Jacquelyn's Space

First draft of my haiku. Some are kind of silly but that is okay. You need to have a little fun with writing. 

Haiku

September 2013

 

Hot star-sun glaring,

bleaching birch trees stark

against fine blue sky.

 

Suspended summer.

Air clings, a hot, heavy wrap

stifling skin and breath.

 

Late season sizzle

tinny buzz rises from trees

teasing summer’s end.

 

Eating lunch alone,

I catch a friend studying.

Say hello, walk by.

 

Stray kitty kitty

don’t go out into the road.

Wild out there alone.

 

Horses clip clop past

Ferry horn blasting awake

Mackinac dreams.

 

Tension spent, glowing

afterward, a ghost drifts in

shifting energy.

 

Shifty weather change

hot to cold, stuffing noses.

Michigan weather blows.

 

Tuesday ninety-four,

Fast forward a few days, temps fall.

Friday’s high, forty.

 

New moon star-bathing,

I sit alone, half wishful,

Catch one gliding down.

 

Whispering trees sleep

I bask in nighttime stillness

Half-formed wish meets falling star

 

Moonlit walk, dark town

Clip clop of hooves sound distant,

Crash of waves, buoy clang.

 

Full moon bright, beams shine

painting great lake silver this night,

and cliff folly grey to white.

 

Full moon, lovely walk

down flowered dark streets with ghosts

Spiders web streetlights.

 

Geranium red,

colonial white, foiling

many blues, lake to sky.

 

 

My set of related, story haiku:

 

House cloaked by tall pine

Darkened windows, vacant stare

A woman stands there.

 

Forgotten woman,

Forsaken garden, yearning

for what used to be.

 

Dark windows gaping,

watching, shadowed, searching

seasons for lost blooms.

 

Dusky overgrowth

hiding blooms sleeping below

unseen but still there.

 

One super moon night,

clouds darken tumescent orb

creating shadows.

 

Clouds pass in time.

Full moon rises high,

illuminating all.

 

Shadows banished,

ghost woman now bright white

strains to see.

 

Her ghostly form glows,

As she peers out of blackness,

one silvered rose.

 

My naughty haiku that I actually read in class, ha ha. I was only slightly embarrassed. I knew Jan would pick out that one!

 

Lips skim un-licked head

Tongue tipples velvety cleft

Gorged shaft, hard to resist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today was an awesome day! I was smiling on the ride home from school. Finally a good one and one spent away from the kids– imagine that! I feel bad for my poor husband though. He was the one stuck with the kids all evening and he had a sore throat this morning.

I am taking another Shakespeare class so my day started off performing. I got to be King Lear today, yelling out at a storm (I was pelted with Legos by the class to mimic rain). We are working with King Lear all semester long and collaboratively writing a play centered on Flint issues. It should be interesting. Dr. Kietzman is an awesome professor and always has great activities in class.

After class I had to take care of some red tape– signing up for the Shakespeare class as an independent study. That went much better than expected considering I messed up at school all last year (because of depression and my family issues, grrr) and I think some professors wonder about me. I also had a great chat with Dr. Kietzman and she made me feel better about some of what I was going through academically last year– it wasn’t all me, some of it was actually the professors and their boring classes.

Once I got all the boring stuff out-of-the-way I was able to spend about 3+ uninterrupted hours in the library working on my poetry for creative writing; we are working on haiku. Spending 3+ hours on writing is truly wonderful. It also went much better than expected and I came up with about 23 haiku I could work with (I only needed 17), most of them in the library today. I even have a set of related ones that tell a story. Surprisingly, I got done earlier than expected and was able to get some tea before class. YAY!

Then I was on my way to my evening class, which was great! Free books– who can beat that! Thank you Jan Worth-Nelson!

We work-shopped our haiku in class; it was excellent. Class is small– only 7 people. I enjoy haiku– it is easier for me to work with– not so long. So many awesome haiku and there was lively discussion about words and writing. I missed that! I read some of my poems last and received some nice feedback. I am not the greatest at poetry or even work-shopping so it is lovely to get complimented.

I need to brush up on my poetry terminology though because I feel like I could not add much to the discussion. I hate that I don’t remember those terms. I have a handy-dandy reference card somewhere; I must dig it out. I also should put all those terms on flashcards and study them, or perhaps make a recording to listen to. I am feeling a bit better about poetry this time around but we’ll see– I don’t get as excited as some of my classmates over it and I feel bad about that. I don’t tune into to rhythm and sound as well or get much feeling from poems initially. I don’t know why I am like that. We’ll see how I do with sonnets next week; I am trying to be upbeat.

I accomplished so much the last few days, and on very little sleep! I have had a terrible sinus and allergy troubles this month. I barely got any sleep last night because of a horrendous asthma attack. I endeavor to work through it all.

Now I need to keep this momentum going (sans allergies and asthma of course).

Of course two of my nephews (the oldest and the youngest) will not go to sleep now and are playing with Legos. The youngest, age six is showing me the angry sheep he made in school, ha ha. He also made me a Lego car though he is supposed to be sleeping.