Reflecting On The Meaning Of A New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone, In case I don't get to the computer before tommorrow. This past Autumn, I was thinking back to all the people I've met in my travels. Here is a haiku



I am alone now.
So many I knew are gone,
To make their own way.


Copyright 2007

Thinking A Head To New Years.

Sometimes to plan forward, we need to look back.

I can see the pain
My words caused you that night
All these years later.

Copyright 2007

Still In The Cafe

In addition to sneaking off for a forbidden read, I also enjoy writing forbidden things as well,
it's only fun though as long as someone disapproves. And of course, that certain someone helps.


At corner cafe
Looking out for you in crowd,
Writing out haiku.

Copyright 2007

Vacation's Past Time

One of the things that I've always enjoyed doing with vacation time is to read. This scares the living bejabbers out of some people, I guess because reading is the mark of an independent mind. Independent minds make people nervous. So when more conservative relatives come to visit I sneak out when I can to get just a few more pages of delicious thoughtcrime read. Here is a haiku for all you independent minds out there.

Man reads in cafe
Evening light takes its flight
A moonlit walk home

Copyright 2007

Remembering Times Past!

When we think of this Season, we generally picture the Victorian period with its Brownstone townhouses all frosted with snow.

A horse drawn carriage
Parked near an island of trees
In Pemberton Square.

Copyright 2007

Back To The Grind!

For many of us, it's back to the grind. For others, like myself, we have vacation left because we were misers with vacation time during the rest of the year. I have to go back to working on my craft, this can be work and play at the same time.

An artist studies
His completed oil landscape
-for final touches.

Copyright 2007

Merry Christmas!

I would like to Like to wish you the very best on this Special Day!
A special Christmas haiku-

Sun struggled through clouds
Broke spell of an overcast sky
-hazy light beckons

Copyright 2007

In The Pursuit Of Happiness, Let's Not Forget...

This Christmas, just a thought,
For those folks who sought,
But never quite got,
The bounties of those of us who have a lot-
A haiku:

The man you now see
Laying in the street was once
A boy with Santa.

Copyright 2007

Tis' The Season To Be Scrooged

If you work in retail as I once did (in "the real world"), then you know just how surreal it can be this time of year, especially if you have a brutal boss. Here's something for all you folks taking flack this holiday season.You are not alone.



The Season to be Jolly
by Edward S. Gault

I knew Mr. Heimer was going to snap
My head off
If I didn’t get
Those invoices down
To him immediately.
But I was
Held up by angry
Customers who were
Complaining about products
being sold out
So close to Christmas.
They said they had been running
All over the place-kicking,
Shoving, biting, punching-
And all out maiming other people
Just to grab
The last Cabbage Patch doll in stock.
This chronicle would go on
For half an hour.
All the while these kids came in
And were tearing our place apart.
When I got down to Heimer's office,
He went into his own tirade.
Outside on the street
Were children singing
Tis’ the season to be Jolly.

Copyright 2007

The Post Storm Blues

Sometimes the aftermath of a snowstorm can be even more of a pain in the neck than the actual storm.

After the snowstorm,
warm sun comes and melts mountains
-then there are puddles.

Copyright 2007

Seeing Strange Things In The Winter

Ever wonder if some people just can't give up summer?

Air conditioner
In window during snow storm
-In case of heat wave?

Copyright 2007

Bundle Up!

More snow tomorrow?

Walking streets in snow.
Huddled in coats, scarves, and hats
-warmth in movement.

Copyright 2007

Keeping Warm Everyone?

Bundle up folks, and move around.

Man jumps up and down
As snow continues falling,
-Perhaps a snow dance?

Copyright 2007

Snow Scenes #2

When I was five, one of the things that I asked my parents for as a Christmas present was a toy Humpty Dumpty that would fall off the wall and break just like the one in the story did. Of course, I didn't get it, there are some toys that are too cool to actually exist! Like the the toy in this haiku:

Truck with flashing light
Is never seen in snowglobes
Sold in small toy shops.

Copyright 2007

Snow Scenes #1

There are some things that just don't belong in a nice snow scene!

Outside my window
It is snowing, but one thing-
Truck with flashing light.

Copyright 2007

Weathering Those Snowstorm Blues

Here in Boston , we're down one snowstorm this last Thursday, and we have another one coming up tomorrow. I got a lot of good material out of this storm though, The best way to "weather" a storm is to write:

Snowstorm in courtyard
People shovel paths to door-
Then, even more snow.

Copyright 2007

Coffee Bean #5

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."

Albert Einstein, 1921

Currently the leadership of the U.S. needs to grow up and get over their need to spread "freedom" around the world. It is not for freedom that we are in this war with Iraq, but our own nationalism. Our form of freedom may not fit the Iraqi people, they need to find a form that fits their history and culture-to industrialize, modernize, and develop democracy without westernization in their own way, over time...their time. If it is something they create, it will be stronger when it does take hold.

