Some haiku

The Japanese find English haiku silly and trivial. English, being so much terser than Japanese, makes writing haiku infinitely easier, and what is worse, totally denies the original aesthetic. Anyway, I have written about this before, here, if you are interested; I will not belabor the topic now.

Below are a few haiku that are more in tune with the original ideal:

roses are not
the symbols of
love; thorns are.

This came to me on a recent bike ride, as I contemplated the trials of faith and love.

— • —

hearts seek
unity; minds seek
dominance.

There is no reference to nature is this haiku, but still, I believe it works. It was formulated on the same ride but is actually close to a quote spoken to me earlier by a friend. It beautifully sums up the truth that humble love seeks harmony and joy, but that the ego-driven mind drives division and wants to be recognized for its uniqueness. Sadly, we live in a world of ego-driven minds.

— • —

post-ride, i
disdained salt water;
charlie horse.

OK, so this poem has no esthetics to speak of. But it is humorous and sums up what happened to me after my ride. It was a brutally hot day and I should have known to increase my electrolytes once I was done. Believe me, I paid the price.

Thank you for reading Some haiku. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed it and I humbly appreciate your visiting the Book of Pain. As always, I look forward to your comments.

The photograph was taken in Cranston, RI. To see my photography blog, please visit the Book of Bokeh.

john

Photograph, poem, and notes © John Etheridge; all rights reserved. The poem and accompanying notes are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 Unported License. This applies to all original written work found on this site unless noted otherwise. The attribution claimed is © John Etheridge, https://bookofpain.wordpress.com. The image is not licensed for use in any way without the expressed consent of its creator.