Thanks to Todd Garland and Carol Warren for sending some four-line haiku. This is cool. If Jack Kerouac and others paved the way to a relaxation of the three-line 5/7/5 pattern, why not have four-line haiku?

To each his or her own sartori, I say. There can be, some say, one-word poems, horizontal and vertical poems, pinwheel poems and on and on. American haiku is supposed to break some rules, isn’t it? West Virginia haiku — why not? — can break even more rules. These are the first four-line haiku I’ve noticed, not that it hasn’t been tried somewhere. Then again, these may be haiku with titles.

Here’s the e-mail and nine four-liners, predictably light-hearted:

Dear Vic,

It seems that I recently saw in the Charleston Gazette a call for locally derived haiku which had as its subject or protagonist the feline domesticus. Tonight I jotted down a few and soon found my lovely bride peering over my shoulder eager to add her own.

So it goes.

Here are our few attempts. Don’t even begin to sort out which did what.

Trust me.

Todd Garland
Carol Warren

P.S. But do please write back if you find any of them interesting.

Beginner’s Mind
A mouse. Concentrate.
Breathe in. My eyes have not moved.
For thirty seconds.

In beauty disappointment awaits
Pretty little bird
It’s a gossamer hummer
Do I try? Drat . . . Missed!

What dangers hold the darkness?
I’ve survived the night.
Now that I’m back in the house,
Dare I catch the mouse?

Never Ending Happiness
O.K. Scratch my head
Pull my tail. Whate’er you do.
I am a Purr Slut.

Indignant Plaint
I deserve better.
The ambrosia of the gods.
You call this stuff food?

El Gato Sandino: aka “The Dean Man”
I am the Dean Man.
Not a mean man. Know what I
Mean man? Just Dean Man.

Cat + Human Interface
We don’t understand
The canine fascination
With feline feces.

To Miss Kitty:
Are you hiding now?
Or resting under a bough?
Should I call, “meow”?

Hey! This here’s my good suit!
Sidle furtively.
Rub against me. Oy! You cat!
Now I’m fur covered.

Rev. Mr. Todd Garland
Justice and Life Office
Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston
1116 Kanawha Boulevard East
Charleston, WV 25301
304 343-3360 phone
304 380-0156 fax

***

JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT

In my wanderings, preparing to present some four-line haiku, I read that the four-line haiku became a trademark of the non-conformist writer James Patrick Donleavy. I found haiku trivia, for example, that a high school class rearranged some famous lyrics, like so:

blackbird singing
in the dead of night
take these broken wings
and learn to fly

Lennon/McCartney

***

Click this fine haiku link, Haiku for People. I think you’ll enjoy it.

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