saved

Death will always strike
the important matter is,
is your soul saved yet?

--------------------------------
not that good of a poem. but true. very true.
-ghost-

Death will always strike
the important matter is,
is your soul saved yet?


Saying is is just doesn't create any sort of cohesiveness . In a haiku you are supposed to describe something using the utmost barest of language, you just basically said the future is uncertain and the end is always near. But in a less interesting way i.e. you dont have the Doors singing it.

A great example of a good haiku is in Dharma Bums when Japhy is describing a good haiku and says
the sparrow hopped
along the oak branches
with wet feet

He goes on to say that its a great haiku because it leaves the imagination to create a world where there is a sparrow(create the sparrow) in an oak(create the oak), and the sparrows feet are wet(create an infinite amount of settings where sparrows feet can get wet.)

not to be preachy, just trying to be of service.

amen.^

Hi, grey ghost!

Well, personally, I am sort of a haiku addict. I read them all the time and am constantly creating them, even unconsciously. It's hard to make a good haiku.

Traditionally, in Japanese haiku, an aspect of nature is always mentioned. Either the first or last line connotes to a season and the haiku can usually be read as a single sentence. Take, for example, a favorite of mine:

Crescent moon--
bent to the shape
of the cold.

This haiku is great because it gives us a visual of the hardships of winter. You can also convey an idea through a haiku as in a regular poem:

This stupid world--
skinny mosquitoes, skinny fleas
skinny children.
(both by Issa)

Like the first reviewer, I see an immediate problem with repeating "is". If you can think of some other way to repeat it, that would be best. Read it as a sentence. What you have now is heavy and clumsy to say out loud. If you read these that I have copied above, they are flowing and light, like clouds.

You might be asking why these that I do have above aren't 5-7-5 syllables, like the rules. Well, remember, they are translated from Japanese. But that's not even the point. Real, traditional haikus don't follow syllable rules at all. They are much freer than that--short, simple, easy to read. Don't limit yourself.

-Cassie

I dont see much of a haiku in there really - I'm not an expert in the field but I like to read them because they can pack so many words into such little phrases. I feel like your hasn't got much of the depth that you were going for.

I agree, it has some depth for certain people, but if I read this, or someone read it out to me I don't think be enlightened but instead feel somewhat opinionated. It reminds me of old debates we used to have in Religious Education and well.. Let's not go there.

You had a nice little rhythm to it though, a soft of gentle flow which all good haiku's should have in my opinion and I particularly like the first line simply for the matter that I've just finished reading a book debating whether or not it would be wise to find the source of eternal life;

"Life is knowing that death is coming and without death there is no life."

Amen indeed.

grey ghost wrote:Death will always strike
the important matter is,
is your soul saved yet?

--------------------------------
not that good of a poem. but true. very true.
-ghost-

speaking or believing something does not make it true. It makes you certain, so I suppose it is true for you, in a way.
But that does not make it true for me or true (in the general sense of the word, I mean) at all, so to speak.

Now, put that in haiku and you might start getting somewhere.

Right now what you have is biblical piss on paper.