and possibly more relevant to the American writer, the same transcendental connections Whitman offered the American literary tradition). A single image with the ability to transcend the boundaries of space and time to connect people with moments and emotions--this is the power of haiku from which I draw, and where I find myself drawn when wearied by seemingly infinite travels across cultures and expanses of information. I quiet the humming of electricity with the small things, finding solace in the simplicity of life which we seem to complicate.

Mardi Gras celebration—
so many
scurrying ants

beneath the sky
an ant
inhales

a frozen glove
in the middle of the road
black slush

chalk against pool cue—
faint scent of cherry
from across the bar

he curses as she takes
his bishop—
an uninhibited kiss

moved
by the painting hanging
above the urinal

the old fart
sucks in
his gut