Drift 7

Due to cumbersome sinuses, it's more haiku...about my dog.

I have yet another sinus infection/cold, my second one (novel and slightly variant from the first) in only three weeks. My head reached a new, disparate astral plain, far away from lingering body. Or so it all feels. My writing has suffered immensely from this most disjointed sensation. With such short and fleeting moments of mental capacity, all I can seem to do is write haiku.

This week’s Drift is a series of five haiku written about the being I observe the most: my dog, Franny.

And in keeping with the new initiative I recently launched in Notes, I will begin pairing every essay/post with an accompanying song. I did, once upon another life, work/write/fetch coffee for a (now defunct) music television station. Growing up I had certain dreams of being: either a journalist (like Ann Curry), a poet (like Kahlil Gibran), a film actress (like Julia Roberts), a background dancer (for Janet Jackson), or a music video director (also for Janet Jackson). Out of all these proclivities, writing and music stuck the most. I love and experience music devotionally, and would like to honor that delusional child within.

Alas! The song of this post is most aptly titled: “Franny,” by Marc Benno, released in 1971.

FIVE HAIKU FOR FRANNY

Any vacant lot,
field dull or fed delicious,
gun dog points to prey.

In the glass bent sun,
cradled ‘top wispy lit oak:
brown dog found her light.

Vague origami,
knitted limb to slackened jowl:
brown dog has her rest.

Like cannon or star,
a flashed supernova, dusked:
brown dog heard her name.

Our ambled walkings:
kinetic in midwinter;
come spring, idle sprawls.

More on haiku, here; and my own practice, here and here; and more Franny, here.