Casey Wilen • Haiku Painting 1 Haiku Painting 2

Spring Moon Sets: Haiku from Damaged Gray Matter by Casey Wilen Somewhere between the first drink of the night, and the last, there is always a haiku moment. I have most of my haiku moments somewhere around when the moon sets because I am finally alone for along enough period to really notice what is going on around me. This is my haiku time, a time when the world is quiet enough that I can think about the occurrences of the day, the humorous encounters, and the little moments of intrigue in between. This is when I write my haiku, and often times due to a mixture of things (alcohol, cigarettes, and sleep depravation) cause my haiku to become twisted, warped, funny, witty, or depressing. These are the moments I have as the Spring Moon Sets, and when the rusty gears upstairs start to turn.

I believe that you may be offended by my haiku at first, or you may not understand it, and it’s even possible that you will not even feel that it is haiku at all, but before you make any decisions about it, read each haiku at least three times aloud, and really look at the words, and what is being said. You may now proceed to read this collection, but I warn you, you may want to have a martini before you do, just to limber up the mind a bit, these haiku are most affective on the inebriated mind, because an inebriated mind is where they came from. —Casey Wilen I enjoyed the double meanings and especially the deceptive cadence-esque endings to many of the haikus. One such example of the deceptive cadence that I particularly enjoyed was: glass streets starlings cluster on the curb to eat french fries By reading from the first to the last, you can perceive his progression in becoming comfortable with the haiku. The grittiness of the beginning delicately contrasts the sophistication that is finally achieved by the end. The work taken as a whole is a monument, not to the virtue of perfection, but the virtue in improvement. —Evan Ewing