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Sunday, April 1, 2012

Day 1: Roger Zelazny haiku

In April, I will
post one Roger Zelazny
 haiku every day. 

That's the announcement. Here's the first haiku: 

Roadmarks was fun to
read. Want to know why? Timyin
Tin was fucking great!

(Also, he and Archie exchange haiku during their fight.)

Archie:

"It looks as if white
flowers fall upon my shroud. 
Your hands are so pale."


Timyin Tin: 


 "To leave the world in spring,
with flower guards to honor:
it must be peace."



(I personally pronounce "pale" as a two-syllable word, which would bring Archie's up 18 syllables, but that may be an artifact of my dialect. I've checked with a number of online syllable counting sites and they count it as one syllable.)

Also, when talking casually about haiku, we usually say they have 17 syllables, but traditional haiku consist of 17 on which don't always map directly to English language syllables. I believe it was Zelazny's intent that the exchange be a pair of haiku and I'm inclined to defer to his expertise in matters of poetry.

3 comments:

  1. I'm looking forward to reading these!

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  2. Thanks. And this is actually a real thing and not an April Fools prank as the timing (and the subject matter) might imply.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I open the book
    Pages ruffle like feathers
    Death recedes...for now

    ReplyDelete