And in breaking news, water is wet.

[starlady]

Hit by a car, a
Robin lies dead in the road:
The cruelty of spring.

車にひかれた鳥、春の残酷。

My haiku are getting worse, not better. At least this one scans.

---

These are my contributions to the fact that April is Poetry Month.

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

--T.S. Eliot, from "The Waste Land: I. The Burial of the Dead"

Comments

[olewyvern.livejournal.com]

Well, that's a sight better than my contribution to Poetry Month, which involved orally butchering a number of dochmiacs and cretics. I knew it would be ugly; I get too much mental interference from my light and joy, the dactyls.

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

There's a concept in haiku (as well as in almost all Japanese poetry) called the "pivot word" which is sometimes a simple pun and sometimes finding a punning word within a larger word, or having the words sound like a significant onomatopoeia, or...you get the idea. And it is that concept above all at which I fail. My other effort in this department was much closer to the mark in this respect.

[olewyvern.livejournal.com]

I have a fairly good head for the more mathematical/metrical side of poetry, oddly enough, but coming up with substance that is witty or worthwhile is a different matter.

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

I would actually opine that that's fairly common. I think meter is by far the easier part of poetry (unless it's a really weird meter) and the witty content is harder. Of course, in poetry without set meter, I think it's easier to fake both.

[maakur.livejournal.com]

mm, macabre haiku...

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

Based on real (macabre) experience seeing robin roadkill the other day on my way to...wait for it...buy a dress for a funeral.