Sayiku – A Distant cousin of Haiku: Some of my work from 2007

Clues – Where relevant, the first letter of each line forms a word that unlocks the poem. Some poems have sounds and some have shapes.

---

Rules for Sayiku
1.)The central feel should appear to the wanton eye as derogatory, pessimistic and pejorative. But it should in its own right have a sting in the tail that abounds with optimism and enthusiasm.2.)The ‘poem’ should invariably be a five liner. 3.)Double negative for single negative can be used. 4.)Use of the words ‘ain’t’, and ‘gonna’ is welcome. 5.)Explicit and Implicit references to nature. 6.)The first line rhymes with no other line.

7.)The second and fifth lines rhyme, also third and fourth.

Gray December

Horizons merge in shade and shelter,
Open skies like ashen fields,
Promises weary of shifting wind,
Emily wonders what Christmas would bring,
Sitting by the fire as humanity yields.

Flip Flop

Booty shake bootylicious booty bang bang,
Loosen words like bullets, bustin lotta rhymes,
Out by the bling bling blaxploited homies in the hood,
Operation Ice Heist – per a brother understood,
Dubya’s thorn on the ass come election time.

Life, According to a Sayikuphile

Or cosmic combinations unique in birth,
Created to exist, survive, die, regress, spread,
Ephemeral speck tossed about in space?
An ember, a stain, a fist on chance’s face?
Nay, ‘Tis Forrest’s box of chocolates instead.

Field of Sound

More, more, encore, encore,
Unprepared, impromptu loom,
Seven notes to weave anew?
Imbue the senses, one too few?
Creations of a mind in bloom.

Warbreed

Horror and death entrenched the damned sons,
Overkill that mapped bodies bored,
Nations will always have nations to fight,
Often a wishlist, a forged insight,
Ride to war to end all war.

Circle of Hope

A distant sea prided a gathering storm,
For rivens had once marked the barren earth,
Terrain silenced with empty thoughts withered,
Evening bore a rage that once a cradle shivered,
Reveal the hope cast a river’s vein, a triumphant birth.

Astrapo-

Prepare for the monster lurking above you,
How deep it strikes, many quivers of white,
Organs shiver with each approaching streak,
Blinding light with each resounding shriek,
Every bone cries, “This fear is mine!”

The Moth

Dodging, flickering, parrying, crystalline zag,
Evading, colourless, bleak beast of the light,
Arbitrary orbits like Men around religious beams,
Tracking tacit as a spawn of apocalyptic dreams,
Heaven or hell it holds; wondrous, mysterious night.

The Gate

1 action requires binary thought,
0 strides to a path unknown,
1 structured fractal of fear,
0 steps to cowardice sheer,
1 affirmative lesson sown.

Iron Horses

Bleak fatigued lay the asphalt shimmering,
Indifferent to a weary packer’s way,
Killing time watching encircling dust,
Endure the inner conflicts i must,
Roaming as wind, true freedom across cityscapes.

Wagging the Dog

Tis easy to sway an open mind
Or a mind consumed in hate or fear,
Mix lies with truth to blur it barebone,
Mix truths with a lie to carve it in stone,
Yet to the free seeker true, the bullet is never near.

Clouds

Gathered a troubled wilken rumbling,
Grumbling, conspiring merry making’s end,
Gloom writ every drop of rain,
Given a traveller’s average bane,
But farmers parched rejoiced the shower godsent.

Love

Summers in solitude, not a dry eye,
Purpose and reason lost to distance spent,
Sorrow rhymed on placid lakes,
Pillows wet reminiscence sake,
Seven years crossed we are one again.

Dinner

No lingering gravy or onion caramelized,
Not a whiff of spice tender in the folds of meat,
Just a bowl of gruel, a worthless pun?
And this life squeezed under a merciless sun,
Even gruel earned true is just as sweet.

On sayiku

Five times thrust into matter’s core,
Sayi-ku like a search for the spot of ecstasy,
Flow to the layered deep,
Though a tiny peep,
Sayi-ku, white as pure creation i release.

~ by ajuthomas13 on February 27, 2008.