Monday 8 January 2018

MY (MIS)UNDERSTANDING OF THE HAIKU






A SHRIEK OF BIRDS


theres blood 
and thunder

a funeral 
         in 
           the clouds

feather volcano


~

well i used to think haiku were a cheat to shine.  

jam my square western madness roughly into eastern curves.  

it could hide there.  content cloaked by form.  

~

i was first exposed when i was gifted kerouacs book of haikus.  

they freed me.  i laughed.  

'hobos with hard-ons'.  

of course jack.  of course.  i said without sarcasm.

i was living in the garden then and snails came into the tent from round the pond in the evening to climb the tv wires.  and i must have written a hundred haikus that night.

drinking IN nature while drinking in nature.

~

poetry free of established form is openly more naked.  

established form gives emperors new clothes to any refugee sentence.  

i am ok with that.  

clothes are clothes and what is poetry if not the mind knitting itself a hat.

formless poetry is the hand-me-down poncho of the writing world.  

comfort and warmth but heavy with baggage and too theres dangerous worn holes of secret exposure.

and underneath you are more than free.

~

haiku is a small and ancient place where ideas and fragments of ideas can find an acceptable home.   

like the isle of man.  a halfway house of eternity.  

or a worthy lodge for a collapsing mind and really any effort is unknockable.

~

and in arrogance i think i have two killer last lines lined up and itching to become volcano.

but in haiku there is no killer and no filler.  only lines that are right and proper and well yes inevitable too.  

lines with a kind of light.

~

this is no game.  nothing can be more accurately called a pursuit.  tho you can and should play there.  

and ancient warriors would wade in these waters in their downtime.  to prove they are more than death once removed.

and that is very cool.

~


TIME OF THE SEASON


the past is summer

it hangs
   
   framed
   
         on the wall

    of
winter
bedrooms






Image result for kerouacs book of haikus

from pinterest

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