American Haikus from The Dangling Conversation

Poems by R.M. Dolin

American Haikus from The Dangling Conversation

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.