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Billy Collins's haiku
William J. ("Billy") Collins (born March 22, 1941)

A collection of his haiku, titled She Was Just Seventeen, was published by Modern Haiku Press (Box 68, Lincoln, IL 62526) in fall 2006, 32 pages.
http://www.modernhaiku.org/mhbooks/collinsSheWasJustSeventeen2006.html
http://www.modernhaiku.org/bookreviews/Collins2007.html

Heavy rain all night—
with closed eyes I see
the orchard, the dripping leaves.

If I write spring moon
or mountain, is that
haiku plagiarism?

From my bed, bright stars.
The doctor will phone today.
But for now just winter stars.

High cry of a hawk,
cracking ice across the lake—
enough of my talk.

Mid-winter evening,
alone at a sushi bar—
just me and this eel.

Awake in the dark—
so that is how rain sounds
on a magnolia.

Haiku makes you fail,
fail, fail, and fail some more—
then for once not fail.

Travel tomorrow,
so much I must leave behind—
this lake, this morning.

Street lights in the dark
city where I walk—
a man with many shadows.

Black hearse rushes by—
blue chickory on the roadside
swaying in its wake.

Moon in the window—
the same as it was before
there was a window.

* * *

Japan

Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.

And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.

It's the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.

When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.

When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.

And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.

* * *