1:58 p.m. Late again! Gonna go back to my tried and true form of haiku, I think. See what you think:
spring cleaning unearths past years' deserted treasures you pause to address
still treasures or junk? is it gold you've found hidden or aluminum?
impossible choice put it aside for today pray strength tomorrow
2:05 p.m. I kind of like this. I love haiku’s little turn in the middle. It’s very like the way a sonnet has one in its last couplet. I wanted to see if I could do that with three haiku (with the last one being the turn) and still keep the turn in each one. It probably needs more work, but I have stuff to do today, so I’m going to call it.
Hope you enjoyed!
She’s definitely a treasure. Photo and poem copyright 2026 Michelle Garren-Flye
2:15 p.m. Happy Easter! It’s raining a bit here, and I just got back in town after visiting my son, so I thought I’d write a poem about driving.
Haiku seems to lend itself to that, so here goes:
driving down the road windshield covered with pollen wipers don't work well
raindrops spread yellow in spatters across the glass i look into past
mistakes that haunt me a life survived recklessly weaving through the lanes
hard to spot flowers growing on the road's shoulder through yellow splotches
so i pull over i breathe and seek clarity and wipe the slate clean
2:28 p.m. I had to stop and think a little along the way, but I believe this captured that feeling I had as I drove today, my mind dwelling too long on past mistakes and missteps. It’s easy to get mired down in guilt.
Quick re-write and title:
driving down the road windshield covered with pollen wipers don't work well
raindrops spread yellow in spatters across the glass i look into past
mistakes that haunt me a life survived recklessly weaving through the lanes
hard-to-spot flowers flourish on the road's shoulder through yellow splotches
so i pull over i breathe and seek clarity— wipe the window clean
2:35 p.m. What do you think? I didn’t want to go into too much detail, but I did get sort of mired down and it felt like pollen on the windshield.
Photo and poem copyright 2026 Michelle Garren-Flye
12:26 p.m. When I can’t think of anything to write about (like today), I write haiku. So today, I’ve decided, literally just now, to write a linked haiku. What about? Well, I just wrote a short article about a ghost cat. How about that? I shall write:
Ghost Cat by the Sea Haiku
12:28
sea breeze passes by without ruffling his fur ghost cat waits, lonely
sandy shores are home to him he plays with side walking crabs
at night the light spears through the sky above the shoals ghost cat waits, on guard
did once his feat trod the deck as he hunted mice below?
morning visitors spot him in the deep shadows ghost cat purrs for them
but nights are long on the shore as ghost cat waits for the morn
12:36 p.m. Okay. Not awful. Now a quick rewrite.
ghost cat by the sea by michelle garren-flye
sea breeze passes by without ruffling his fur ghost cat waits, lonely
did once his feat trod the deck of a ship long lost to wreck?
morning visitors spot him in the deep shadows ghost cat purrs for them
the nights are long on the shore as ghost cat waits for the morn
he sees the light spear starry sky above the shoals ghost cat waits, on guard
one hundred years on this shore he may play here a hundred more
12:52 p.m. There’s one extra syllable in one of the lines, but it doesn’t mess things up, so I’m leaving it. I like the flow of the poem better now. It makes more sense to start in the light and move to the darkness. I also re-wrote a couple of lines.
For anyone interested, this is inspired by the ghost cat of Hatteras lighthouse. You can google it. Also google the cats left on the ghost ship Carol A. Deering. These three cats, the only survivors of the famous ghost ship, are only tangentially linked to the ghost cat of Hatteras as it is commonly believed to have belonged to a past lighthouse keeper. However, it has been speculated he might be one of the Deering’s cats.
Maybe he’s waiting there for the captain.
Photo and poem copyright 2026 Michelle Garren-Flye
I recently saw a challenge from a magazine I’d love to get published in (Rattle.com) to invent a new form of poetry and I thought I’d done it. I even decided to call it circular run-on poetry. The rules are that it captures one moment in time in a single sentence and it circles back to where it started.
