2026 American Haikus

Poems by R.M. Dolin

2026 American Haikus

April 2026

Tell me about
your beauty
hiding beneath
your veil.

Never ask a man about
lost love
expecting
a truthful answer.

What he calls sauerkraut
she calls kimchi,
two souls speaking in different parables
about their fear of forever.

You can of course choose cosmetic constraints
with external caveats keeping us apart.
But tender souls know not age
nor the prison of condescending judgements.

Sometimes, you have to
finish the bottle
before you can
stop drinking. (concept from a renowned American philosopher and friend)

An old woman in a black hijab
just got run over by a kid in a blue BMW
on Avenue Mohammad near my apartment in Tangiers,
two lives forever and irrevocably altered.

Money is the most addictive
substance ever invented.
It isn’t the hardest to get over
but is the most painful to miss.

The goal is to make work,
work around your life
rather than forcing life,
to work around your work.

If you need someone
to engineer the impossible parts
for your perfect future,
I’m your guy.

You’re free to naively think if you believe
in something strong enough for long enough
it’ll come true, just don’t wager on that
probable outcome cause you’ll likely lose.

Tell the truth dear one,
did leaving me
really lead you
to happiness.

Through everything they endured,
every intimacy they maintained,
he never really believed
she loved him.

. . . . do you ever secretly read
the notes I stashed in the false bottom
of the memory box I made for you,
or did you throw it all away?

March 2026

Unaccustomed to caution,
they just kept climbing closer
to the steeper parts
of their slippery slope.

The world’s moving fast, you’re either a lifelong player
or you’re sideline sushi;
pretty to look at, tasty when fresh,
but downright useless when your short shelf-life expires

It’s always something small,
some unrelated something that’s ignites
into the something much bigger,
something that’s been silently dormant for too long.

There’s a part of her that thinks
there’s a part of him that enjoys
almost telling her what he brought her
all they out here to talk about.

Oh, Señor, she softly says
in a sultry voice,
you charm me with the devilish skills
of Satan himself.

Do you think
of me
when you
make love.

Be mad. Mad at me,
mad at the world, hell, mad at God
if that’s what it takes
to turn your lights back on.

While my mirror has two faces,
the one you force me
to see is not
the one my filters follow.

“Do this,” he stoically said
“turn on the tap and slowly fill
this pitchers with memories of
the love that left the greatest regret.”

If Charles Darwin’s assertions can’t be altered,
it foreshadows future conflicts
between man versus man
not ending well for man.

Life gets lived
in space between
who we set out to be
and who we become.

What the coroner failed to declare
is that he died of a broken heart
trying to write the perfect poem
for the woman he couldn’t live without.

I somehow think
we’re dancing
with
the same demons.

The problem is dear one,
we never really get to know
where fate ends
and consequence begins.

The thing is, he whispers to the woman laying naked beside him,
I’m broke,
not in the I don’t have money for rent kind of broke,
but in the car’s not working and we’re stuck in a storm kind.”

I’m reflecting on
the loneliness that comes
on the mist of
winter rain.

What would be the point
of telling you I love you
when my words long ago
forgot how to find your heart.

There are things we choose not to retain
along with things that can’t be retained,
which is why her reason for leaving
must forever be sealed and stashed away.

By all appearances
they’re not a match
but who can say
when it comes to love.

When you board a plane
you ought to at least know
where the hell you’re going
and why you’re landing.

It’s not fair to blame you
for things being over,
not really,
and neither should you blame me back.

Life is lived off decisions
of the willing
and she was willing
to let him leave.

Kismet is meeting
the person you most need
when you most
need them.

The musty odor of
well read books
hits him like
intellectual smelling salts.

He hurries next door
to a used bookstore
on the random chance
he’ll fall in love.

I am not going to Tangier
to fall in love,
I’m going to write a story
that will change the world.

He doesn’t know what his next new something
might be but also, isn’t worried,
ideas come to him like passing mile markers
along a fast-moving highway.

He sees shadows on the wall
well enough to know
waging war without human involvement
does not end well for humanity.

