Attemps at Haikus and Tangas...

Most people are familiar with Haiku poems.  They consist of 5 syllables, 7 syllables and 5 syllables.  The intention of a haiku is to deliver the poet's most sincere feelings, I think, without boggin them down with too many words.  A haiku is also not meant to have one, particular focal point.  As Japan is a country, known for it's ambiguity, this is not a surprising characteristic of it's poetry.  Sometimes, I try to write some haikus just to see how they flow, and below are a few that I've managed to not crumple up and throw away.

#1
Conforming to it
Awakened by nothing
Drown without water

 #2
Cold eats through night air
Taking sleep away in droves
Winter longer still

 #3
Sleeping silently
Inside everyone there is
Nothing shining bright


A tanga is very similar to a haiku, except that the syllabic structure is different.  A tanga runs 5, 7, 5, 7 and 7 syllables.  Again, the intention is meant to be concise, and with no exact focal point... just a feeling... an ambiguous one at that.

1
So I wait and wait
Finger on the trigger now
I am not able
Flowers blossom overhead
A silent stream somewhere flows

2
Keeping in motion
Frozen like streams in winter
Light comes down on all
Change directions of the wind
Listen only as heart beats

Good-bye Mr. Wind-Up Bird

Last night, I finished the novel that I was reading.  It's always sad to finish a book.  This one, in particular was quite draining, and I found myself reading through the 600 pages merely because I couldn't bear the thought of being without it... like a bad relationship.  The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami.

It was an unexpected pain from the start, the way a dreaded feeling grows inside your stomach and expands into your chest.  Nothing about it was startling, nothing like the dips in a roller coaster, but it was, slowly, painfully, sickening.  I found myself incapable of forgettin it, and unable to enjoy it, like nausea.  Moments, I wanted to sit in a well like the main character just to remove myself from the droan of it.  I wanted to be alone from it, but once it had started, it was already inside me, and there was no escaping the feeling.  It had left a kind of soapy film on my insides that couldn't be washed away.

Today I picked a new book from the bookshelf, as if I could merely open another one just to escape this empty hole, the size of a great well inside me.  But instead, I rode the bus to work, listening only to my music.  It was the first morning I had listened to my music in a long time.  Now I was thinking of the last page of that book, that sat, silent and satisfied with itself beside my bed.  I watched the scenery drift by, and I thought about the well.