don't pick up the cash
there is nothing you can buy
that can save your soul
---
crumple up the coloured portraits
into tight little balls
proceed to ignite
---
banksters celebrate
your life is their confetti
your gold for their straw
---
I see ER 2
Far too much in this photo
A ponzi scheme, no?
---
Leaving the toilet
He gave me a dollar bill
Didn't wash his hands
---
Money world over,
Economic Recession,
Everyone wants some!
---
Colourful money
Colours the understanding
of papers real worth
---
silly consumer
which shell is the pea under?
None. It's in your brain.
--
all the money gone
banks broken with lies, insane
now we must eat words
33 comments:
Wow, it feels like we're getting somewhere here. Way back when, I'd post every single thing on the front page. Now it's necessary to be a bit pickier. To a certain extent this is unfortunate since I'm exercising my own tastes. But I don't know that there's much to be done for it really apart from keeping my fingers crossed that I don't get anyone's nose out of joint. I shall do my best.
Actually the original concept was that I'd pick the best three and only those would grace the front page. There's certainly an elegance to the concept. I may yet do it. Mind you, whatever I was on about in the previous para, would be 'more so' under this system.
Actually does anyone have any thoughts on this matter? I'd be keen to hear them. And sure, I might ignore them. Ha! But never mind that, tell us anyway.
Otherwise, I grooved on all that stuff for the fool. Very good. Lots of interesting takes and directions. In fact that's why I made the blog. If we all wrote the same thing it would be as dull as dishwater.
And what with me as a dizzy fellow, I've started losing the plot on who's who. I have a feeling that we have new people whom I've failed to say hello to. Hello folks, I'm glad you're here!
And Su (you asked if I've been over at some other site) are you Susana from Africa? Regardless, I haven't been to that site. Well, I'm pretty sure. I'm a forgetful fellow and I madly leap from place to place, not paying too much attention to where it is, or whether I'll go back.
PS. Without wishing to wield a stick, can I gently nudge people in the direction of using the linebreaks? Which is to say, haiku are seventeen syllables, sure, but this is broken into three lines. And not for no reason. Ideally each line should be a discrete part, ie. a sentence, phrase, or clause. And yes, I've been guilty of departing from this myself. In fact my last effort was precisely this, ha! Really, it's almost inevitable when one attempts to shoe-horn an existing cultural reference into seventeen syllables.
And were we in Japan, haiku not following the breaks would be considered, um, not haiku. But we ain't in Japan, sure enough. Let's just say that breaking the lines should ideally comprise the exception rather than the rule.
Thanks Folks! (And thank you Mir! You can dig it, I'm sure. Yoroshiku)
Hmm... 'keep my fingers crossed that I don't get anyone's nose out of joint".
Three cheers for unintentional mixed metaphors!
What's a syllable again?
Never did pay much attention.
Correct me if wrong teachie.
crumple up the coloured portraits
into tight little balls
proceed to ignite
Yes the southern hemisphere one.
A kit of paper bricks
for your tower of Babel.
See you at the top!
Nobody, can't you just continue to be arbitrary and capricious in your rule-making/breaking? That way, it's like a little school in here that helps force us to adjust to the world.
I see ER 2
Far too much in this photo
A ponzi scheme, no?
the walls of my shack
money helps insulate us
the queen is ugly
Whimsical, Brian, whimsical. And yes, I can. I'm pretty sure my family doesn't have a family crest, but were I to create one it would have the Latin for 'I just make this shit up as I go along' written on it.
With a pair of rainbow lorikeets rampant, ha ha.
I knew you could do it. Whimsical sounds too wishy-washy to describe your quality, too lightweight, it seems to me that your style is more strongly willful than that, well-seasoned with humor for sure but there is some steel in there...whimsical people don't have the joy in aggressive demon-bashing that you do...
Leaving the toilet
He gave me a dollar bill
Didn't wash his hands
Ha ha ha - Grrrrr!
took it to the bank
they were glad to reserve it
in case of the runs.
Money world over,
Economic Recession,
Everyone wants some!