I’m listing in
an ocean of loss
no longer in control
of my desperation.

Anxiety and fear,
that’s me in the morning
preparing to masquerade
my day.

If want an honest assessment,
the demise of my marriage isn’t my fault,
but if you hit me up on a rainy night after bourbon,
I’ll quietly concede my fingerprints contaminated the evidence.

There are no roadmaps for
navigating the space between
maybe things might be over
and knowing for sure.

They’re either lying to each other
or lying to themselves,
both believing in the hope
their lies outlive their truths.

He only leaves his dreams
to prove to himself
he’s stopped
dreaming of her.

All I ask is not
to be judged,
you haven’t a clue
the struggles I’ve endured.

I long ago learned
not to judge a man
who knows down to profound depths
how to judge himself.

Darwin’s right,
in the epic struggle
for survival,
evil always prevails.

Once you know
how the story ends
you just want it
to be over.

In the end he just decides
fate’s going do what fate does
and you can’t stop
what’s gonna happen from happening.

I wish for words to ease your troubles
but have none.
I can tell you things are gonna work out
but we’re way past that kind of silliness.

Everyone and everything is expendable,
including truth and trust,
when money and power
are at stake.

What happened leaves me
a long way from acceptance
and even farther
from forgiveness.

Now that you know
the deeper truth,
don’t pity me,
it’ll only paint me pathetic.

Of course
love exists,
but that doesn’t make it
possible.

Why do you
tell your story
in a way I’m left
with wrong conclusions.

I don’t care
if you give me
bad advice
if it’s what I want to hear.

Each of us journeys
a private hell.
You don’t get to paint
the landscape of mine.

He studies his notes
as if uncertain
about outcomes
already cast.

The way she feels about me
echoes in the canyons
of my conflict
like cold wind in a quiet room.

When darkness encases my soul in the quietness of despair
and I’m defenseless against the evil lurking in stealth,
You’re my solid footing,
my one tether against forces wanting to wash me away.

Hearing your name was like a magic word
breaking the spell that cast me into darkness,
like awakening from a dream
that’s lost its hunger.

She left him a broken man
with a hollowed heart
teetering on the edge
of foolish folly.

Ask me about tomorrow and I’ll paint you pictures of my past.
Ask me about forever and I’ll fill you with the gallows humor of a dreamer
who never fully expects his dreams to come true.

The deal with life
is it gets encapsulated
in a dichotomy of beauty’s
ugly truths.

Being in love
is not
enough
to sustain love. . .

Love is
win-win
until it’s lose-lose
and there’s nothing in between.

My friends have their shit,
you have yours,
I have mine,
who doesn’t, that’s life’s takeaway.

What this world needs are more tool & die workers
who make magic with their machines.
Fine folks you can rely on, and who in return
can reasonably expect the world to show some damn respect.

The darkness
of her darkness
is a dark cloud
obscuring my sun.

Where does one find justice
in a world framed by executioners
who practice their profession
with glee.

Always look past what you’re being told
because the more pleasant
the promise
the louder the lie.

A dream that dies, dear one,
is worse than death
because you’re left to languish
in its aftermath.

Life finds a way to constantly kick you
in the teeth and mire you in mud.
Nothing’s as it seems
everything far from where it’s supposed to be.

He’s hesitant.
She’s uncertain.
Two souls clinging
to separate lifelines.

His bicycle takes him
to where troubles
don’t exist.

Wind blows dust clouds
of pollen across the sky
causing the cost
of tissues to climb.

It’s hard to accept
what kismet has prescribed
in part because
the ailment stays hidden.

I choose to live
in the careful confines
of my
unexamined life.

Truth be told,
most mornings
I wake up grateful
not to be praying for death.

How much of life is lived
by design
and how much is
just a form of surrender.

What you call
happiness,
misguided fools
like me call love.

Lovers should start their day
longing for night
when they can once more be
in each other’s embrace.

Everyone has a Barcelona,
a place where
the illusive fantasy
of love is real.

When you’ve lived through
the happy hell of love
you get a sense for the stuff that’s coming
even before the stuff knows it’s arrived.

