You know it’s a rough town when the dive bar takes cover. You discover quickly how your belongings learn to walk without you. That’s your shirt, parading across the intersection, on an unknown porch pirate. After dark, we talk to ourselves, so others become more alarmed than we are. Stumbling up the subway steps into the streetlight glare, a small voice asks, Are you a cop, Mister? But a small voice might be carrying a just-large-enough gun, so I say, No, I’m a practicing cannibal. The drum circle in the park starts smoking until a police siren blares in the wrong key. The musicians suddenly freeze. It can turn downright chilly when we miss a beat, especially if we dress in pastels.

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)