– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
Haiku poems often want (and sometimes need) to interact with images or prose, as in haiga or haibun. Here is a gathering of ten haiku that could stand alone if they had to. (Some would rather not.) They have been invited to come here and interact with just each other, while enjoying some good saké (or whatever).
Overlay © Incognito – Russian Federation | 123RF Stock Photo
A haiku inspired by an image may or may not speak to readers who have not seen the image. It’s hard for the writer to make this call objectively. That’s OK. As Stephen Jay Gould often told readers of his articles in Natural History, perfect objectivity is a myth anyway. (The path from my raw data to “facts” that matter to me depends on my cultural baggage and personal experience.) Rather than pretend that my judgement calls are objective, I try to compensate for my biases. In particular, some of my haiku were not invited to the party because they might be too dependent on their inspirations to stand alone. That’s OK too. Unlike me, they are not compulsively self-reliant.
Like some of the other guests, October was originally posted in a haiga or haibun context. That’s why the title it wears as a name tag is also a link. (When a pale yellow background indicates that several such guests arrived together from the same place, only one of them has a link.) Click on a link to see the guest(s) interact with an image or some prose that adds to the experience of the haiku.
Kelly green moss on
rocks near the clear quiet stream
with water striders
Lifeless? No, leafless.
Trees hold their breath all winter,
exhale leaves in spring.
Seek ends of rainbows.
You will not find them? Okay.
The quest is enough.
Debts rise; incomes fall.
Hard times demand bold action:
tax cuts for the rich!
With coprophagy
as the alternative,
you might suck blood too.
Mellow Curmudgeon 
I have a fondness for your deciduous haiku. I’ve never tried sake, but cheers to the haiku party. 🙂
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Thanks. Deciduous is one of my favorites as a standalone haiku.
Saké is somewhat like white wine. I like dry saké served cold; warm saké is also popular and is nice in the winter.
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I particularly like October and Deciduous.
Haiku
Tight crafting of words
to evoke strong emotions
Leave readers thinking
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And I particularly like the tightly crafted haiku in your comment. Thanks.
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I enjoyed the ‘repertoire ‘ of Haiku subjects – some have a jaunty feel to them, I think. My expectation is that Haikus are about cherry blossom and eternity, so good to be brought up to date. I like ‘Who Miscounted’. On a technical point, is the word ‘called’ one syllable or two ? I’ve written a Haiku with ‘called’ in it, & decided it was two syllables. Please enlighten me.
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So glad U liked the diversity of modern haiku. I wanted to illustrate how varied haiku can be.
There is a chorus in Handel’s Messiah with the words “and His name shall be called …” that is always sung with 2 syllables for [called], but the word has only 1 syllable in modern US English. I have sometimes seen lyrics written with an accent mark (as in [calléd]) to indicate that [-ed] should be sung as a separate syllable, despite not being spoken that way today (on my side of The Pond) for many words. Americans do pronounce the [-ed] in [counted] and [decided], and a linguist could probably describe some regularity about what kind of consonant comes just before [-ed].
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