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MacQueen’s Quinterly: Knock-your-socks-off Art and Literature
Issue 12: March 2022
Haibun, anomalous: 134 words
By Peter Newton

Suds Land USA

 
Inside its tunnel the slow slap and slide 
of fat fabric tentacles spray red, white & blue 
foam that blurs what’s ahead bristling 
Seuss-like arms spin-scrub the hubs 
hot wax the hood in this my hideout 
my one chance to sidestep what’s real 
exit the stage unnoticed a few moments 
out of reach like standing behind a waterfall 
the sound washing over all communications 
cut-off the phone searching for service 
left to roam the cartoon scenery 
innocently back and forth like waves 
in a kid’s cardboard play until 
the jet-powered wind kicks in blasting 
the water away every last droplet 
a modern day purification ritual 
that spits me out into the same old 
parking lot only a little brighter. 

anniversary 
of her death all day 
a soft pelting 

 

Peter Newton
Issue 12, March 2022

lives in Vermont where he works as a full-time stained glass artist. He is the author of several books in the Japanese short form tradition including What We Find (haiku); Welcome to the Joy Ride (haibun), which won a 2014 Merit Book Award for the Best Book of Haibun from the Haiku Society of America; A Path of Desire (tan renga with Kathe L. Palka); The Searchable World (haiku), which won First Place in the 2018 Merit Book Awards from the Haiku Society of America; Part-Time Gods (haibun), winner of the Snapshot Press eChapbook Award for haibun in 2021; and Glide Path (haiku), due to be published in 2022.

 
 
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