The Haiku Foundation Forums

Marty "the gate/where she fell"is a powerful image.

I don't think Ive written a good death haiku yet, and Ive been on an accelerated dying track for the last twenty years. For me its easier to express the feelings in free verse. I admire the examples given, such testament to the power of non attachment,  or maybe it'd thoroughly metabolized attachment.

William Ramsey's book "More Wine" is all death and transformation and transcendence, just read it last night:



         not letting go
     the piece of honey
        on your lips   




   faith: accepting the wave,  a dying seal's flipper

Marty (and all) thanks for sharing. Yesterday Charlie Mehrhoff posted this on Facebook...for me it brought such light to the quandary of this "(maybe) misguided cycle of recording" that for a moment I was free of it.

   last words
   again

   
   haiku heaven

Is one allowed to waffle in the Sea Shell Game? Now that I think more about it, I like the Sweeney poem more. If it were a one-liner, it would be too congruent with, or evocative of the ephemera/wave theme of the poem. "of my life" stands on its own to anchor the gaseous nitrogen and the galloping horse...the result is a paradox, a "big thought" in a small poem. The Natsuishi poem is all-ephemera (as Vida suggested), and although more immediate, does seem to slip from the mind as do its subjects.  Today, I vote for the one that stays.

Thanks, John. I've learned something here.

And a favorite socially relevant haiku:

homeless
no woods
to get lost in

-Vincent tripi

 I like the imaginary numbers better...although at first glance and because of the word "imaginary" it seems more abstract,  I found it more immediate. I like "the white horse of my life " as an image/symbol but I think it would have been more effective as a one-liner. The dangling "of my life" feels too weighty reminiscent of love song cliches perhaps.

Yes. Building on previous posts:  I recently heard that some school literature programs are in the process of replacing classic novels with owner's manuals.Perhaps the brevity will lend itself to the new curtailed curriculum (not to mention ADD...plus the increasing popularity of beherenowism in every field.) That sounds cynical. But I agree that quality notwithstanding, it does seem to be an extremely timely form.

This probably applies to haiku written or studied today in any language.