Taxes are a great goad to creativity: you can be creative, or you can give up and do your taxes. Creativity wins every time. Except perhaps on April 14.

As always, these haiku are taken from police blotter items in the nation’s newspapers. I’ve written them for years, and there’s a book of the best. Enjoy.

Good-natured screaming
isn’t appreciated
after 1 am.

He was on cocaine.
And on his cell phone, trying
to buy more cocaine.

A good caregiver
won’t order pay-per-view on
the patient’s TV.

Their son, they complain,
sneaks off with his girlfriend
to attend her church.

Filth is his weapon.
He wields it, nameless, by phone.
And he knows her name.

She’s been acting strange
for the past six hours and just now
someone called it in.

They like their guns, but
automatic weapons fire
lights up the switchboard

A pant-less young man,
outside, on their toddler swing.
He seems to be stuck.