Pieces of paper
Bewitching of their holder
Worthless in the end
Colourful money
Colours the understanding
of papers real worth
thinking in song as usual, if I may take a liberty with your Haiku blog.
advance apologies to you nobody :)
Ya know though lyrics can be poetic
Or prophetic?
Money, its a crime.
Share it fairly but dont take a slice of my pie.
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today.
But if you ask for a raise its no surprise that they're
Giving none away.
banksters celebrate
your life is their confetti
your gold for their straw
silly consumer
which shell is the pea under?
None. It's in your brain.
You're onto something Mr. K; whimsy feels right but there's a sense of something much larger (and perhaps scarier, but isn't that always the case) coiled up and ready to strike at a moment's notice should injustice raise its meaty, rheumatic fist within view.
I only suspect this because I too house such a creature, and it is primarily responsible for my having studiously avoided rising to meet the "potential" I have been told I possess by those who would steer it to their own ends. To do so in the way I would naturally has the very specific effect of leading me into head-on conflict with the managers of the global mindfuck.
And we all know they have no time for haiku.
Which I believe the good Mr. N already knows, and why we engage in these weekly poetry gatherings: to keep the bots and spiders at bay!
Not to mention providing a friendly cranial workout to specific parts of the mind to those who may not use those particular mental muscles as often as they probably should.
For the two of you who are still uncertain -- and you know who you are -- here's the formal breakdown on haiku, complete with a funky little diagram to help build a fresh mental picture:
Five/syl/la/bles/here
Seven/syl/la/bles/here/plus/two
Five/syl/la/bles/here
That's the pattern. And as Mr. N so succinctly stated, if you're not in it you might be poetic -- but it is most definitely not haiku.
If you're uncertain of the number of syllables in a word, it can be fairly reliably "sounded out" by speaking the word aloud slowly and picking out the phonetic breaks, as in syl/la/ble.
Lacking faith in your own mouth and mind, the answer also resides in just about every dictionary ever printed, as one convention since the days of Oxford über alles is to list the words with their syllable breaks clearly marked.
What has this to do
with fiat paper you ask, naught I
say, but it's haiku
At least structurally. As Mr. N also made clear, each line is meant to be a discreet package of ideas, linked together but stand-alone in their conceptual nature. The last example above clearly breaks this line break rule.
Wily Japanese
before the radio and idiot box
Very creative
While this does not read as "proper" Engrish, it is in fact a lovely little tongue-in-cheek textbook example of how the game really works in its most basic form.
Our host Nobody
Knows the rules and respects them
Until he breaks them
Odd Miraculix
Using rules as camouflage
A cynical soul
Nobody's friends
Some know the rules, some do not
They write what they want
Haiku is a form
Forms are not rules, but guidelines
As Kennedy said
Consider stanzas
Paragraphs, sentences, words
As discreet packages
Distill inner wisdom
Eliminate all but essence
That is a haiku...
...and no item laid down with such linear drive and posted sans review would be complete without the follow-on "oh hell" corrections as I review my diatribe for the first time by the light of LCD screen.
The worst one of all is the first counting example, which hides the very first F-up in plain sight: seven is two syllables, not one. When my aging brain asked me to check, I looked at my handy laptop Webster's and was surprised to find it listed as one. When I lokked again, it still felt wrong so I grabbed the big book of the nearby shelf. Also Webster's, FWIW. Two. Right. Try not to take me as seriously as I take myself. Whimsy, what I need right now is a fresh dose of whimsy... =)
haiku to you too
here we have 7 PLUS 2?
thank you! Gesundheit!
Doug, I like the distill part of haiku form. I wonder whether that is easier in Japanese. It seems like in Engwish we need articles and prepositions and such that kind of rack up the silly bull count. So should we cut ourselves more silly bull slack when working in Engvish then? I should be asking Nobody all this of course but your post was so long and authoritive I think I got a mild case of Stockholm syndrome and have imprinted on you as the Uberdaddy now. Which may be lucky for Nobody as my Oedipal Complex was starting to hatch plans for pre-emptive strikes. "If you meet the Nobody on the road, kill him."
doug,
In your wily Japanese one, you have more than 7 or 9 in the second line. But this appears to be in the interest of making the "nice package" about radio and idiot box vis a vis haiku in the days of yore..
