Hallelujah

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The moon is waning,
your breath dispelling like heat
forgotten, you rise.

---

Heaven opening,
smooth cloud abating behind
your conscience renewed.

---

Heartless sun grinning
like Loki in summer breeze
sees us burning still.

Runes of smoke mirror
here against your face, rough
like your father's tongue.

And know how we wept
to see your ruin in relief
of such pale boy skin.

When your sister spoke
cold sentiment broken slow
against your time.

We were lost again
in your honest betrayal
of what we once were.

In the time of your king
my mother cried as newborn
love was swept away.

---

Jagged is your brow
when you sight the new moon light
and breathe somnolent.

Though soft, clarity
will find you here in silver
relief by this tree.

You are forgotten
in the rich, violent song,
morning come too soon.

--

Sing hallelujah
as your body leaves this mass
too silent and closed.

For this is your night
when tears are epithets to
you, the fallen man.

And seek we, in cold
blue waters, your eternal
soul held beyond love.

---

Your mother sat by
the smooth marble of your tomb
and wept for her son.

---

But here you will return,
to our solemn family
where we are all kings.


Spoiler
Each haiku can be read seperately, however the few haikus collected between dashes can also be read as a continuation. All written with the guiding inspiration of Lumi for someone I dearly love. I hope you enjoy.
I like you as an enemy, but I love you as a friend.




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Ack! Tangent (and yes, it's really you!) these are soooooo good. I love them. I love how they build off each other, I love how they are haikus but so subtle as to appear like not haikus, I love how they can be said together and apart... they're so excellent! Usually, I think haikus are formatted srangely, but these flowed beautifully!

So yep. Love, love, love!

Just two eensy comments! :)

Sing hallelujah
as your body leaves this mass
too silent and closed.

I'm not sure if I like "mass" there just because it can either be a church service (which makes sense, kind of) or a physical measurement, but if it's a physical measurement of inertia, it's not formatted correctly, so you kind of lose the duel meaning I think you were going for.

The last haiku doesn't seem to fully finish the poem. You brought up the image of kings a couple of times, but you didn't really expand on them. I think it would be lovely if you expanded on them. :)

On a semi-related note: I love you! <3
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

Moth and Myth <- My comic! :D




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I should start off by saying that I'm not much of a poet, certainly not a 'haiku master', but I know some basics behind the art. I also hope it's ok if I go through a few of your haiku here, given that I can take a long while to think things out after reading.

I can say that I am appreciative of the fact you haven't thrown out any 'punny' haiku here. Making a 'puntactular extraordinare' with haiku seems more of the rule than the exception these days. x.x

The moon is waning,
your breath dispelling like heat
forgotten, you rise.

---

Heaven opening,
smooth cloud abating behind
your conscience renewed.

---

Heartless sun grinning
like Loki in summer breeze
sees us burning still.


Note: I only figured out that you meant for the dashes to show separate haiku, not those that continue into the next after writing the following part on the first three haiku which, I think, is interesting:

Going by your suggestion to look at this as a continuing piece, I'll call each haiku 'part' a stanza. I think first two stanzas flow the best from one into the other; they do well to carry along the imagery of a sunrise through the potentially awkward disconnect you can too easily create in haiku.

The second stanza does benefit from the presence of the first one as it gives the impression of what the heavens are parting for; in turn, the third stanza benefits from the presence of the first two to set up a sudden, unexpected contrasting 'punch' at the end. The imagery of a sunrise and a new day is typically used to signify hope and joy in a new beginning; here perhaps, you have thrown the reader for a loop by setting the image up into a very different kind of new day

I do have some minor issues with the third stanza's flow. I think it would benefit from being fleshed out over a few more stanzas as I start to get that 'too much crammed in 5-7-5' feeling from it. I love the usage of Loki, the ancient Nordic God most often attributed to chaos, to contrast the typical image of a new day. The comparison of Loki to being 'in summer breeze' and in turn to the 'heartless sun grinning' sets up the ominous premonition of a unapparently deceiving new day.

I can only guess that the final line, 'sees us burning still', means to show the out of the typical, yet ordinary, perspective of each new day: through the eyes of the personified day itself. But reading from the first line to the second, and especially the second to the third, the flow of thought has a bit of that awkward disconnect you can get in a haiku.

The middle line is a comparison that further describes the thing introduced in the first. Whereas the last line seems to describe more of an internal thought of the personified subject, the first two seem to more naturally come from a third person perspective and the last from an internal 1st person thought.

Honestly, I think starting the middle line with 'like' is what sets up this odd, invisible switch in perspective, as like is most commonly used to carry a direct comparison of two things in English. Also, you don't have the benefit of space for pronouns in haiku, one of the greatest challenges in the form. It's not quite clear with the specific wording, if what I am thinking is what is meant, and I think this is where I am getting the 'awkward' feeling from.

Separated, I'm not sure much meaning is clear in each separated haiku, despite there obviously being plenty. On this note, the first stanza works the best here. I thinks they work best together though.


Runes of smoke mirror
here against your face, rough
like your father's tongue.


Note: I also wrote the following considering the first part of the haiku seperate:

This one took me a while actually, I finally got it while thinking about what to say here. In that regard, this is a great piece. 'Smoke and mirrors', and runes are two terms largely associated with illusions and magic. A rune is also associated as being an old relic of unknown value and meaning. This sets up a downright clever way of saying 'false tears' for when you get to the second line describing this rough something against a face. This is finished with a comparison to 'father's tongue', or his words, perhaps just as fake and forced as the 'runes of smoke mirror against your face'. This one and many of the individual haiku made me think a lot more, because the words in the lines seemed so unrelated at first glance, but odd enough to want to figure out the well thought out connections.

I do think the 'stand alone' pieces here are the best ones, the ones with optional continuations work good together, but if intended alone (keep in mind my initial misinterpretation of the --- as separators here), I feel those cannot possibly carry the longer meaning in a nice neat single 5-7-5 form haiku. On this note, I'd love to see the ones that continue with even more stanzas, the first left me disappointed and wanting a little more after the end. (Which I was overjoyed to discover there was more right in front of me. XD)

---

Now that I realize my mistaking of the --- mid review, I still think it's interesting that the first two separate, and first part of a longer haiku, could still link together in a different line of thought I was going along putting them together. Reading further, I have to say, you make a good haiku Pen-Pen. Even if I started with interpreting your explanation in the spoiler correctly, all of these are very clever, much like a haiku has to be, given the strict limitations. The symbols and idioms are top notch, ranging from the direct naming of a mythological character to vague allusions of biblical themes throughout.
In the interest of actually getting somewhere and accomplishing something, I'll be 'wrong' and you can be 'right'.




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My favorite haiku is the last one. :) Really lovely. I envy your talent--I wish I could write like this!
In the midst of winter/I found there lay within me/an eternal summer



It always seems impossible until it's done.
— Nelson Mandela