Erotic Haiku

These were originally never intended for public consumption; however, at the June 18th, 2024 Open Mic Surgery at Never Ending Books, I was inspired to read the first haiku because someone else had read one and because of a certain topic of conversation we had all been entertaining. I would have let the haiku simply disappear into the ether, but a journalist happened to be there who quoted the first one in the article she wrote about the open mic. The first line was quoted incorrectly (“brash” instead of “fresh”), but I honestly quite like the misquote.

I read the second haiku after the first, as they are nearly identical—typical bisexual indecision left me unable to choose which way to use the image, so I made two versions. The third I did not read but am posting here.

You will note that these poems do not follow a 5-7-5 syllable structure. I had initially tried doing them with a 5-7-5 morae structure, but I was informed by a linguist that that was perhaps phonologically impossible to do in English. So, in the end, they are haiku primarily based on vibes.