Of Sunset Haiku and verbal paintings made of exactly 81 syllables

I love haiku. It feels to me like the short wakizashi sword in the hands of a samurai warrior who lost his long katana sword in a battle with more skilled swordsmen and is forced to battle an uneven fight.

Haiku can touch the reader’s heart in a quick, throbbing moment causing tears, sometimes a smile. Just like wakizashi that sends one’s soul to the creator with a tear or... with a last smile.   

I find this “weapon” exotic and I have tried to master it when I lost my own Katana. 

All knowledge came to the west from the east. Haiku as an art form came to the West in the early 20^th century and many have attempted to master it since. It came from the east where the sun comes from in the morning to the west where the sun retires in the evening.

I have experimented with haiku and came up with a form I decided to call “A Sunset Haiku”.  I use 3 lines of 9 syllables Haiku as a building stones. I incorporate them into 9 sonnets to integrate them in one, coherent “western-tradition” poem. 

Each sonnet of the poem can subsist separately as a haiku. All nine pieces combined, develop into 9 logically connected haikus, telling a story, transmitting a message or an creating an image of a verbal painting made of exactly 81 syllables.

I feel that the Sunset Haiku found me. I did not invent it. I just followed, so I could tell my stories in a new way. If one has something to say the style is of secondary importance. Nevertheless, I enjoy telling stories using the Sunset Haiku.

Visit my other project to read some Sunset Haiku

http://thesadthingspoetryproject.blogspot.com/

Enjoy.