It’s the not knowing
that makes
forgetting
impossible

When the sun shines through
and wind’s mostly at your back,
you melodically peddle past
all the conflicts clouding your mind.

Sometimes my thoughts have a way
of running off the rails
leaving behind a wake
of unintended consequences.

The weird thing about cycling is
you beat yourself silly,
you’re tired as shit,
but feel good in ways nothing comes close to.

Lost love is like how cold wind cuts through
layers of clothes when you’re on the road alone
wondering what it means
to hold on to something already gone.

“It’s not that I’m not in love,” she states with clarity.
“You know how it is, right guy,
wrong time and all that stuff we spend
the rest of our life second guessing.

How do
lovers argue
when
no one’s yelling?

How does someone do that,
move out in the dead of night without explanation,
dismissing love like a littered can tossed in a ditch
along an abandoned road.

All I can say, all I know is
souls have the power to carry you
beyond hesitation
to the threshold of destiny.

We’re two scared souls with too much history
to be overlooked, complete strangers trapped
in the purgatory between everything lost
and the infinity of what might still be possible.

She stands
close enough to touch
but still short
of forever.

They argue with
the bitterness of wind in snow
while wondering
where their love has gone.

I comfortably take my morning café
in softly silhouetted silence,
content to let the world move on without me
at least for as long as the world will allow.

I’m like an unrehearsed sheet of music,
the notes appear neatly arranged
but no one knows
the chaos lurking within until they’re played.

Steadily he traverses
the winding road to Genoa,
hugging the rocky Rivera
like danger clings to risk.

He lives a life where
yesterday goes unasked,
tomorrow unwritten,
and today filled with possibilities for adventure.

I see things as painfully plain as sunlight in a forest,
as clear as her flat line smile
that says nothing at all while
revealing truths too painful for words.

Rather than press the issue,
I chose to accept
the lie
I want so desperately to believe.

Just because I no longer love you
doesn’t mean I didn’t once.
How things ended doesn’t negate
all the tenderness that came before.

What if?
is the single most over-used
under-appreciated phrase
ever uttered.

Sometimes it seems
life is an empty jar
in a room of scattered memories
waiting to be filled.

How does one go about
explaining
the end of love,
how can anyone?

Real love
doesn’t end,
it withers,
and there’s a difference.

Some stories never get fully written
while others run out of landscape
and collide with
the vastness of finality.

“If only,”
the saddest words ever invoked;
words spanning the infinity of space
that are only eclipsed by the emptiness of their echoes.

February 2026

I’m a fiction writer
but on desperately dark nights
when alone with thoughts of you
my genre jumps to fantasy.

The thing is dear one,
it’s becoming harder to remember
cherished elements of who we were
even though I can never forget.

What separates your heart
from mine is
a willingness to
pay the price for dreams.

I just need you to
hold me until darkness
no longer lusts for my soul,
then I’ll be at peace.

When I come to you in chaos,
just hold me.
I already know
everything’s gonna be okay.

If we only proselytize about what should be done,
nothing ever happens and nothing ever changes,
and humanity slips silently into
ever increasing darkness.

I cannot be the one
to save you
because
I’m barely hanging on.

When bitter winds blow,
no one comes to save you,
they cannot confront the chaos
with the courage waiting for you.

The most painful sound
to ever wreak
my soul
is the sound of you being gone.

Careful of the chaos that comes in calm,
it’s steals your breath in layers
leaving you too stunned to feel
the sadness of being gone.

January

There are no winners when love ends,
no right or wrong,
only diminishing whispers of tragedy
and lingering moments of regret.

Love is never equal, someone always
loves more. Which is why
love never ends equal,
that would violate the Fundamental Law of Love.

It’s okay to embrace feelings of loss,
only do not burden yourself
with guilt
or remorse.

Do not push too hard
or expect too much
the perfect future you envision
is not just around the corner.

Bon chance on your journey,
you’re a beautiful soul and an amazing person,
I’ll wager you finish long before me. . .
God rewards the most deserving.

