A Nonconformist Haiku Jogging(Dec 2019) Poem by Andrew Lee

I slash the tree bark once and seem to hear a scream

that cracks the morning air,

at a corner of MacRitche Reservoir.

The humans around me stare and jog away.

I sense their fidgety legs.

The woods become silent.

The lizards and woodpeckers stop in their tracks.

I slash again with a penknife

and this poem leaps out of the tree veins.

I'm not a law-breaking raccoon, but a love-starved bullfrog.

And now I see that Reality is hiding behind the brittle shell

of a snail. I begin to fondle the feelers of that snail.