Haiku in English is Rafferty’s Rules.
Life pours as water
coalescing out of drops –
Momentary time.
The joy of poetry escaped me for 60 years. One magical day Haiku appeared, which so piquantly paints Japanese thought I’m forever its prisoner of delight.
While subtle intricacies of Japanese art lie beyond ability and patience, and purist adherence to format requires scholarly grasp, my hope is to simply make some art.
And Life is short.
Season words, as per essays, broaden to the subjects anything and everything. Cutting happens by pleasant happenstance.
In three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables – without trying to relate or reconcile them with ‘on’ or ‘morae’ – a syllabic constraint, sufficiently difficult to enforce word economy, creates a delicate rhythm and, importantly, sounds to my untrained ear as a pensive and reflective Basho might (on perhaps an off-day).
Nectar of the gods.
Coffee forty three beans long –
Spice exemplary.
Sheep-Ku
Thoughts form, coalesce
Key cllicks scribe to cyber-screen
New page greets the web
For me it is a perfect way of discovering life’s minor epiphanies.