Global Haiku • June 2025
Dr. Randy Brooks

A Look into My Mind

by
Jacob Bloom

My primary goal when crafting my haiku was to evoke complex feelings often overlooked or stigmatized in the world around us. My secondary goal with my haiku was to put the reader in a subjective location of their choosing that conveys specific and individually precise emotions.

I wanted to embody my personal life experiences in short poetry, not only allowing the reader to visualize what happens in my mind or to connect to the struggles I have overcome in my life, but to most importantly allow the reader to recognize their own personal journey with mental health whether that is an extremely intense path that has a repeated series of crossed valleys, surmounted mountains, and rode rapids or a relatively calm kayak ride on a lake with occasional waves. Everyone's experience with mental health is unique, and that's what's beautiful. We can find beauty and art even amidst the turmoil.

Global haiku Traditions has opened my eyes to the world around me and to the art of reading and writing haiku. Before this course I was very unfamiliar with the art of haiku now I feel vastly more comfortable with it. I am now able to create works that I am not only happy with but evoke emotion and imagery.

sun sets
on clouded skies
new beginning

my mind spins
on endless loops
Indy 500

warm oatmeal
on a sunny morning
life is good

snow falling
exhuast pipe fumes
warm in the car

mind flips around
upside down
stalactite

chicken
with its head chopped off
my mind wanders

rock skips
across the lake
I keep pushing forward

driving down
an open road
mind cluttered with traffic

the doctor
walks in the room
flatline resonates

Lady and the Tramp
with a speghetti noodle
she broke my heart

I turn left I turn right
ghosts wait just the same
Pacman

running around
an empty field
mind full of butterflies

bars built from your thoughts
no escape from what's within
Alcatraz

driving fast through life
mom says "slowdown"
my guard rail