Last of the Haiku

Despite the extensive training in junior high school, I have to finally admit that haiku is the most useless poetical form there is -- at least in English.  I'm sure in Japanese the form is brilliant in both its simplicity, grace and flow. But in English, the constraints of 5-7-5 are just so rhythmically awkward as to make the reader stumble through the poem in fits and starts.

Nevertheless, I read earlier today that the Salt Lake Tribune was hosting a haiku contest and the submission deadline was today at 5pm.  The catch? The poem had to have something to do with "Jello."

I couldn't resist.

Here are a few of the submissions I cranked out during my lunch break:

Dare you add carrots?
I am no vegetable dish.
Away vile shredder!

Tremulous at rest
Fearing the coming onslaught
Cries, "Hide me with cream!"

Once a small fellow
Consumed way too much Jello.
Now he doth bellow.

Jello wrestlers part
More sticky sweet than slimy
"Wanna 'nother round?"

Five Jello salads
Jiggle madly in my fridge.
Stop sisters. No more!

Sliced in perfect squares
Like finely carved temple blocks
Mormon Jello rocks!

Jello fight at night
Gelatenous gobs fly by
Hurled by spattered troops.

Wiggles and jiggles
Won't tickle any stickler.
Jello Haiku? BAH!

I still can't take haiku seriously as an art form, so these may be the last haiku I ever write -- unless someone holds another tongue-in-cheek contest. Perhaps on Yams.

Skull Candy

Milestone:  Michael (my youngest child) decided not to go trick-or-treating this year. 

Halloween, which I have always enjoyed, was even more fun than usual this year. Michael and I spent the day before fixing up the garage to look spooky and boobytraping it for the unsuspecting seeker of sweets.  Becca planned a party for about 2 dozen of her closest friends. Even though fewer and fewer kids seem to be out trick-or-treating, Halloween still seems to be anticipated and enjoyed by the great majority of the people I know.

I have often wondered what the attraction is. Is it just a fascination with the spooky or bizarre? Perhaps a desire to confront our fear of death? Or just maybe, it is an opportunity to laugh in the face of it. I wish we had the same tradition as in Mexico where on the "Day of the Dead" they eat little skulls made of sugar. Not only would we be laughing at death, but eating it, accepting it as a part of life, and ultimately surviving it.

No Battle

In a battle of wits
We all take some hits.
The question is, What can you deal?

If you're not too selective
Using naught but invective,
Your fate as a loser you seal.

Written in sympathy to those who battled this week in the pages of the Salt Lake papers over a letter to the editor I wrote. See Sheriff's Crony and Cronyism Alive & Well.