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Derrick Weston Brown's Haiku

"Your career is a typo,
mine was written
like a haiku"

Derrick Weston Brown (1976-) holds an MFA in Creative Writing from American University. He has studied poetry under Dr. Tony Medina at Howard University and Cornelius Eady at American University. His work has appeared in such literary journals as Warpland and DrumVoices, and the online journals Capital Beltway and Howard University's Amistad. His work has also appeared in The Washington Post and New Orleans Times-Picayune newpapers and the anthologies, When Words Become Flesh ( Mwaza Publications), Taboo Haiku ( Avisson Press), and Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade (University Of Michigan Press). He is a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, and currently resides in Mount Rainier, Maryland. He is the Poet-In-Residence at Busboys and Poets bookstore and restaurant.
http://www.divinecipher.com/blog/images/dbrown.jpg

HURRICANE KATRINA HAIKU

I
The submerged sign reads
Welcome to Elysian Fields
As bodies float bye.

II
Waiting for rescue
He drinks his own pale urine
As the copters pass

III
Draped in Old Glory
A corpse lies still beneath a
Super dome shadow.

IV
How Shakespearean
In the wake of Katrina
Ophelia waits

 

TACTICAL BROWNKU

Lips as soft as breath
Who would want an exit plan
Our kiss a stalemate

 

RED GIANT / WHITE DWARF
. . . For Octavia Butler / 1947-2006

I.
Red Giant

She taught us to gaze
past stars, supernovas, and deepspace
and ponder the deepest reaches of our skins
the seeds planted in the nebulas of our eyes
beyond beyond, to the changeling within us
the extraterrestrial we are the tongues
spoken across time's continuum
the warmth of the blood that travels
wanders and pools. We will miss you
other Mother.
We chase your echo eagerly
into eternity's ether.

II.
White Dwarf Haiku

On the roof after
Word of your sudden passing
I watch the stars dim