In the Missoula airport when I was going to Honduras last January with a Missoula Medical Aid team, a young volunteer on the trip told me that he was going to write a haiku every day of the trip. I had not written a poem in years and thought what the hell, if he’s going to do that, I will too. It made me a little crazy, I think. I spent the entire trip counting syllables in both Spanish and English. I did this as I talked, as I read, as I slept, probably. I know writers of modern haiku don’t count syllables–or I have since learned that. But I counted, and counting made me crazy and crazy might have made some of the poems.

Haikus of Travel

Look at that sky and us
looking at it! Aren’t we
something? Our good taste
the things we buy, the places
we stay? The people
are poor and happy. It seems
our being here is good — we make
jobs to serve us and keep
the world free for goods
and money and us — not them
unfortunately — to cross
the border. We believe —
especially for those poorer
than us — in gratitude.
We want more — we
can’t help it! — so we
can fly away sit
by the sea and see
ourselves sitting, dining
or surfing in faraway
places, and for awhile
be grateful ourselves
that we’ve keep the world free –
am I repeating myself – for us
to travel. Not them,
their families are here
or should be
and it’s against the law.
Some are grateful but we’d
be glad if more were —
for maquilas and our gifts
to the clinic, for the web
and how much of their
stuff we buy. We like it here.
Our money makes the show
go on. What did they do
before we came? What
must this place have looked
like? Just imagine.
The world is changing fast. If
nothing changes here
we might come back
again next year.

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What we do well when things go wrong

Well, we kill easy
as lice bite, lovers fight, pigs
squeal, drunks shout and stand

on wagons with swords
and die defiant, when things
go wrong. When things go

wrong, bullocks long drool
wets the earth and new folks come
and burn the grain, steal

the bride, shoot the groom.
Sad. So’s the music.
We do that well too.

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Insomnia

Popping the first take
footfalls blue to wall sigh night.
No such thing as dawn.

Republicans on TV

They burped grumpy burps.
They had made a great fortune.
Everybody clapped.

Squirrel Blues

In the fall it all
turns flat, the oaks gray bare, I
eat nuts, wait for change.

On the DC Mall

Ghosts hide under dried
swamp, watch us walk, wonder where
malaria went.

In the National Gallery by the Degas Wax Dancers

All the pretty girls
are dead but the ones walking
past. I look at them.

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Instead of writing a blog introducing my new novel, Ben Armstrong’s Strange Trip Home, I’ve decided to use this space for some poems. Here are a couple in the form of notes to a friend, the poet Joanna Klink, whom I was hoping to amuse. She claims she was. She’s a kind person.

Dear Joanna,

I stopped by your office this afternoon but you weren’t there.
I was disappointed, as I have the start of a poem that I wanted to run by you.
The start was this:
A dog.

I think it’s a pretty good start but I admit, I’m stumped.
I’ve been stuck on it for a long time.
Sometimes I think it should be:
A cat.

No, I think, A dog is better, maybe.
But what should the next word be?
It seems really really important.
Or could be.

–David

And this, a few weeks later….