Haiku

Many of John's haiku are written for a Japanese audience, so here he provides a bit of background to these.

In Japanese folklore, fireflies represent the spirits of the dead. They also symbolize that life is fleeting.
In the West, people tend to focus on Hiroshima, forgetting about Nagasaki, which was an even worse tragedy.
You can read why that is in my book, Weird History 101, as most people don't know what really happened.
There you'll find the explanation in the words of most of the top political and military leaders involved.

The kami is the nature spirit or spirits that a Shinto shrine is dedicated to. They can be rather nebulous, specific, or personified.

This one will seem negative to Westerners and positive to the Japanese,
since in Japan the praying mantis is a symbol of power and authority.

This one has at least three layers of meaning for me, and when I wrote it,
it seemed like it floated out in front of my computer screen like a cube, slowly rotating. I doubt that will happen to others.
I have since realized there may be further layers to it, but you'll have to be familiar with Japan and Shinto to spot most of them.
Hopefully you'll get some meaning out of it.