Tree Frog Time - a Haiku

I love that time - the clove between day and night - dusk.

Croak ribbit croak rib...

Cut off abruptly, but why?

Only the frogs know.

And your English teacher.

Which one?  Plunkett, Bohlert, Pritchett, Arida, Schweda, the late Glenn Savan, Ehud Havazelet, Becker, David Morrell?  (Some of those were lit profs but it's close enough).   I know there were more but my rememory is taking a break.

Mrs Hertzwiger, 4th grade.

Damn.  Were you there?

Of course.  Second row from the back.

Ohhh... you were that older girl we weren't allowed to stare at.

Ok, you got my attention with "frog".  Good job.

I'll take tree frogs over crickets any day, probably because I've never staggered out of bed at 3 a.m. to find the tree frog that's snuck into my house and just woke me up.

Nice job in a demanding format.

i've had a few frogs wander into the house unannounced.  i prefer them and the geckos over the palmetto bugs any day. 

Wonderful !!!

A great poem !!!

I didn't know what to call it - I was driving home and in rapid succession a deer crossed the road and an owl took off, hence the poem, but when I got out of the car I couldn't hear myself *think* because this time of day the tree frogs are deafening.  I swear I'm gonna post a recording for all you city folk who think it's quiet in the country.  They'll shut up about the time the blankety-blank whippoorwill starts in.

The life of a poet is fraught.  Just fraught.

the blue hour

do you know who rozz williams was?

No?

oh

that's prolly a good thing

he founded the group Christian Death in the early 80's

and did a song called the blue hour

though it had nothing to do with tree frogs

unless i misinterpretted it greatly

anything's possible

Is it a group worth hearing?

uh

well that depends

they were goth back when goth was still goth

not like marilyn manson

how are your uh....

how is your relationship with christ?

Problematical

rozz was a tortured soul

to say the least

i wouldn't normally recomend him to anyone

and after looking at your music preferences on your profile

i imagine you wouldn't like him at all

it is the darkest music i've ever heard

Hard to know - I like a ton more music than I had room for.  Depends.  I love Lou Reed's Heroin, which is goth in its own way, but I was deep into blues in the 80's so may or may not have cared.

you (no offense) clearly have no understanding of what goth is

i say check him out of you tube

type in rozz williams Whorse

it's about heroin too

it's spoken word

so you can clearly understand

he was a lou reed fan too

and a junky

though when he died in '98

he made certain the world knew

it was no accident

as he hanged himself from his kitchen cabinets

"a fire of uncommon velocity" though

may be easier for you to hear

though i recomend whorse

watch the video too

No offense taken - what I know of goth is what I gather from my kid's rants about it.  Since my kid doesn't like it, he may not be the best source.  It didn't exist as a genre when I was listening to Reed.  I'll watch.  May not be tonight.

don't say i didn't warn you

and if your son wasn't a teenager in the 80's

he too

has no idea what goth is

but that's ok

it's underground

just in the 90's

it became a fad

a gross mockery of what it used to be

like Green Day to punk rock

Mama always said Goth is as Goth does. Then she'd snuff out the candleabra and fall to sleep to Sisters of Mercy or Dead can Dance.

(candelabra)

He was born in '89, so unless he was a cradel goth, I guess we can say he has not clue.  Though, he'd certainly agree about the fad bit.  He hates it.  Emo he hates even more.  Too bad as he's a very good poet, always has been, but refuses to write poetry as the Emo's have driven him out.

cradle

Oh, I'd like him. I roll my eyes at goth, but I have a towering contempt for all things emo, including its ridiculous name, which sounds like one of Rachael Ray's cutesy-poo catchphrases.

Rozz Williams had an amazing voice.  I got to see him live in NYC when he was with Shadow Project and hung back stage with him.

and i always think of Emo Phillips whenever i hear someone say emo.  pretty much the same haircut.

I like the in-between times, too. I learned to appreciate haiku after reading Bret's here on gather...he posted quite a few around the time he posted the piece on the traditional haiku not being equivalent to 17 syllables.

Just read his article.  Very interesting, while at the same time causing me to want to delete all my haiku.  Which I would except I'm kind of tongue in cheek about  it in the first place.  My stuff would never qualify as anything elsewhere but Gather.  I like the discipline of brevity, though.

Didn't mean to inspire the urge to delete. I just got so much more interested in the form after reading his writing about it and his haiku.

I think that link did not go as planned.

It's called Trad the impaler: the irony of "traditional" haiku

Here's another one.

It is exquisite. Truly.

interchange

Love those tree frogs!

I love this.  Each word is just perfect.

I knew I left a comment here... I don't see it anywhere now.  :-(

But know that I loved this haiku Sarah... and that I thanked Peregrine for the links to Bret's pages.  I used to be connected to him at one time I think, until one of Gather's early Updates lost us to each other.

