Thursday, October 15, 2009

Middle Age Haiku

And now, in honor of my esteemed 9th grade English teacher who taught me the delicate art of haiku, I present a short collection celebrating the life and frustrations of the middle aged.


Pink slip lies crumpled
in old hand, replaced by young.
Arbys is hiring.


Dental work and cars
are the grief of all good men.
Bills. Bills. Bills. Bills. Bills.


"I'm freezing," "I'm hot"
though temperature's constant.
Hot flash rules the day.


Rugged pinecone falls
To sail upon the water
Seeking distant shores.


Menopausal wife
Arises, then sits again
To mourn her lost youth.


Creaking bones arise
To face another morning.
No pushups today.


I eat no more now
Than I ate when just a boy.
Whence come these handles?


You need some wheels, boy
To visit your girl in town?
A bus pass ain't much.


Argue 'til your blue,
Son, you still don't get the car.
We own this keychain.


I am no chauffeur,
Yet the miles I drive the kids
Make me cross...country.


Went to Disneyland.
Fought the crowds for five whole days.
My dreams are of queues.


Breaking wind at night,
Sheet rises, then slowly sets.
Hope the wife's asleep.


Feel free to add your own in the comments section.  Remember: 3 lines, 5 syllables in the first and last lines, 7 syllables in the middle line.

Keep your arms and hands
Inside the car at all times,
Stay seated. Have fun!

4 comments:

  1. Yarstruuli,
    Please delete my previous entry. I wrote the sonnets late at night, didn't catch my typos. Normally, I wouldn't mind a typo or two but not in a sonnet.
    Thank you
    Wes

    I truly love the elegant simplicity of Haiku...

    Spider weaves lace arcs
    Across winter-stripped branches
    Show not warmth in dress

    It was yesterday
    The wisteria in bloom--
    Ice across the bay.

    Finely featured petals
    Wither with growing dawn,
    Better they have not hearts.

    Comes the winter snow
    On Timpanogos mountain
    But with spring will go.

    Great fun!! Might I suggest an Italian sonnet or two. 14 lines; first, the octet, which rhymes ABBA ABBA; then, the sestet, which rhymes CDCD EE; the lines should be pentameter (10 syllables); the rhythm is predominantly (not perfectly) iambic.

    I.

    I have been told that heaven is only light,
    Which means there'll be no bursting of the dawn.
    And I'll not feel the brooding of the night
    When I am gone--when I at length am gone.

    And are there streams there, flowing all the time,
    Polishing the pebbles in their deep,
    Close to the mountain's foot where starts the climb
    Up over trails that are both rough and steep?

    Will there be stars? And will the breezes blow?
    I can't believe no birds will be there!
    And can there be a place that has no snow
    To bring the flowers, fragrant everywhere?

    Believe me, I shall miss the pulsing spring
    When I'll not hear nocturnal robins sing.

    wlmathis
    II.

    Prince Hamlet laid his tongue upn the truth
    The mocking, awful, dark dichogomy
    Of life: that man inhabits in his time
    Two worlds, and knows them simultaneously

    He is sublime, the paragon of flesh,
    In reason noble, great in faculty,
    In form so gracious and in action fine;
    In apprehsension like a god is he.

    And yet we crawl between the earth and sky,
    Our hands all stained with dust, our eyes cast down,
    Our lives as base as earth, and full of fault:
    Far better for us had we not been known.

    Dear God! We are thy children stumbling here;
    We know so little, and so much we fear!

    wlmathis

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thought I fixed "dichotomy" and "apprehension." This is what happends when middle age becomes old age. First, hair starts to grow in your ears and then the eyes go, which would be OK since I have glasses, but the last to go is memory, which means I seldom know where my glasses are. Sorry for the inconvenience. Just erase one of the entries above. I can live with "dichogomy" I suppose.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I was stumped by "dichogomy" so I dove for the dictionary (another habit inculcated by a different English teacher - God bless them all). You may be surprised to know that dichogomy is actually a word that has something to do with hermaphroditic cross-fertilization.

    Kinda weird, but I guess it could fit with the bit about knowing two worlds simultaneously.

    I'll stop now.

    ReplyDelete
  4. you two are both nuts
    first class hippie throwbacks
    wishing I were you

    ReplyDelete