Bodie

In the Ghost Town hotel, the switchboard operator is still at lunch. It’s been a longer lunch break than usual, about a hundred years or so, and the others have stopped holding her job for her.

People move on to make connections; some wait for a call that never comes.

abandoned digs
nothing left
but imagination

What’s Left Behind

As they enter haiku country, the land of short lines, Dapple and Stipple decide to mine kigo. A grizzled haijin warns them, It’s seasonal work, you know.

blank page
the blinding white
of unknowns

Peter Jastermsky

is the author of seven books of haiku-based writing and lives in the high desert of Southern California. He is also an award-winning cherita poet whose work has been widely published, and a nominee for Best of the Net and the Dwarf Star Award. In 2017, Peter invented a new linked form that is haiku-centered called a split sequence. His recent book, Just Dust and Stone (Velvet Dusk Publishing, 2021) is a collection of collaborative split sequences, cowritten with Bryan Rickert. Peter’s other titles include Steel Cut Moon (Cholla Needles Press, 2019) and Fingerbone Sky (Yavanika Press, 2021).

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ “Love Thing”: The Allure of the Split Sequence, craft essay by Peter Jastermsky in Issue 9 of MacQ (August 2021)