A Collection of Unrelated Haiku

[Ctrl Alt Elite]

Felo De Se.

The widowmaker
abandons her as he elopes
hand in hand with regret.

Hidden Weapon

A child trained to kill.
Bomb strapped chest but armed with more
- In a sense.


The Lumberjack

Willow weeps,
As maniacal Axemen cause
A nightmare on Elm Street.


Naive

Children say;
"I'll make something of myself"
but only create corpses.

Naive #2

Dark futures painted.
Crayons of naivety,
More childhood regrets.

Untitled #1

Rickets of the mind.
Beliefs balanced on bowed legs
Can't walk on water.

Untitled #2

A blizzard on the plains,
As clouds merge into mountains
- My white abyss.

[TheIllyricist]

Sometimes I wonder how to separate senryuu and haiku. Sometimes they seem to be a mix of both. Anyway, enough of my rambling, I had a blast going through these.

The Lumberjack is beautiful good, creative fun right there. The wit made me smile. Such a simple, well thought out execution of cutting down trees.

Hidden Weapon took me a second. In a sense. Innocence. Strong word play there. Hidden weapon of the child soldier is the perceived innocence they have, but a trained killer can be a child and innocence is gone. Not all, but a lot of it. Really, quite a sad haiku once you let it sit with you for a while.

The naive haikus speak to me on a personal level. Child-like optimism, dreams and hopes. Funny how we end up losing that. Perhaps from listening too much, from being restricted too much, and sometimes from our own foolish choices. We make regrets, and 'corpses'. Sometimes real, sometimes not. Whether it be the soldier with PTSD or the person on their deathbed wishing they had done more.

I don't know what to title your untitled pieces. The mind and beliefs one, ah I love that so much. Beliefs balanced on little to no evidence perhaps, or weak resolve. They can't walk over the troubled waters life provides.

I see the last one almost being like... a thought cloud. Your white abyss. The thoughts, the mind, an abyss because you can dive in and completely lose yourself til the point it becomes nearly impossible to climb out.

Felo De Se. Just. Just damn. That was sharp. That was solid. Beautifully simple, understated. Didn't know what the title meant and then it gave me that realization moment. Love when that happens.

Love your work man, some real impressive stuff here.

[Karaoshi]

Felo - Strong haiku, great opener for a collection, this told a story in a few brief lines. Very nice.
Hidden - ugh. sorry man, but that pun is just cringeworthy at this point. Way too played out, even for haiku.
Lumberjack - heh, the pun was actually not so bad here. I think because the ku had a light, tongue in cheek air about it. This worked.
Naive - This was a better look at the militant state of mind than Hidden Weapon was. Stated simply, but with poise. Good ku.
Naive2 - The first one didn't really need an extension, I feel you could have taken a different direction here. Keep it fresh!
Untitled1 - This first line is my favourite of the whole collection. Ku as a whole was ok, but great first line!
Untitled2 - Strongest of the lot, this was a very solid haiku. Really good.

[Ctrl Alt Elite]

Thanks a lot for the feedback guys... Really happy you both picked up on the innocence wordplay @TheIllyricist @Karaoshi

As for the played-ness of it, it's probably worth mentioning that that haiku, and indeed the vast majority of them, were all used in Haiku league circa 2010. Maybe at the time of writing it wasn't so bad

Thanks again for the feedback

[Karaoshi]

Heh probly woulda made me cringe back then too lol

[Emily]

Felo De Se. didn't know this meant suicide. Nice. I mean, not nice, but you know what I mean.

The widowmaker
abandons her as he elopes
hand in hand with regret.
I could probably talk about this till the cows come home. "Honey, I'm home!" lol. Seriously nice this one. Not only does it have an eerie vibe about it which is spectacular, but it's played out so well. Even the first line. Widowmaker is friggen awesome. I swear I enjoy feeding haiku way more than writing them. I love all three lines here. Just beautiful.

Hidden Weapon

A child trained to kill.
Bomb strapped chest but armed with more
- In a sense.

Line one and two came at me quite normally and then I was shot in the heart with line three. What an outstanding line it is.
And clever as hell. The juxtaposition of these two images together, as bent as they are, ...breath of fresh air.


The Lumberjack

Willow weeps,
As maniacal Axemen cause
A nightmare on Elm Street.

lol, smart. The genocide of trees in suburbia, is playing at a theater near you.
Nice wording here. Clever title. The title gives it a whole new light. I like the sense of
atrociousness it brings and yet, still a smile follows. Nice one.


Naive

Children say;
"I'll make something of myself"
but only create corpses.

Interesting. The naive nature of this is sweet, until you reach the third line and realise that
a naive nature doesn't last forever in most. And if it does, we call them simple. At the end of the day,
we're all looking at the same thing, a certain death. And that's regardless of how much UNI we did,
how much work we covered, how much we 'made something of ourselves'. Nice job on this one.

Naive #2

Dark futures painted.
Crayons of naivety,
More childhood regrets.

Similar vibe to the one above it. I get a similar feel when I imagine this picture. My favourite line was the second.
I think the second line was your strongest imo. The first and third are pretty standard as opposed to the abstract nature
of the second. Just my two cents. You wrapped it up quite nicely though with the ending. It felt cemented.

Untitled #1

Rickets of the mind.
Beliefs balanced on bowed legs
Can't walk on water.

Rickets of the mind? Geeeet outta here! That's great. Friggen brilliant lateral thinking with that one.
I also like the second line. I think bringing the rickets in again and meshing it on beliefs was a good direction to go in.
lol Love that third line. Short, and almost mute in auditory tone. It seems like a half sentence, a half word, half thought,
unfinished but ...finished. Weird, I can't explain myself well with this, but I hope you know the feeling I mean.
Also, 'can't walk on water' means so much. No miracles are popping up tonight. No rabbits pulled out of hats.
No obvious happenings. Yet again, cool haiku. But...brillliant first line. It leaves a mark.

Untitled #2

A blizzard on the plains,
As clouds merge into mountains
- My white abyss.

Noooooo, this is divine, that last line, I want to dive into it. I'm not really into winter, the cold, snow and what not.
I can handle it for maybe a day but then I just want a little umbrella in those gay ass cocktail drinks to make me think
I'm somewhere tropical. But that last line changes all of that and makes me want to fall into white clouds and snow and
make love there lol. 'My white abyss' is a great name for a band, a title for a book, verse, 'My white abyss' are three words
that belong together because they marry so well. I'm in love with those words.


I enjoyed the haiku here. It's been a while since I've fed some of these and I forgot how much fun they are to feed.
Not so much fun for me to write lol but fun to feed. Great body of work here, nice display of your mental art.
You have a talent. I like it.
Great Stuff.


Cool Read.