A Dedication To You, The Reader Poem by Chen-ou Liu

A Haibun

“It is your interest in my haiku that has enabled this slim volume to continue its journey into the promised land of old souls. The NeverEnding Story of imagination carries us further...”

The hunter's moon cracking in the attic window. And water stains on his unfinished manuscript, the one not for the faint of heart or for those who are loyal subjects of the totalitarian shasei regime.


“On the Road” leans
against “Essential Haiku”
his cold breath


Note: For those who are new immigrants or seasonal workers, the shasei regime (euphemistically) means the objective realist regime.




Author's Note: A Dedication To You, The Reader is a sequel to Winter Thoughts (for Mary Oliver) , whose opening haiku and prose paragraph are as follows:


rejection slip
a sunflower bending
to the wind

I often get editorial advice like this:

'You will notice that we veer away from authorial comment, abstract language, and the imposition of human qualities on the natural world. Instead, we choose haiku that achieve resonance through the juxtaposition of disparate images, credibly present in the same place at the same time.'

Read its full text at http: //poemhunter.com/poem/autumn-thoughts-4/