CASTAWAYS RESCUE OPERATION #2 (Two collaborative haibun by Michael Hough and Christina Chin, 03/24/2024)

Welcome to the 2nd installment of Heterodox Haiku Journal's "Castaways Rescue" program, in which we exhibit micropoetry and related forms accepted an egregiously long time ago and never published. These pieces were originally slated for Roadside Raven Review, accepted in late 2022 . If you have a haiku, senryu, tanka, haiga, haibun which was promised publication long ago and the publisher appears to have gone defunct, point of contact is incommunicado, Heterodox may be able to share it for you here depending on circumstances! Look forward to future missions as we endeavor to leave no 'bun behind...

Muscle Car Meditation

Cars were like religion when I was a young teen.

"Little GTO, you're really lookin' fine

Three deuces and a four-speed and a 389"

- Ronnie and the Daytonas

Q: Which came first, the GTO song or the 409 song . . .

A: If you don't remember, it doesn't matter. As a young buck, I took a dim view of both these idiot songs, feeling that they should be paired on the air with Deadman's Curve and Tell Laura I Love Her. All I had was a bicycle, a used 3-speed I bought for $10 at the pawnshop. I bought that bike with the money I earned carrying golf bags for guys that drove Cadillacs.

a straight putt

on the tenth green

in the bunker

I learned how to drive and passed my driver's test in my dad's 1960 Chevy Brookwood station wagon, with a straight six-cylinder engine, three-speed manual transmission with the shift lever on the steering column, an AM radio, a stamped steel dashboard with no padding, bench seats, no seat belts or safety equipment of any kind, retread tires and power nothing.

No AC . . . but the heater worked.

two girls

squeezed into the bench seat

the radio blasts

Heartaches

by the Number

The expression "roll down the window" came from the hand cranks we used. The expression "stood on the brakes" came from the drum brakes these cars were equipped with . . . and the lack of hydraulic assist. I've always thought it was a wonder any of us survived, including the muscle car crowd.

half a dozen kids

packed in grandad's Holden

movie night

Michael Hough, prose / Christina Chin, haiku

Some Things Change...

           blue mist above a

       cityscape…sundown blends it

           in a gradient: orange into dusty blue

           and city lights beginning…

           late moon oversees

       what we know of love and what

       we bring to those ones… oh

           the same moon for us all.

           smoke in layers from some

           evening gossipers... tell me

       tomorrow then… maybe I won’t care.

           this night’s emotions

       must sort themselves… I cannot

           force them into place

           no wizardry gives any

           sense to the end of today

           only a sunset, darkening…

thunderclaps

rainwater gushes

into a harvester

Michael Hough, prose and photograph / Christina Chin, haiku

Michael Hough is a retired musician and photographer living with wife Louise in Oscoda Michigan. He was born in 1948.  He has been writing poetry since the age of 9, and studied his craft in High School and College.  He began his career as a singer-songwriter in 1974 and toured with the group Mustards Retreat for the next 44 years.  He began his career as photographer in 1981 and ran a photo shop until he retired in 2019, specializing in old photo reproduction, commercial photography, portraiture and document photos, meaning Passport and Visa photos for citizens of many nations including USA especially metric sizes. He remains active in music and photography “strictly for art and fun” and has NOT retired from writing.

Christina Chin is a painter and haiku poet. Her work has been featured in numerous publications online and in print: https://haikuzyg.blogspot.com/    https://christinachin99blog.wordpress.com/