Hai Who?

Some people think
That seventeen syllables in three lines
Make a poem.

O.K., I'm not one of them, but that's my contribution to the world of Haiku, and if anyone would like to post poems, silly or serious, this is as good a place as any.

--M. J. Young

It's supposed to be five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the last. So, more appropriately:

Some people think that
seventeen syllables in three
lines makes a poem.

Little Jack Horner
while rounding a corner
is met by a mugger who states:
"Hand over your cash
or your head I will smash"
(Which is not the most pleasant of fates)
Little Jack Horner
takes off from the corner
with hopes of outracing disaster
but although he's in shape
he won't make his escape
cuz the mugger's a runner, but faster!!!!

Gaming is more fun
Than washing dirty dishes
Doing Poet's work

MJ is often
a scatterbrained idiot
but we all love him.

Sunbathing kitty
Precarious pottery
Catastrophe strikes

(Six-word haiku, people, let's get'em written!)

Nice one Scott, that from personal experience?

I hate it when Scott
shows off his insane talents
and makes me look bad

(Just kidding of course, good one Scott!!!!)

Terminators rise
Nuclear Armageddon
Humanity falls

Yes, I'm a Terminator freak.

I hope
To Rent
Terminator Movie

There, I replied to Scott and John. And yes, my local Redbox had Terminator Salvation in it. The Ladyfaire wants to watch it. I'm a bit dubious. T1 was very good. T2 was great. T3 ihhhh, and T4 sigh.

I also liked the series.

But one problem I have is that...

John Connor
Humanity's Saviour
Clueless Wimp

Or MJ's Haiku rather than Scott's...

Supposed to be
Special Forces level guy
Ordinaire loser

I had to slip into French for ordinaire rather than ordinary.

Recently rented
Terminator Salvation
Movie's terrible.

Haikus containing
Monosyllabic grunting
Unacceptable

Five words Scott. Beat that!!!!! (Said with a laugh and smile)

Psychotic since birth
Medical Marijuana
Fixes A1nut

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Nuclear Warfare
Humanity's Destruction
Skynet Arises

Who would have thought you could write poetry about Terminator?

Who would have thought that
You could write poetry
About Terminator

--M. J. Young

Humiliation
Many thunderclouds building
antagonizing

two posts

the ants are marching
one by one. Hooray! Hooray!
Get out of the way.

-my mom.

Brock, I was about to praise your haiku for only using four words, until I counted the syllables. Only 15. It's 5 syllable for the first line, seven for the second, and five for the last. Total of 17. For a true haiku that is.

(Doing Therapy)

Two Posts

And I think to be in the true spirit of a haiku, the lines have to be independent. Scott's and some of mine are really good examples. Line 2 shouldn't just finish line 1. They should all be independent of each other. Not just a 17 syllable sentence with three line breaks. Three separate lines. You could almost imagine a story unfolding from the simple lines that Scott wrote. I think in the true spirit of a haiku, that's the way they're supposed to be written. We had a foreign exchange teacher from Japan when I was in elementary school. He loved haiku poetry. I just forgot most of his teachings on it until Scott reminded me.

(Doing Therapy)

Of course, the haiku written in Japanese count moras, not syllables; as speakers of English, we don't really pay much attention to moras, so we use syllables instead. (Likewise, speakers of Japanese don't pay all that much attention to syllables.) I try not to be too terribly strict about other peoples' haiku for that reason - by writing in English, you're already bending the rules, so a little more leeway here or there probably won't hurt.

I try to make sure my own haiku are 5-7-5, but that's because I like that structure. Some people - certain professional translators, for instance - prefer to abandon the syllable structure in favor of capturing the impression that haiku are intended to make.

I say all of this out of a passing urge to show off. Haiku brings that out in me.

[Edit: this quote is from Brock: ]

Nice one Scott, that from personal experience?

Thankfully, no. I just read a lot of Garfield when I was small; my mother owns the first decade or two in paperback. Come to think of it, the haiku is rather reminiscent of the three-panel comic.

I like yours, too, by the way (fifteen syllables and all), but I like your mother's better. Ants make good poems.

___

You know, I didn't expect anyone to rise to the six-word haiku challenge, but there are some excellent ones here. (John, I'm not sure which of yours I like more - "Nuclear Armageddon" or "movie's terrible".) I couldn't help but notice the counter-challenge:

Haikus containing
Monosyllabic grunting
Unacceptable

Five words Scott. Beat that!!!!! (Said with a laugh and smile)

To which I respond:

Nutritionally,
Chocoholics' champion:
Antioxidants

Victory. (I hope no one writes a three-word haiku in response, 'cause I'd be hard-pressed to compose one with two.)

