Haiku See You Now!

[sooZen]

I could sit here and tell you about the fucked up day I experienced yesterday or the absolutely fantastic day I experienced yesterday (yes, Martha, I had it both ways) but instead I will leave you with some of my haiku. (haiku is a plural) I have been poet-ting and writing about as long as I can remember but I have a particular fondness for the Western form of the Eastern expression. And I think I am okay at it for it is like chess or Go or bridge, it is a life long learning experience. You never master it and are always a student.

My influences from the East are Basho and Issa, both well known for their haiku but absolutely different in style. Basho especially has been a big influence for me but my real haiku hero is Paul Reps whom I wrote a published article about (scroll down to see my article within the article on Paul, Weightless Gifts)

One of the reasons that I love Paul is that he truly embraced and transformed haiku for Westerners. Instead of copying the Eastern form with the 5-7-5 syllabic and seasonal format which suits the Oriental language and brush strokes, he created a form that embraces the Occidental sensibilities which is who and what he was.

Damned if they don't still teach the Oriental format in our schools (when they teach it at all) but they are doggedly adamant about it. Screw that! (heheh) It does tend to make me nuts, I admit but I persist on my own haiku path for I too thought that was haiku at one time. Paul and his Zen sensibilities taught me different, well along with a few other masters like Jane Reichhold who really got what Western haiku was all about and not the rote form that was really Eastern but a bastard child. (Excuse the analogy if you are a bastard, I know, I am not very politically correct sometimes.)

Back to my haiku... I consider it like a zen stick, a way of expressing and thumping someone into that AH HaH! moment when realization and enlightenment occurs. Many Zen Masters were quite cruel or would certainly be considered cruel by any civilized standards. They threw students out windows, cut off a finger, hit their students with a stick all to shock them into this moment, this present. I would never think of hitting someone or any of those other techniques as I am way too compassionate and kind (really!) but I am not above hitting someone with my zen stick of a mind. Haiku is one way of doing it for me...

Here are some examples of my haiku from Studio Eight, please enjoy and any comments, good or bad or indifferent, welcome. Rumors of Haiku by SooZen. (click the link)

Note, in order to see the links (I don't want to fool with that shit right now and put them here) please go to my journal if you wish.

[sooZen]

Geez, I am fucking lazy! No links? What'sa matter Soo? Si, no habla computerese, esse. Well, you are gonna get dust in yer eye from lagging in the rear dear! Oh well, no big deal...

Soo learned self talking from Nate (Numero Dos), comes in handy...

edited for speeling.

[stilltrucking]

My influences on Zen are you and and a bunch of other people on litkicks and studio eight.

I call it the haiku flash.


RE: judih bike series ku
http://studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=21568

[sooZen]

zen haiku
flash of in sight~
strip tease!

[judih]

off with head
out of mind
no i in sight

[Artguy]

On the cushion
There is no I in me
Crow on a limb