Janaku poetry (pronounced “HAY-nah-KOH/KU”), created by Filipino poet Eileen Tabios in 2003, is a haiku-like form written in tercets of unrhymed one-word, two-word, then three-word lines.

This Moment, Then, At Last Arrives

Ever
I slip
to disquiet, distance

Surrendering,
flesh folds, 
retinas occlude, detach 

Impossible
intimacies marked,
smudged, decompassioned, disremembered

In
the relinquishment 
of this now 

To
what, then?
I          I         he

Nods
in experience,
a wizened insensibility

Butters
toast, clears
his weary throat,

Sees
himself in
narrated regard, surrendering:

“It has always
been this
way.”

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