Actually Scott, I did write a 2 word haiku, although I'm not certain that:

Supercalifra-
gilisticexpiali-
docious: Childish

Really counts.

EDIT:

You know, I didn't expect anyone to rise to the six-word haiku challenge, but there are some excellent ones here.

Not expecting someone to rise to your challenge is when you usually get into trouble. ALWAYS expect someone to rise to your challenge. And thanks for the compliment on my poetry. I read your haiku, and it got me thinking about that foreign exchange teacher we had. Everything just came back to me. He would go on and on about haiku poetry.

Oh yeah, and Brock, I wasn't harping on you. Not trying to be mean. I just thought I would explain these a little better. I know you like to learn, so why should I deny you that? It would be a sin and a crime against humanity for me not to correct you so you can improve yourself.

My haikus have issues, but T:S had less than I expected.

Wrong JohnA1Nut
I think the show was quite good
Terminator Movie Nice

Just watched Terminator Salvation with the Ladyfaire,and I mostly enjoyed it except for the line about everyone deserving a second chance. And I enjoyed that the tough guy who fought for the right was a Southern good ol' boy.

No problem John. I take everything you say with a grain of salt, since I seem to understand what you're really trying to say so little. Plus, you're reasoning is correct.

Beneficiary
socioeconomic
Justifiable?

How did Skynet know to go after Kyle Reese though? That's what no one could figure out. (Probably better not discuss this here though.)

Tadeusz Allowed
To have his own opinion
But I disagree.

I like the movies in order. First is my favorite, T2 second favorite, etc. I'm really big into the Terminator, and this didn't really fit into the lore of it. Reese says in the first movie that they stay down by day and move around at night. In this one, he says exactly the opposite. That kind of bothered me a little.

(Doing Therapy)

Two Posts

Great Haiku Brock, and thanks for understanding.

(Doing Therapy)

I've been a mediator before, that is a peer mediator-in school you know? I'm very good at understanding. To this day, people still take their problems to me.

My diagnosis is paranoid psychosis.

Not a haiku, but still poetic.

(Doing Therapy)

His diagnosis:
Paranoid psychosis
One syllable short

Oh God oh s--t oh
God my F---ing head's spinning
Oh God oh s--t oh

A psychotic episode (sort of)
Turned into a haiku.

EDIT: MJ, if you want to delete this one, go ahead. I can see why you would.

John, you know that I don't like to delete posts. Apart from the fact that the moderator system doesn't always work on the first try, for those of us who are moderators, deleted posts and spam posts and suspected posts and unapproved posts all show as "+N" (where N is the total number of such posts in the thread), and since I can't remember all the posts I delete I find myself checking to see whether one of those posts is one that should be approved. So it's not ever convenient to delete a post, and doing so makes it inconvenient for the rest of the forum's life.

So the better choice is, if you think maybe I would not want a post on the forum, don't put it there in the first place.

Thanks.

--M. J. Young

MJ, in this context, "Delete" is a generic term for "Make the information in the post disappear, by whatever means you have at your disposal." If editing it to be a blank post would "delete" it, then you could do that. Since you didn't, I'm going to assume that you didn't find it worthy of doing so. Or perhaps you're going to do that now.

Mother-in-law dead
Time to cry or celebrate?
Only MJ knows....

Two Posts

Oh hey, it suddenly occurred to me that the above could be seen as moderately insulting. I believe a death is not a time to cry, but a time to celebrate. MJ, being the only person who called that woman "Mother in law" (at least that I know about) would be the only person who would know if crying was appropriate, or if celebrations were in order. She has gone on to meet God, after all.

And MJ, really, sorry about that blog post. It sounded hilarious in the book, not so much after I posted it, and even less so after I considered what it was really saying. No offense intended.

(Doing Therapy)

I don't know whether this is finished yet; I was composing it yesterday while driving, and finished it last night. Also, I owe the best line to my once two-year-old son Kyler, who expressed what he saw in this brilliant image:

Watching trees turn into roses,
Colors splashed across the land,
Brilliant patterning discloses
Brush strokes of an artist's hand.

Then fall finishes the story:
Branches stark against gray sky,
Reaching for a blaze of glory,
All things fade, and all things die

Buried in the leafy soil,
Covered in a cold white shroud.
Clean the slate; throw off the coil:
New beginnings are allowed.

--M. J. Young

That's a really beautiful one Mark!

Thank you, Nikolaj; I'm pleased you liked it, even if most of it is probably rather derivative. Sometimes originality lies in knowing what disparate pieces to combine. I remember writing that in an article once.

--M. J. Young