To My Skeleton and 3 Haiku

by Eric Norris (January 2018)

The Broad Gave Me My Face, But I Can Pick My Own Nose
Andy Warhol, 1948

To My Skeleton

Forgive the wrapping paper. Life
Was all I had around the house
To use. It’s a Swiss Army knife.
You will have fun with it. Expose
 

The aching muscles, lies, and loves,
That stuff—so-called connective tissue—
Holding us together. Gloves
You can get elsewhere, if you wish to,
 

Son. You are a boy, they say—
These broken bones. I hope you will
Find time for climbing things today;
For fingerprinting ferns, fossil
 

Hunting, folding planes and boats
From paper, telling jokes with poo,
And writing “cryptic little notes”
In lemon juice—for friends—which you
 

Keep hidden in a wooden box
Proudly stamped: Cigars 5¢.
Happy Birthday. Love you lots.
(Hope these hieroglyphs make sense.)
 

Over the Sun and Under the Radar, David Hale, 2010
 

3 Haiku
 

Blank Pages

Tell the full story—
Days and nights I couldn’t describe,
Way too bright, or dark.

Away

Listening to Styx,
One of my flip-flops sails off
Down a little stream.

Power and Poetry

Yes, this haiku is
Appropriated culture:
I kiss Basho’s feet.

 

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Eric Norris‘s short stories and reviews have appeared in: Foglifter, Ambit, Impossible Archetype, The Peacock Journal, Classical Outlook, E-Verse Radio, Singapore Poetry, Softblow, Assaracus, Glitterwolf, New Walk Magazine, The Raintown Review, The Goodmen Project, The Nervous Breakdown, and American Arts Quarterly. His latest book is Astronomy For Beginners.

More by Eric Norris.

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