A Study in Loneliness

A digital zine with 59 poetry comics!

Hello, Friends!

Today’s post is a big one! It’s a digital zine, and it is much too long for your email. To see this post in all its glory, you should click here to read it online or read it in the Substack app.

Below you’ll find 59 poetry comics (only 57 of which are haiku comics 🤣).

If this post resonates with you in any way, please share your favorite poems or poetry comics as widely as possible.

Remember to be the weird you want to see in the world!

Cheers,

In a world of more than eight billion people, loneliness is the most universal human experience.

You can be in a crowded house and still suffer from pangs of loneliness. You can be alone on a mountaintop, and only feel lonely when you are joined by other people. You can be lonely and in love as well as lonely and alone.

Loneliness is currently seen as an epidemic. Perhaps loneliness is a natural state for social creatures that live in a world optimized for consumerism and productivity.

One of the most corrosive parts of loneliness is the false sense that you are the only one suffering. Everyone else is happy and connected — and you alone are lonely. At some point, we all stare at the ceiling and wonder where we went wrong, what is wrong with us, and when will the overwhelming sense of loneliness pass.

I don’t have a cure for loneliness. But I’m also not sure it’s a disease in need of a cure as much as it is a natural state, made more intense by the world of solo-screen-time we have concocted to distract us from the suffering of others and ourselves.

Instead of telling you how to get over your loneliness in three easy steps, all I can offer you is a reflection that you are not alone in your loneliness.

As you will see below in the 59 poetry comics that tell 59 tiny stories about loneliness (mostly in haiku), I’m far from the first poet to ponder the existential bummer of loneliness.

May you find solace in the fact that you are not alone, and that one day you will find your way out of the valley of loneliness.

song of lonely whale
echoes through crack in space-time
haunting galaxy

moon watches the streets
spotlighting the loneliness
of those that are left

lonely Jupiter
sparking below god’s toenail,
sunset’s afterglow

we search the heavens
for answers hiding within
the walls of our hearts

The Lonely Kitchen
There’s something unspeakably
lonely about eating
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
by yourself in a freshly
cleaned kitchen
at 9 pm on a Saturday
that surpasses anything felt in
a smoke-filled
piano bar
or conveyed by
a Billy Joel
harmonica solo

searching for myself
amidst artifacts of life
gathered from nature

confused mallard has
imposter syndrome watching
rubber duck parade

to you, I am the sea
mercurial tides, blue waves
something to gawk at

I saw you tonight
dancing in the firmament
daring me to join

migration rest stop —
flock of geese waddle in grass,
lone seagull strolls through

sitting in a hole
looked up to see honking geese,
the eye of a friend

caught in the folds of time
unanchored to location
forever floating

The crow flew so fast
That he left his lonely caw
Behind in the fields.

— Richard Wright (Haiku #117, “Haiku: The Last Poems of an American Icon”)

Blue-black beak open,
The crow hurls a caw straight at
A sinking red sun.

— Richard Wright (Haiku #337, “Haiku: The Last Poems of an American Icon”)

One caw of a crow
Tints all of the fallen leaves
A deeper yellow.

— Richard Wright (Haiku #548, “Haiku: The Last Poems of an American Icon”)

our soul’s components:
deconstructed numbers, or
hint of something more?

juvenile eagle
squawks about his solitude
while looking for fish

a silent witness
to agonizing drama
tucks away trauma

when the stars come out
after the end of the world
who will they shine for?

all of our children
wonder at same set of stars,
gaze at the same moon

rabs can see the stars,
do they dream of swimming in
the celestial sea?

never tasting death
much less attractive after
humans end themselves

thoughts on Donner’s Pass
traversing the Great Basin
High Sierras loom

The other man, just as
lonesome as I am
In this empty universe

— Jack Kerouac (page 181, “Book of Haikus”)

2 traveling salesmen
passing each other
On a Western road

— Jack Kerouac (page 6, “Book of Haikus”)

in between nowhere,
jalopies pass each other
divided highway
(After Jack Kerouac’s “2 traveling salesmen”)

stretched across the couch
in shadow cast by pillow,
dog naps without joy

in the end we learn
life is a bit of heaven
and a bit of hell

I stare at the sea
it doesn’t want or need me
it never stares back

lonely, wet asphalt
gleams with tri-color splendor
from traffic lights

some used to believe
birds migrated to the moon
and spent winter there

the river of time
only stops flowing for those
with no place to go

on clear summer nights
I inspect the lost eons
and wonder what’s next

vivacious fall leaves
delight with their novelty
for only so long

I use time travel
to find times and places of
complete solitude

everyone is late
for the start of time traveler’s
convention, but me

thanks to my machine
I have lived a thousand lives
none of them happy

I am trapped between
eternal depths of the sea
infinite blue sky

in the seam between
brooding sea and starless sky,
hope searches for me

standing and watching
tsunami sirens blaring
waiting for the end

handful of trees
jealously clutch their dead leaves,
recalcitrant grip

time unfolding as
casual and soft as the
gentle, rolling hills

crows caw eulogy
circling above pine trees,
dead cat in the woods

I came to the beach
to forget all about us
the waves have your laugh

lone goose, forlorn cry
echoes over Ox Bough Slough
seeking way to flock

the ocean’s sermon
filled with fury, given to
lone congregant

we all time travel
slowly in same direction
drawn to death’s portal

dawn’s invocation
reflected in the windows
of downtown buildings

twin sunrise smoke plumes —
the worker’s hopes spill upwards
starlings dot the sky

my dead mother —
every time I see the ocean
every time

— Kobayashi Issa (1812, translation by David G. Lanoue)

cold winter sky —
where will this wandering beggar
grow old?

— Kobayashi Issa (1824, translation by David G. Lanoue)

the moon’s reflection
illuminated pond and
our nocturnal tryst

the sun is our clock
the night sky is our theater
the sea is our grave

clouds part and gather
sky changes like a mood ring
worn by teenage boy

a lonely blossom
cast upon the pond’s surface
travels through the rain

procrastination’s
dark, muscled tentacles choked
my initiative

Haiku Cinquain #3
Surprise
hailstorm explodes —
clouds send lightning, thunder.
Poet’s maniacal laughter
echoes.

young boy sprints down beach
his trail of footprints dissolved
by incoming tide

lost in a forest
have I been through here before?
are these the same trees?

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