CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

(I like poetry, but haiku seems to be the only type I can write. Well, here you go.)


With a few short words,
Can seventeen syllables
Capture Your glory?

Captivate my heart
O Lord, keep my eyes fixed so
I can't look away.

I offer to him
A rotting heart, filled with cess.
He accepts with joy.

Weep without despair.
Bittersweet the strangest praise;
Joy in the mourning.

Sin, you stupid beast,
Your hold on me is broken.
Must you whine so much?

I just love haiku.

With a few short words,
Can seventeen syllables
Capture Your glory? I have written haiku with a similar theme. It's a good theme.

Captivate my heart
O Lord, keep my eyes fixed so
I can't look away. Another good theme. This one reminds me of that one hymn: Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face, and the things of Earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

I offer to him
A rotting heart, filled with cess.
He accepts with joy. I really like this one also. The hard thing about giving someone feelback about their haiku is that they're so short, one can make a comment or two about the theme... but then runs out of things to say.

Weep without despair.
Bittersweet the strangest praise;
Joy in the mourning. I like this last line, but I am not sure what the haiku means collectively.

Sin, you sutpid beast,
Your hold on me is broken.
Must you whine so much?Heh. I liked the first two lines, but the third one made them even better. I especially like your imagery here.

very good

Anna Mae wrote:
Weep without despair.
Bittersweet the strangest praise]I like this last line, but I am not sure what the haiku means collectively.[/b]

Honestly? I don't know either. I wrote it at a time when everything in my life was all peachy-keen, but I was depressed for no reason anyway. I wish someone could explain my own poem to me.

Sin, you sutpid beast,
Your hold on me is broken.
Must you whine so much?Heh. I liked the first two lines, but the third one made them even better. I especially like your imagery here.

This is an attempt to write in the style of Kobayashi Issa, my favorite haiku-ist and one of my favorite poets in general. I think it's something like what he would write.

By the by, here's a couple Issa poems for comparison. Note that after translation, the syllable count doesn't match anymore.

Spring thaw--
The village is flooded
With children

All the time I pray
To Buddha, I keep on
Stomping spiders

Sadly, this is the poem Issa wrote on his death-bed:

A bath when you're born
A bath when you die--
How stupid.

Issa never was satisfied with Buddhism, but it was the only religion he knew and he tried to follow it piously his whole life.

"Weep without despair.
Bittersweet the strangest praise;
Joy in the mourning."

That was my favorite of yours. I admit I don't get the second line, but the joy of Christ in the midst of sorrow is a great theme.

Since I'm getting some good feedback, I'll post some more:

Announce the wedding
Without delay---at last! Lamb
And Bride together.

Leprous heart, poisoned
Soul---I wither at a touch.
He finds me lovely.

(this next one's more of a proper haiku, since it has a natural and seasonal reference)

Is it only birds
That will sing to You praises
At first light of spring?

(next, another Issa attempt)

The devil I served
Wants me to go back to him.
I couldn't care less.

Announce the wedding
Without delay---at last! Lamb
And Bride together. Once again, the last line containes the crucial twist.

Leprous heart, poisoned
Soul---I wither at a touch.
He finds me lovely. I really do like these poems quite a lot.

Is it only birds
That will sing to You praises
At first light of spring? Once again, this is really good. I like how you give such a short verse a profound challenge and application to our lives.

The devil I served
Wants me to go back to him.
I couldn't care less. Your last lines are really excellent. I enjoy reading your haikus! I hope that you continue to post them.

Not a worship one this time. Instead, I'm going to post a haiku I wrote regarding my Greek Philosophy/Old Testament Beginnings class, in celebration of the completion of my big term paper on the Iliad. (The Iliad, in case you didn't know, is a really long poem by some dude named Homer that takes about 12 hours to recite out loud.)

I soon realize
Upon finishing Homer--
I prefer haiku.

It took me not long
To see that you're the master
Of very good haiku

Weep without despair.
Bittersweet the strangest praise;
Joy in the mourning

I might not get what you want from that, but I dont think its that hard to understand.

Ratrace wrote:It took me not long
To see that you're the master
Of very good haiku

I thank you, but I
Can't help but notice that last
Extra syllable. ^_^

[quote="Animus Seed"]
Weep without despair.
Bittersweet the strangest praise]

Okay, here's a perfect example of what this poem means to me. I went through some bad holiday-fallout and was in a really bad mood for a week. Really bad mood. Like, I couldn't even eat. But I'm fine now. And, funny, now that I'm in a good mood again, now I take the time to write poetry about my experience. And, seriously, as different as these are from the earlier ones I posted, I swear up-and-down that I am, in fact, in a good mood right now. And, despite the pessimistic tone of these, I do in fact consider them to praise God in some way. So, with that said:

So, it seems the gard-
-'Ner who tends Dante's forest
Is absent today.

Drowning in a lake
With no name. I reach my hand
Out---nothing to grasp.

That syllable was
Not noticed by my slow brain
I am embarassed.

I can sympathize.
Haiku are so short; I tend
to run out of syl-

I soon realize
Upon finishing Homer--
I prefer haiku. Clever. I like it.

So, it seems the gard-
-'Ner who tends Dante's forest
Is absent today. Unfortunately I have not studied Dante yet, so I do not fully grasp the meaning of this poem.

Anna Mae wrote:So, it seems the gard-
-'Ner who tends Dante's forest
Is absent today. Unfortunately I have not studied Dante yet, so I do not fully grasp the meaning of this poem.

The "forest" in Dante is the 7th Circle of Hell; the Forest of Suicides. No one's guarding it. I.e., "What's to stop me from killing myself?" Asking myself that question seriously, it turned out the answer was, "Lots of things!" and then I was in a good mood.

[quote="anonymous"]
=\ this one:
"Weep without despair.
Bittersweet the strangest praise]

I like that reading.

These next three are one poem:

"Paulo Maiora Canamus"
("I shall sing of greater things")

To start, I shall sing
Of the goodness of wisdom
That ordains justice.

And second I’ll sing
The beauty of love itself,
And the day love died.

Then in conclusion
I’ll sing loudly of truth, and
The power Truth holds.

In what language is the title?

Is this all there is
To writing a good Haiku?
Just counting fingers?

Seems rather silly
that such simple trickery
could form such a ryhme.

I like the bit about counting fingers.

Anna Mae wrote:In what language is the title?

That's Latin. I stole it; it's the opening line from the Roman poet Virgil's "Fourth Ecologue."