Here's One For The Misanthropes! #2

O.k., O.k., here's something a little more constructive (but less fun).
Look at it this way:

So they despise you,
Where though does that put the ball-
In your court, or theirs?

Copyright 2007

One For The Misanthropes!

The one thing that we all need the least of in our lives is jerks. If you live long enough, you collect more than enough. One classic jerk for this season is Scrooge. When you're out holiday shopping, your bound to run into many more. Here is a Haiku for the MEAN people who enter our lives, and unfortunately (many times) stay!

You glower at me,
like something pickled in a jar.
-Just try some Maalox!

Copyright 2007

Caught!

Here's a haiku for the folks like me who get caught by the supervisor taking that well deserved Coffee break.

One moment in time
Does not truly represent
Other ninety nine.

Copyright 2007

Lets Go For The White Christmas!

Polar Desert
by Edward S. Gault

White roofs.
The trees,
Their limbs burdened with snow,
Sag to the ground.
The train tracks
Stretch across the frozen
ground
Toward the horizon,
Then vanish-
Snow gusts.
The pond
Covered with a thick sheet of ice,
Is like a sanctuary
For all life beneath
- quiet reigns.
Like arrows, icicles
hanging from the wires
point the way.
The sun triumphs,
Snow glistens.

Copyright 2007

Got The Boston Blues?

Haymarket Dream
by Edward S. Gault

Old derelicts
Lay sleeping to the sounds
Of clarinet music
Under the Fitzgerald Expressway.
Vendors pitch chick peas,
Squash, and drupes;
Others haggle
With old vietnamese women
Over the price of celery.
Nearby a child sells
Conch shells
For a nickle
At her table.

Copyright 2007

Old Friends, Good Times

We ate Chinese Food
I can't recall what was said
Only that we talked

Ever Have One Of Those Nights?

Tirades
by Edward S. Gault

Every night was a trial
When the people upstairs got
Ticked off at each other-
Or their in-laws
Or their exes'
Or their exes' lawyers
Or the landlord
(I was actually tempted to go up
And join in on that one).
It scarcely mattered what the issue was-
The who or the what.
When they went into one of their tirades
Their hollering alone shook the foundations of the building-
Loosening the bricks
(even the ones just recently put in
with fresh cement),
Peeling the wallpaper,
And shattering the windows.
Then there were the things they threw-
I don't believe it was limited
To just the dishes.
There were thuds on the floor
That I was sure were going to bring down the ceiling.
Oh, and on those hot Summer nights (I mean really hot, wicked humid).......
I always thought
They might consider
recording these sessions
In a studio
On a C.D.
That way they wouldn't need to
Have the actual fight
Just enjoy it on C.D.
(With head phones).

Copyright 2007

Ah, To Be Young Again At This Time Of Year

Here's a haiku in memory of what it was like.

Children play in snow
Running around the playground
In Geometry

Copyright 2007

Time To Start Thinking About Snow.

Song Of Snow
by Edward S. Gault

It had rained for days
That May of '06
A blanket of fog
Descended down upon the city
So at times
You could not see the Customs Tower.
A bridge in one town collapsed.
Many businesses and residences were flooded.
People were evacuated.
A woman, her head covered by a hood,
- being carried out of a nursing home,
Was asked if she had any words-
So she sang
The song of snow

Copyright 2007

Ever Think You're Just Not Getting Through?

Technically, this may not be a haiku, just call it a 16 syllable short poem.

I spoke of fir trees
You spoke of big cities-
Disjointed connections

Copyright 2007

Just When You Thought You Could Relax!

The Hair Losing Its Cat
by Edward S. Gault

As I was laying
On the couch,
Reading the Boston Sunday Globe,
My wife asked me-
(And it's really not until
You've reached the zenith
In personal comfort
That you get asked to do something)
To vacuum the cat hair
From her chair.
So I asked her
'If it was really
So much a question
Of the cat losing its hair OR
The hair losing its cat
Of course she wasn't amused
(I was in stitches!).
Not only did I have to
Vacuum the chair and the couch-
But the soup that night
Was cold.

Copyright 2007

Seeing Unusual Things In Nature?

Again, Sometimes you have to look Really hard!

Fly on lily pad
sees a frog flying around-
tongue out, insert frog

Copyright 2007

Seen anything unusual lately? Look!

Or justry to look at something in a new way.

Bike walking the man-
People too busy to see
what is around them.

Copyright 2007

Glory of the Season

Here something that celebrates the complexity of (and glory) of our our late Autum season.

Tomorrow, my gloves
My camera as well, Fall
Bicycle path blooms

Copyright 2007