Haiku Roundtable • Fall 2010
Dr. Randy Brooks

Gnarled Nightmares

by
Jackson Lewis

I have titled this chapbook Gnarled Nightmares because most of the haiku here take an everyday moment and twist it so that something about it is wrong or out of place. We all have these grand plans about what we’re going to do with our lives but when we actually get there things rarely work out how we want them to.

sprinklers whisper
with the lovers
in the window

atop the roller coaster
my breath is taken
by the sunset

gnarled nightmares
a tree branch
scrapes the window

grumpy dragon
smoke trails
from his nose

i try to hurry
behind a little girl
blowing flowers kisses

digging a hamster’s grave
he whaps the ground
with a hoe

prom picture
hands firmly
at our sides