WAG - 1st Annual Haiku Day
No, this is probably not what you expected.
I have long said I am not a good poet. This is a belief I most recently repeated Saturday night. When required to, under threat of F by my English teachers, I was a good rhyming poet (for a 4th grader), but it was a writing style I never actively practiced.
Despite whatever talents I had remaining stagnant, I did maintain an appreciation of poetry; especially my favorite form: haiku.
Brief introduction to the Japanese art form (“borrowed” from Toyomasu.com):
Haiku is one of the most important form of traditional Japanese poetry. Haiku is, today, a 17-syllable verse form consisting of three metrical units of 5, 7, and 5 syllables.
The history of the modern haiku dates from Masaoka Shiki's reform, begun in 1892, which established haiku as a new independent poetic form. Unlike the previous form of hokku, which was a long string of 17-syllable paragraphs, this new form of poetry was to be written, read and understood as an independent poem, complete in itself, rather than part of a longer chain.
Shiki's reform did not change two traditional elements of haiku: the division of 17 syllables into three groups of 5, 7, and 5 syllables and the inclusion of a seasonal theme.
Kawahigashi Hekigoto carried Shiki's reform further with two proposals:
1. Haiku would be truer to reality if there were no center of interest in it.
2. The importance of the poet's first impression, just as it was, of subjects taken
from daily life, and of local color to create freshness.
I include those additions, because I wish to make a contribution of my own:
Working in such tight parameters, but still wanting to give people proper context, I am prefacing each haiku with a 5-syllable title.
Thus, we commence our first annual Haiku Day (hey, it was that or New Hampshire Democratic Primary results; and we all know how thrilling that would be).
Monster Under Bed
A nightly vigil:
I’ll stay safe under blankets.
Just wish I could breathe.
Clark Kent Goes Bye-Bye
Steel man not so strong.
Lex Luthor found Kryptonite.
Sorry Superman.
My Life is a Zoo
Barrel of monkeys.
Illegally imported.
Border Patrol Sucks.
Soon, a Sudden Stop
Parachute missing.
Won’t this be a big, big mess.
I won’t clean it up.
Bomb Squad Dilemma
“Hold on!” I tell him.
Is it the red or blue wire?
I always forget.
Real: Little Green Men
UFOs exist.
Scared of abductions, probings.
I wear tin foil hats.
I Can’t Top The King
Elvis did it best.
Shaking those hips and his lips
I’d pull a muscle.
Questionable Quote
Oft-repeated line:
“Stupid is as stupid does.”
Don’t know what that means.
I Need a New Vet.
He was not funny.
“You should call your horse Glue Stick.”
I shot him instead.
Mothra Can’t Beat Him
Godzilla top ranked.
Brought to life by atom bomb
Then eats Tokyo.
Following the Rules
On rentals, same words:
“Always be kind, please rewind!”
So, I am, I do.
Eulogy for Fish
I miss you Bubbles.
One act can help us move on:
Jiggling the handle.
Immortal Question
Classic query posed.
Required contemplation.
“Paper or plastic?”
Round One: Great White Shark
Jaws got the Captain.
Oceanographer missing.
Need a bigger boat.
Trouble for Tot’s Boats
A rub a dub, dub…
Danger lurks in the bathtub.
“Launch the torpedoes!”
He liked Fantasia
My neighbor took trips.
LSD was his tour guide.
Never found way home.
Too many Haikus
First they count each beat
Later, the timing assumed
Wit soon overlooked.
My Haiku Headache
I am off again.
One loathes lacking single count
Harder than it looks.
And last, spawned by current events:
Voices in my head.
There’s group consensus.
The voting ends in no ties.
Guess we’ll vote for Dean.
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