"radio idiot box" as your second line would not have worked, too distilled, missing your point about times prior.
So, is this kind of a good example about what I was trying to say about articles, prepositions english vs japanese. Maybe we need a form of "Big Gulp" Americanized haiku because we can't squeeze into those Japanese genes? So maybe Su anticipates this and just blows thru the difficulties without noticing on her way to feed her guinea pigs...
Bloody hell! You go away for five minutes and come back to find you're being psycho-analysed. And pretty well it seems! "coiled up and ready to strike" Ha ha ha ha - spooky!
Since we're on the topic, I'll tell you what it is. Only one thing makes me angry, and that's having my intelligence insulted. And that's why I hate liars and bullshit artists - they insult my intelligence. Um, amongst other things, now that I think about it...
But the fact remains that if I twig that my intelligence has been insulted, it's like a switch has been flicked.
But! As much as I like talking about me, I detest talking about me. So, since it's all about me, let's stop. Truth be known I'm a very dull fellow.
Aargh, still talking about myself. Hmm... there must be someway to stop. Perhaps if I push this orange button below...
Well that worked a treat.
As for syllables (Sorry Susana! I didn't realise that that was a question. I thought it was a haiku with you screwing with the count for comedic value. No really), where was I? Oh yes - let's not forget poetic licence. Which is to say that in Japanese, every letter is a syllable, same same. Or more precisely, Japanese has no syllables per se. There's just letters. And that's what they count.
Actually here's the romanised japanese alphabet -
a i u e o
ka ki ku ke ko
sa shi su se so
ta chi tsu te to
na ni nu ne no
ha hi hu he ho
ma mi mu me mo
ya yu yo
ra ri ru re ro
and 'n' pronounced 'ng' and used to end words such as wakarimasen (= 'I don't understand').
It's all very straightforward. Until you put it into English. In Japanese 'tokyo' is not two syllables. It's four. Tokyo should be written Toukyou. (Since Japanese vowels are never dipthongs to get 'o' as in 'toe', and the same for the 'kyo', requires two letters. Sure enough we don't write it that way in English since we'd want to pronounce those vowels as 'ow', as in 'how now' or something. Thus 'In Tokyo' is three syllables for us, but five for the Japanese - to,u,kyo,u,de ('de' = at/in)
Have I confused everyone yet?
Anyway, what with English lacking phonetics or otherwise being sensible, defining haiku by way of syllables is actually only an approximation of the Japanese rules.
Oh! I forget to mention poetic licence. Since in English we can elide vowels, everything goes to hell. And I'm cool with that. Subseqently I'm prepared to consider the word 'every' as three syllables (ev, er, ree) or two (ev, ree). Likewise, 'innumerable' can be five (in,num,eh,ra,bull), or four (in,num,ra,bull). Whatever works.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter. Hopefully that's made everything clear. Or confused everyone. It'll definitely be one of those two.
PS My Tokyo example aside, haiku in English are far heavier than they are in Japanese. Japanese haiku in are REALLY minimalist. Subsequently, having too many syllables is making a bad problem worse. But having too few errs in the right direction. If you can dig it.
PPS Aargh! The battery's running out and I still haven't written a haiku! Back later. Oh, and good haiku everybody. And Mir, bravo.
first I steal five bills
then you bail me out seven
my bonus is five
hey minimalist!
this money will satisfy
evaporating
harvesting the notes
plenty callous, just not on skin
starting to sweat, though
edit:
harvesting the notes
calloused but my hands are soft
starting to sweat though
don't pick up the cash
there is nothing you can buy
that can save your soul
Ardent worshippers,
their eyes a hell-bent glimmer
for this, their god.
Trinity be damned -
this God has a thousand faces,
each stamped on paper.
Thirsty or drowning?
All who worship Mammon are,
one or the other.
And hello to Solong Suckah and debbn maid. You both get the gag, obviously. Very good.
very stuffy job
endless pocket yoga bends
spend, I need some air
all the money gone
banks broken with lies, insane
now we must eat words
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