Cut Throat

Blood of the world — spilt
then burnt black. Each ginger breath
insignificant

While spaces open
and close for us, footsteps fall
and then are drawn back.

Blood of the world — spilt
deep as oceans, hatred still
deeper as the cause.

The tides of progress
and regress cannot be told
apart. They're the same —

All directions lead
to the same instant moment —
happiness, despair,

Entrapment of lust.
Our ravenous teeth are starved
for flesh of meaning,

A cause to stop for.

. . .

A haiku chain, though these twist traditional haiku subject realm.

Photo taken in Yazd, Iran. Cook/Evans, 2001.