It’s two in the morning
and the fellowship of slumber evade me.
Everyone’s sleeping so
I can’t make bread.

I want to give you a present,
not one that can be touched or tasted,
it’s something far more esoteric,
“Thank You.”

When all the pleasant little lies
I allow myself to believe
are confronted by bitter truths
I embrace broken me.

I strive to present myself to the world
as a laissez-faire free spirit
bouncing from one misadventure to the next,
and for the most part, I partly am. . .

Reading your beautifully touching words
so elegantly written, confirms why,
when I was allowed to love you,
I was so hopelessly in love.

Fate’s been driving my bus lately,
not really sure to where,
or for what purpose,
but the saga’s gonna unfold.

The purpose of my writing
is to explore the humanity of the soul
as we strive and stumble
through life’s challenges.

Hard to believe you ever had hard times,
she pretentiously preaches from her perch at a Paris cafe.
I silently smile recalling all the times we ate pierogies
on Friday because flour cost less than filling.

There’s something sacred
about shared sacrifice
drawing people into
the listerine light of love.

The journey I’m on
has been bizarre for sure,
it’s left me trying
to figure fate out.

What are the freaking odds
you’d be the exact person,
at the exact moment,
I most need you in my life?

If I wrote a story about my life,
bookstores would shelve it
in the fantasy section since
it can’t possibly be true.

What if God’s granting me the gift of you
just for the fun of watching
the multiple ways I’ll screw things up. . .
that is after all my track record.

I appreciate the mystery within
unseen ways
the universe moves us
in and out of circumstances.

I’m starting to get fate’s message
that going to Tangier’s
is necessary; why though,
has yet to be revealed.

In the deepest dark
of canyons I fear to cross,
Coyote barks,
and I hear his howl.

All I can do is ride this fate-train until destiny
decides I’ve arrived, or I get put
on a later train. Either way, I’m just a passenger
with no access to the stop cord.

There is no reason to believe
you are fate’s destination,
but a boy can dream
and wouldn’t that be recursively poetic.

What if fate’s just fucking with me
and I’m on the same train to nowhere
I’ve been traveling my entire life. . .
Fuck fate I say, and let me die alone.

Someday I’ll write the perfect story
about a breakup where no one’s hurt
and there is no drama,
they’ll shelve it in the fantasy section.

His actions were because
he had yet to learn
there is no room for kindness
in family court.

I am hell and gone from
what used to pass as okay,
but nothing is ever
meant to last anyway.

The way to win
at life,
is to not wake up
one day dead. . .

Life is supposed to be a roller coaster,
sometimes up, sometimes down,
but constantly in motion. He however,
moves like a flat-line drifter.

Tell me my tender tumbleweed,
how much suffering
must I endure
before you tumble back to me. . .

I burned fragrances of my lost love with sage,
her last tender touch, her last lingering kiss,
the last of her embers lofting
smoke-filled heirlooms of hope.

I am way west of alright
trying to understand why
I’d rather be ruined by you
than loved by anyone else.

I am not the person
in your painting.
Oil lasts forever,
I constantly change.

She became the perfect sin
of his creation,
not who she was,
what love made her.

Paris is not a place to fall in love.
Last time cast my soul as the forever wanderer
of despondently cold cobblestones
vainly looking for the part of me that walked away.

He died alone
in the sacred embrace
of technology’s
subtle seduction.

I still find you in shattered shadows
of my broken heart.
Places I am not yet
strong enough to venture.

The outliers are the ones
most feared for they cannot be
manipulated by
information oligarchs.

The four scariest words
ever known to man
are
“The World Economic Forum.”

The people protesting
the loudest
are the ones
being manipulated the most.

Whatever individual freedoms
you naively believe remain
measure the depth
of your delusion.

Your smile.
Your smile.
The echos of
your smile.

I long ago lost
the courage
to tell you
I love you.

When I pray,
the only thing I ask of God
is for someone
who can hold me.

What if
my destiny
is to meet you
in Tangier?

You laugh at love
at our peril
while I hold dear any precious dream
that draws you near.