Fenny


      hat in hand 
but it’s mortal soul in other 
      that’ll fetch a few farthings  


      Ron the Sewer Rat! 
snakes the toilets 
      unstops disposals 


      Renfield fashions himself Vlad
grotesquely pantomimes
      fear factor 


      the postmodern struggle:
man versus himself
      …try harder 


      headline surly fest 
then take singing lessons —
      hold steady route 
 
                                
  
               Garter


      no kill shelter in boonies
only responsible option 
      for a mad dog 


      character or actor drunk?  
Stanislavsky school 
      makes no difference 


      sooner get to sleep 
sooner can be back at work
      rinse and repeat 


      telltale recycling: 
eco-conscious tip their hands 
      to busy-bodies 


      The tomb… is empty!!
      First closed room mystery

                                
  
               Great Horned


     only when hands are full
do pants start to slip – 
     Murphy’s the kigo 


     flashes money  
‘round wrong dive… as he stumbles out
     several rise, pursue 


                      the danger for pranksters :: wolf appears


      crimson bedbugs marks – 
at last
      something common with Issa 


      bus pulls over, 
but haven’t the fare or expertise
      should by now 

Jerome Berglund, recently nominated for the 2022 Touchstone awards, graduated from the University of Southern California’s Cinema-Television and spent a picaresque decade in the entertainment industry before returning to the midwest where he was born and raised. Since then he has worked as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves. Jerome has exhibited many haiku, senryu and haiga online, including through Synchronized Chaos in early April.  He has also shared micropoems in the Asahi Shimbun, Bear Creek Haiku, Bamboo Hut, Cold Moon Journal, Daily Haiga, Failed Haiku, Haiku Dialogue, Scarlet Dragonfly, Under the Basho, and the Zen Space.