Haiku is a small poetry with oriental metric that appeared in the XVI century and is being very popular mainly in Japan. It's been disseminating in all around the world during this century. It have an old and long story that reminds the spiritualist philosophy and the Taoist symbolism of the oriental mystics and Zen-Buddhist masters who express much of their thoughts in form of myths, symbols, paradoxes and poetic images like the Haiku. It's done to transcend the limitation imposed by the usual language and the linear/scientific thinking that treat the nature and the human being as a machine.

It's a contemplative poetry that valorises nature, colour, season, contrasts and surprises. Usually it has 3 lines and 17 syllables distributed in 5, 7 and 5. It must register or indicate a moment, sensation, impression or drama of a specific fact of nature. It's almost like a photo of some specific moment of nature.

More than inspiration, it's need meditation, effort and perception to compose a real Haiku.

From: http://www.lsi.usp.br/usp/rod/poet/haiku.html

I felt like a man

who bought the wrong size rawl plugs

for a hole I drilled

no spirit level

wonky shelves, all jaggedness

the first autumn frost

did not stir the paint

as prescribed on tin label

bathroom now shameful

slipped with Stanley knife

red tides of embarrassment

need many stitches

click together floor

wood for patio decking

half price this weekend

old wheelbarrow

more sturdy and meritous

than newer version

I would be a fool

directly into plaster

fix a picture hook

 

my heart leapt and sang

a six speed Bosch hammerdrill

 spring cherry blossoms