Lovelorn Poets

From Anchorage to Zebulon: In Search of Missed Connections

Lovelorn Poet in Seattle, WA: Speed Limit Haiku For Hopefuls

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smile

To see your sweet smile
I’d race against the sunset.
SPEED LIMIT 40

Sometimes we just can’t get where we want to go fast enough. C’mon c’mon c’mon.
I’m ready.

I love the excitement before going to see friends, or a concert, or .. a date!

It’s that giddy, wind blowing on your face inside and outside at the same time feeling that makes the smiling muscles in my jaw hurt like I blew up balloons for a party. (back in the 70s.)

My car is confused. Why have a turbocharged engine if you only drive in 25 zones?

Scattered throughout the Craigslist Missed Connections feeds, people would post haiku on occasion, but it wasn’t until the Seattle Haiku for Hopefuls series started that I began to find this style of writing more regularly.  I always thought it was an interesting and creative use of the space – even if MC readers didn’t always feel the same way! (You can’t please all the people all of the time, right?)

Lovelorn Poet in Seattle, WA: Haiku For Hope

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hope

hope

when we are apart
I still feel the short exhales
and all the long sighs

I can only hope and hold my heart with my hands,
knowing I’d rather they were yours,
and maybe you do too.

The Haiku for Hopefuls “brand” had a few spin-offs, namely Haiku for Hapless and Haiku for Hearts. However, there were a few other titles, like this one, that showed up every once in awhile. Same writer? Different writer? We can only guess.

 

Lovelorn Poet in Seattle, WA: Bus Stop Haiku For Hopefuls

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together

together

A crowded bus stop
can bring a group together.
But each feels alone.

I am back to my old tricks again. I’m smiling at strangers and saying, “Hello,” and “Good morning,” or even “Happy Wednesday!” (at least on Wednesdays.)

It a lot easier to do that now that the weather has been so sunny, and hot. People are outside more, strolling a bit slower, and looking up and around more than during those rainy and windy days.

And I like when they smile back and say, “Hi.” When it happens, we share a real (though fleeting) connection.

We both feel it; refreshing like running under the sprinkler just for that moment. Except less wet.

So, if you see me out there tomorrow, give me a wave, or just mouth, ‘hello’ (if you are with the boss or someone like that.)

 

Haiku for Hopefuls and the various “spins-offs” it inspired spent a great deal of time exploring relationships (either real or “hopeful”) but every once in awhile there was a post that was a bit more solitary in nature. Sometimes you need to walk alone for a bit before you can find someone to walk by your side.

Lovelorn Poet in Seattle, WA: Dim-Sum Haiku For Hopefuls

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hot

hot

Steaming hot dishes.
Three kinds of vegetables.
“No thanks.” Chicken Feet.

Eating at the dim-sum restaurant is an adventure.
Especially when I can’t tell what certain dishes are, (and the trolley driver ladies can’t tell me either.)

Chinese broccoli with garlic sauce? Here I come!
Boiled tripe that looks like rubber honey comb? Umm not so much. None in fact.

So, “No, thanks” to that tangled mangled spare-rib bone… thing. “Right! No thanks.” : D

But, those heaping plates of fried noodles look really good, with a week’s supply of soy sauce cooked in each? ‘Yes, please.’ “Hellooo! Yes. Over here?”

Those little plates looked so small, but then those dumplings added up in my stomach.

What’s Chinese for ‘siesta’?

 

This Haiku for Hopefuls comes from the early days of Seattle Missed Connections haiku project. At the time, it appeared the writer had committed to posting a haiku plus a short narrative almost every day. I was not able to save all of them, but I like to think the majority of them have been preserved. The Hopefuls series resulted in some spin-offs (Hearts, Hapless…) which were interesting but not nearly as compelling as the original (IMHO).

 

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