Since I began this wild and wastrel wend down the wandering ways of poetry, I’ve been sure to write or finish at least one poem each year on my birthday.

Most people think of their birthday as beginning at the stroke of midnight on the day they were born. But I’ve never processed it this way. For me my birthday begins at the actual time I was born, and carries on for the next 24 hours. This is when I took my first snatch of oxygen from the airs of earth. This is when the harsh sterile light of our world first tapped on the veils of my vision. For me the clock started then, and it wasn’t the stroke of midnight.

This is the only way it makes sense to me, the only to make it work wherever you happen to be. For instance, if I celebrated my birthday in the Philippines on the ‘day’ of my birth, I’d be a full day early. To celebrate my birthday there, I’d want to wait until 8am on the 24^th, which is when I was born in Riverside, California, at 5pm on the 25^th.

So, I’ve been pecking at this, amongst others, over the past few days. And here’s what I got for now, a handful of all-nighter senryu (haiku not seasonally focused), inspired by a handful of observations had while hanging out at the local truck stop various nights across the past couple years.