Andrew Hamlin's "Haiku 16" is really a string of tiny snapshots, each one a scene the speaker catches while moving through an ordinary day. A nurse helps a lost man on the phone, a car beeps in the grey morning, a gardener rakes wet leaves, a man with a Mohawk sits on a bus. The speaker doesn't tidy these into one story. He simply notices them, and sometimes admits he can't turn them into poetry at all, as in the opening lines.
The mood shifts easily between funny and tender. Two donuts, a guitar he can't sell, and the sound of a smile compared to soup are light, playful touches. Others are quieter. "One mustn't assume sadness" and the line about the lost man, "have not we all?", suggest sympathy for strangers and a wish not to judge them too fast. The final image, a man with a ruined face getting sad news and rolling another smoke, ends the poem on a gentle ache. Overall the feeling is attentive, wry and humane.