Haiku and metaphor

I'm not positive these are succeeding as haiku. I can't avoid metaphor, even when I'm trying to. I want the lurch and spark of it.

The Japanese seem to have a different method for charging words -- and it's one I can't get my head around. I suspect the charge comes because there aren't very many words, and they get used over and over, and everyone has all the great haiku memorized -- something like a power of allusion, or the iconic power I mentioned once. But how do we get there in English? Or what do we do instead?