And Haiku to You, Too

This weekend, after a harmless conversation about Oprah Winfrey and Lean Cuisine, I got to thinking about haikus.  (If you were a part of the conversation, you’d totally understand.) 

The thing I love about haikus is their ability to convey a fully-formed and (mostly) coherent thought in the smallest amount of space.  For those who don’t know, a haiku is a Japanese poetic form consisting of 17 syllables broken up into a pattern of 5-7-5.  I’ve often found that haikus are like hand grenades: deceptively small until you pull the pin and watch the explosion that follows.  You’ll rarely find a poem shorter than a haiku, but when you actually read it, it will leave you wondering at how something so tiny could say so much and fill your brain with so much awesome.

For writers who find themselves a bit too wordy, writing a haiku is an excellent way to practice the art of brevity.  Sometimes it’s hard to stay concise and only say what is absolutely necessary in order to make your point.  With a haiku, it’s nearly impossible to add unnecessary fluff.  As an added bonus, writing haikus may just stir some story ideas in the process.

And now, because I apparently love to embarrass myself, here are some haikus I found on my flash drive from about two years ago which I doubt have ever seen the light of day.  Some…probably don’t make any sense.

Sulfurous meadows

No Sound of Music lyrics

Toxic daffodils

Yellow rubber ducks

Float in pools of soap and suds;

They would rather drown.

Hooked like yellow fish

Who starve their gills on land,

We fight the stale air.

Thunder roasts white clouds,

Lets the lightning burn their skin.

They just need chocolate

Calmly, the foot rests.

It takes on inhuman tasks,

Then turns to living metal.

Eternal keyboard

Presses down and won’t let go.

Ctrl. Alt. Delete.

Broken windowpanes

Reflect light on concrete floors:

They’re starting to crack.

Streetlights change in mood

From green to yellow to red;

Beware the sudden yield.

Drunken lilies lie,

High on toxic pesticides.

Dandelions laugh.

Waiting for red hoods,

The wolf tends to transgender.

Gran has secrets, too.

And because I love Batman and his villains, here is a haiku I just wrote dedicated to Harvey Dent:

 A darker night brings

The dawning of a new face:

Two sides of one coin

As always, happy writing,

Shannon