Monday, November 03, 2008

My Haiku Floweth Over

"Art of any sort has the ability to put you into the graceful state of flow. When you are in flow, you enjoy what you’re doing. You lose self-consciousness. Your sense of time changes. It disappears completely. It stops dead in frozen, perfect moments. Or it flies." (From William Wittman's Here Is What Happened To Matisse...)

Lately, I have been experiencing this state of flow, and hence enjoyment, from writing haikus. I seem to be able to write these without worrying if they're any good or not, and it's fun. I just love the elegant structure and simplicity of haiku. I have included some that I've written recently.

Here is one that references a bit on Eckhart Tolle's teaching, such as A New Earth, and chapter 107 of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love.
A drop of anger?
Is that my ego creepin'?
Welcome to my heart.
And here is one that I offered to someone very close to me to show my gratitude--no need to wait for Thanksgiving.
Thank you for holding
The mirror of your being
Up for me to learn.
In high school, I had trouble with iambic pentameter and trochaic tetrameter and other rhyming and metered verses. Haikus came easier, they just flow out of me onto the page. The ease of haiku really helps me to open up. Here's one that I wrote about that:
I find that haikus
Are more natural for me
Than writing iambs.
And, just to be a little silly, here's one that I wrote in an IM about a little too much punctuation:
Dear, please pardon me
For the gratuitous use
Of the comma there.
Ah, another one just came to me as I was titling this post. I really enjoy how circular this is.
When I am present,
My Haiku Floweth Over,
Then I am present.

4 comments:

  1. Found a great web site where the author distills news articles into witty haikus daily:

    http://www.dailynewshaiku.com/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Maybe you should try your hand at limericks next!

    "The once was a man from Seattle...

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  3. A friend of mine and frequent blog reader recently wrote a limmerick about me. Maybe she'll post it in response!

    Here's my favorite limmerick (not by me):
    Schroedinger said that a cat,
    Is alive or it's dead and that's that.
    But Heisenberg said,
    It's alive and it's dead,
    And it's state can be seen as a stat

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  4. I know a fine fellow named Ed,
    Who lived his life trapped in his head,
    Until he awoke,
    Turned his ego to smoke,
    And learned he has nothing to dread.

    ReplyDelete