Well, maybe there’s nothing new under the sun, but turns out this is just a combination of two forms of poetry that have already been invented, run on and circular.
Anyway, it was fun to try, and I have enough rejections as it is. (Also, just a note that the first line of this poem was written by a friend in a simple Facebook post. She’s such a poet, even her Facebook posts come out poetically! Check out her work here: Sheila Turnage.)
Engagement
In the tall grass on the way to the chestnut tree halfway across the field beside the highway that wends its way through hills to beach I’m waiting, eyes on the clouds, waiting to see
you, walking through the grass to the chestnut tree
but you pause on your way to our fun, while roots dig deep under the ground beneath and break up the dirt for the seed to germinate up through the earth to the warmth of the sun
and a floating bee lights on the bloom with delight
and I’m still waiting, eyes on the clouds, dreaming of driving the highway that wends to the sea with you and your flower (but not the bee) away from the tall grass and the chestnut tree.
Photo and poem copyright 2025 Michelle Garren-Flye
Has it really been almost a month since my last post?? Horrifying.
Well, not really, because I think that was about the time I realized I needed to get my next poetry book together. I’ve been working on it for the past year, and I knew it was done, just needed to be put together.
So…with that said, here it is!
Presenting:
Here’s the description: “Author and poet Michelle Garren-Flye has always been fascinated by poetic forms. In Thick & Thin, Michelle explores the relationship between two of her favorites, haiku and sonnets, using the one to inspire the other. Two forms from very different cultures, yet somehow very similar. Is it possible William Shakespeare might have befriended Matsuo Basho if he’d been given the opportunity?”
Thick & Thin is currently available on Amazon. It’ll take a few weeks to get them printed for the store, but then you’ll definitely be able to get a copy there!
Home is the mountains of North Carolina. At least, that’s where my hometown of Brevard is. As I’ve now lived on the coast for longer than I grew up in the mountains, I sometimes wonder where “home” really is. If my blood was once the red clay of the mountains, surely it’s now mixed with the Crystal Coast seawater.
It wasn’t totally my choice to set down roots here on the coast, but I can’t say I’m totally sorry I have. And I definitely don’t feel as at home in my old hometown as I do here in my new one.
But oh, those mountains. I spent a fair amount of time outside during our stay. I walked with my son and his dog in the little neighborhood where we stayed. We all hiked through the gardens of Biltmore Estate one afternoon. The steps we got that day! We spent a day touring the Western North Carolina Nature Center. The animals were mostly asleep while we stood gaping at their beauty.
And in the evenings, a glass of wine in hand, I sat on the front porch looking out at the trees, wondering if I ever moved home would the roots I had put down in the sandy soil of the coast re-acclimate to the mountain soil?
Starting over is not something I’m great at, so I won’t be doing it anytime soon. I love my life here, and I don’t want to leave it.
But oh, those mountains. They call me still.
Written six months ago post Hurricane Helene, whose destruction I saw in person for the first time last week. Photo and poem copyright 2025 Michelle Garren-Flye. Not for use without permission.Oh, those mountains. 🙂 Someday. Photo and poem copyright 2025 Michelle Garren-Flye. Not for use without permission.
I’ve never used the haiku to springboard a different type of poem than a sonnet…until now. This is more freeform, or at least, it took on a form of its own. (Unless this type of poetry already has a name?) Anyway, I couldn’t pin this one into a sonnet format. It’s a bit more sprawling.
alabaster white pottery shards strewn about just flower petals
Unglued By Michelle Garren-Flye
Seeing white shards among the green grass I pause to remember shattered china on the strange orange floor of the kitchen, no sooner broken than regretted, gathered up and pieced back together with glue.
But these are just magnolia petals dropped carelessly from an angelic bloom to the peace of the smooth emerald below, and the tree has no regrets, emits no sighs, but stands tall, rich in nonchalance.
Maybe it’s time to throw out the glue and mow the broken scraps under so I can grow something new.
Photo and poem copyright 2025 Michelle Garren-Flye
BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye 