For the past few days it’s been raining. 72 hours of non-stop drizzles, drips and downpours. Truly terrible stuff going on and it inspired me. Maybe not inspired; more like angry. Infuriated is more like. Up until a little bit ago the rain continued unabated. I was going stir crazy in the worst possible way. Not only did I not feel like going out, but even if I did, I couldn’t. What’s worse, I couldn’t take my dogs out. So the three of us have been sitting inside, slowly letting the insanity take us over.
Luckily today the rain finally let up(albeit temporarily), but before it did it inspired a poem that I jotted down. Which then lead me(as it often does) to thinking about poetry in general. Now, I’m by no means an expert in poetry. Far from it, but I AM an expert in me and things I like. And I like the things poetry does in my mind. All the nuance and rhythms and beats and RHYMING. Because, let’s face it, poetry has to rhyme. If it doesn’t then what is it? A little fancier prose. Some fancier rhythm than mundane sentences. Elegant speech, really. No more than that. I’ve been over this before, I don’t want to beat a dead, pet-peeve-y horse, so here’s my haiku. It’s in traditional 5-7-5 form, BUT it has rhythm, rhyming and other fancy poetic things. And guess what, I stuffed all that into 17 syllables. Is it perfect? No, of course not. I can be humble AND a little pretentious. MY poetry has to rhyme, not everyone shares my opinion, but not everyone———–(line deleted. If you can’t say anything nice, better to leave it unsaid).
So the haiku:
The rain, driving me
insane. Pitter-pat; I can’t
Photo from Google Image Search. This is how I’ve felt the last three days. Only not as well dressed.
stand it anymore.
Not terribly impressive, the haiku. Not just mine, I think, haikus (does the ‘s’ make it plural? I can never remember.) in general can be a little lackluster owing to the fact that they are, in total, just seventeen short syllables. One thing I really enjoy about them is their incredibly short life-span. They are with us for but an instant and then gone again, quick as thought. Three short(very short) lines to convey emotion and a message before you reach the end. I’ve seen some pretty creative ones. None that I can recall right now, but I remember in the past reading a few that stuck with me longer than the normal whisper that they are.
Every word has to be chosen carefully. Synonyms play heavily into their construction. You not only have to find the word that conveys rightly and truly what you mean. You also have to make sure the word fits into the puzzle that is the strict ‘syllabic-rule’ that the haiku must comply to.
Choosing the right word is important for all writing, not just haiku. Every word(if the author is worth his or her salt) should have at least some weight to it. Without that weight to anchor it into the ocean that is the story/poem/song then the word simply drifts away and out of the reader’s mind. And what we’re left with is a swiss cheese story. And no one really likes swiss cheese; its a little gross.
I guess what I’m getting at is the fact that I like poetry(provided it rhymes, of course) and I like thinking about things too much. Also, if it isn’t clear by now, I need to get out more. Oy.
Only ONE Today. Every Day 