Do You Haiku?

Ok, I have to dig in a bit to make sure I am not sharing something on this thread I have already shared (without going back through 22 pages to see what I actually did share...).

Kumo no naka
yama no inori ni
dzuku naki ya

Cloud hidden
in the mountain hermitage
an owl cries.



Karasu no
koe ga sasou
kasumi no yama ya

The crow call
beckons to
the misty mountain!

(In the Japanese, the crow could beckon to the mountain, or beckon the mountain, for example, or the owl could cry out in the hermitage, or at the hermitage, etc----the English is too direct.)

ko no nami da
isshou dekinai
aki no asa

Child's tears,
can't come along.
Autumn morning

(Again, the child can't come along, or be together, or do something together----one possible implication is that of an elderly parent or grand parent approaching his/her final years of life, which in finality, must be endured alone---no matter how much the young child does not understand...)

 

Here is something I don't think you can do as well in English---I just found it---I wrote it back in October of 2002. I hesitated to post it but,

yuagaru no
akagai ya
akikaze samui

Up from the hot water
the red clam!
The autumn wind chills

The red clam (mussel) could be pulled up from a nice warm mussel soup with your chopsticks, warm and tasty juxtapozed against a cool autumn wind. But the red clam has a different meaning as well in Japanese. It could rise up of its own from warm or hot water, and then the autumn wind might feel good, or too cold, or the red clam may be what warms one on a nice cool fall night...

To see what this other meaning the mussel has, let me just say----next trip to the sushi bar, order some mussels, and then observe how they are served----it should come to you...

 

I haven't looked at some of these haiku in many years---I went back to my older Kucho.

Which got me to thinking------if you guys really dig haiku-----you should keep a kucho-----basically a haiku diary, or record, or notes, or a personal collection. Ku is from haiku, and cho refers to a ledger or notes or something of that nature.

You keep the haiku you compose in it, fragments of haiku, notes on technique and ideas. You might record what inspired you to compose a specific haiku, or some deeper meanings it has for you. You can record other haiku that appeal to you in it, or provide a style you want to copy. Or something you see or experience that you want to relate later in haiku form. I also put seasonal words in it that I plan to use or experiment with (even though I have several Haiku Saijiki's---Japanese haiku dictionaries of seasonal words. That's what the masters did, and what they still do in Japan-----though don't fall into the trap of the Japanese today-----they study the hell out of it, and treat it as a science, so that they lose all the spontaneity and heart and emotion that goes into it. It is for this reason that I have entered my haiku in several haiku contests at Japanese temples, and have won the contests-----and that really isn't right.

Also---I pointed it out before, but it doesn't have to always be a 5-7-5 pattern, you could also do a 7-5-5 pattern or a 5-5-7 pattern too. There is also a long form----5-7-5-7-7 (or any variation thereto, but in this case the 5-7-5-7-7 is the most common. This is called a Tanka. I shared some earlier in this thread, but here is an old, not too special, but an example, from September 2000. An extra consonant or a missing consonant is acceptable if it allows for an exceptional haiku.

oi no matsu
no shita ni suwari
shakuhachi o hiki
O-tsuki sama mo
kiki ni kimasu

Sitting under
an ancient pine
playing bamboo flute.
Even the moon
comes to listen.


Many years ago I thought of writing a book on how to compose haiku in Japanese. The grammar is really pretty simplistic, but some of it is a bit archaic so you won't learn it exactly in a Japanese class. I wanted the book to be something that even someone without any Japanese lessons could read and learn to do. It would start out with some basic vocabulary and grammar, then post-particles--the words like, to, on, in, the, and so forth which attach to the end of the nouns. Then it would move on to verb roots and conjugations, and then seasonal words, and style and so forth. Haiku can rely quite a bit on verb roots rather than whole conjugated verbs, but even the conjugations are very simplistic compared to most other languages. The last part of the book would be a Japanese vocabulary and then a dictionary of seasonal words broken down by season.

I don't know how much people would get into that. I jotted down a few ideas and notes one time, but never pursued it.

 

I think haiku can be amazing in the way it conveys metaphysical or spiritual matters----or simply how it can hint to another reality buried below the veil of physicality. This is connected to how it encapuslates a whole aesthetic experience which can then be interpreted subjectively in multiple ways, with multiple implications.

Here is another haiku I composed back in 2000. I should leave it open to your own interpretation, but imagine the other dimensional (other worldly) implications of watching the night sky play out on the surface of a pond. Or metaphorically (or literally) seeing the future, as in the old Western practice of crystal balls and mirrors...

Ike no tsuki ari
fukami yori
aki arashi


The moon in the pond.
up from the depths,
an Autumn storm.

In buddhism the moon is a symbol of enlightenment. It can be connected to death, as is Autumn connected to the beginning of the last phases of one's life, or the latter days of politics, or whatever... This haiku even fits nicely into my own philosophy which I had not yet formulated in 2000, but which, among other things, reintroduces modern Western man to the nonphysical----to essence as the ground of being within a rational framework. The surface of the pond, the moon, the sky and clouds moving in, all represent the physicality----the world of particles. But below the surface, it is the realm of the superpositioned quantum wave-field---without a single space-time position (and therefore I define it as nonphysical). But the storm appears from the depths of the pond, not from the sky, so it is the hidden essence---the Quantum Information that stirs the physical----that is reflected in the developing storm in the sky, rather than the pond reflecting the devopment of the night sky...

Ok---I will stop boring you with my explanations and what not...

 

Akiyo
rousoku kiete
kawaoto kiezu

Fall night,
the candle fades out,
sound of the river does not

 

All of my writing, from blogs to poems to haikus are usually inspired from what is happening in my life at the time, good bad or otherwise. I appreciate the explanation, not boring.

 

The rain falls hard, now.
Should I venture out or not?
Get wet or stay dry?

 

From one source explodes
Existence shows its face here
Dawn sweeps away night

I wrote that a long time ago, it just randomly popped into my head today while reading mountain valley wolf's post about existential english haikus

 

Asagiri
karasu no koe wa
shiranu ki kara

Morning fog
a crow's voice
from an unkown tree

 

Show offs.

 

Your haiku skills aren’t too shabby

 

They all went to sleep
One by one, their eyes closed shut
Morning will soon come

 

D loves her man well
He must be very lucky
Keep up the good work

 

Best haiku ever.

 

I have my moments.

Also, my first non Batman haiku!


Drinks on me tonight ladies and germs.

 

No stars out tonight
The sky is so dark right now
The rain will soon fall

 

If I could see You
I could prove that You are real
But, I still believe

 

Violets don't shrink
They grow stronger by the day
Beautiful flower

 

Mutual grasping
Brokeness, understanding
Friendship from ashes