I thought Bret's insights were fantastic. I've been thinking about them ever since. If I ever get out of this hole I've dug, I'm going to try to start a conversation (where have I heard *that* word before... not around here any more). There's a lot of differences between Japanese and English, and if I understood him correctly, we should be developing a form that doesn't mimic (wrongly) the Japanese strictures, but applies the same goal to an English form. For instance, he says the 5,7,5 is a common rhythm in Japanese, but the equivilent would be (IMHO) an iambic rhythm as that's how people speak in English. Other things that he brought up I don't agree with - the elimination of pronouns, for instance, is entirely Japanese because the Japanese don't have pronouns. To twist around and try to leave them out in an English form would violate another, more important rule, that the language should not draw attention to itself... And if you see him, you can tell him I said so...{;~')

The Haiku Society of America is a good resource that includes information regarding the differences between languages and the intention of the form. It is a shame that what is so compelling about haiku, how it can be a distillation of the essential, gets so lost in the discussion of mechanics. Once the form is reduced to that, it is destroyed. Re: the omission of pronouns: paring down the language to omit anything extraneous is a strategy employed with a lot of short poems (and some longer ones, to a fault).

Not, of course, the omission of all articles, all pronouns, etc., but the words that don't serve the focus of the poem.

I'm all for paring down, I just like to keep in mind that what sounds natural in Japanese will not sound so in English.  I looked at this little poem - not sure I could remove any word but (the definite article.  Even the 'and' seems to belong.  But what do I know?

All that aside, I'm really interested in the whole issue, and I thought Bret's article was great.  I look forward to learning more, maybe coming up with a form that suits me.  Of course, then I won't be able to post it to the haiku group {;~').

There was a "(perhaps)" in there somewhere, but Gather ate it.  Greedy little thing.

I had a friend who went through a stage of eliminating all articles from her writing (and others when asked for critiques). I was glad when that pendulum swung back to center. But I do like a challenge, so...I think you could retain the sense of this with,

The blue hour
when deer slide from shadows
and owls take wing.

Haiku also seem to have that last revelatory line (don't know what it is called). What if it were

Deer slide from shadows
and owls take wing -

the blue hour.

I like this one!

I'm not being very original here: it's perfect.

(Unfortunately, sometimes those deer slide straight into the road from those shadows...)

That's how I came to see it and the owl.  At that time of day I drive very, very slowly.

You're a wonderfully versatile writer.

Absolutely incredible! Mr. A Haiku is a genius!

You know, for a stalker wannabe, you're awfully slow.  This one's been up nearly 24 hours.  Pay more attention!

Don't flatter yourself. You aren't stalkable. Besides I was admiring A Haiku not you silly.

You know, Jeff, if you want to mock someone, you actually have to find something to mock them about. There is nothing more pathetic than mockery that makes no sense and isn't funny.

 Who was I mocking Aniko? I like A Haiku! I see references to his greatness all over gather. Yeah, I would like to see him write something longer than three sentences because, let's be serious.....It's lazy. Any fool could do that! But he has a way of cramming something into nothing. Get off your high horse!

 Sarah, what is it with your liberal hornets nest swarming in your defense every time I comment on your posts? This time I was nice!!

Not much of a poetic soul, are you, Jeff?

In general, I would agree with you that the majority of A Haiku's output, especially on the interwebs, is pretty lame stuff, and that the brevity and simplicity of the form attracts lazy would-be poets. It's a pity you don't notice this is not one of those haikus, though. And that's what I meant.

I know this is not one of A Haiku's lazy dribbles. I usually roll my eyes when I see these flash in the pan scribbles. But this one was special. After reading this I was instantly wondering how many licks it took Woodsy Owl to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. That kind of inspiration doesn't come by every day and is certainly nothing to sneeze at!

Well. It's better that you can see the deer slide from the shadows in front of you, than bounce off of the side your 1981 El Camino. Really, how do they expect to evolve when only half of them run away from the big bright rubber footed monsters? My money's on the owls.

Owls are way cool.  I have a bunch of them.  Up close, through binoculars, they are the scariest damn things you ever saw.  Glad I'm not a vole.

very Alicesliddowntherabbitholeish~you win the pink pill ;)

Can I have it now?

would you care for either a beautiful man or a stiff shot of Goldschlagger with that?  ;)

Oh, I like this.

So few words and they transition so well

"It is the blue hour."

I call it, "the time of the long shadows," and it is my favorite part of the day.

It's my favorite too.  I always think of the song Deep Purple:

When the deep purple falls
over sleepy garden walls
and the stars begin to flicker in the sky...

See, that's another reason we should be Gather Friends. If you need references, ask Selene.

beautiful! The natural beauty here in KY is wonderful!

I'm telling ya, Kentucky is the best-kept secret in America.  And we have Hee Haw and the Dukes of Hazzard to thank.

Beautiful...I love your haiku!!!!  (I think writing a haiku really puts the brain to work....and I love keeping my ole' brain active)!!!!!!!!!!  LOL

Sarah, you might join Mindful Poetry and post this poem there.