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The Rediscovery of Man
She left me last year.
Our togetherness was short-lived.
Three months and a week.
That time was enough
for us to know we did not work
enough to make it.
It was in New York
where we met for the last time,
though we never talked.
She texted me once
about how she wanted me
to leave her alone.
We were long-distance,
so to me we were alone,
both of us, apart.
She messaged a line
from an old song we both knew,
give or take a word.
She said, "Distance has
no way of making love seem
understandable."
But was she honest?
Did the distance tear at us
and reveal our selves?
Isolated selves
that hunger for more contact
when the well has dried?
In my ignorance,
I took her plea for parting
as pure selfishness.
For months I blamed her.
Never had I felt so crossed
by someone before.
I wanted to die
for someone who loved me not,
who cared for me not.
"And to think," said I,
"she was not even my type!"
Still, I hated her.
Deeply unhappy,
I took to walking the streets
in the dead of night.
Then, on certain nights,
I would sit under bridges
like a troll, waiting.
Waiting for what now?
Nothing, except maybe sleep,
for sleep without dreams.
But to my surprise,
I had a guest one cold night,
a greasy fellow.
He looked like a beast,
with his hair almost like fur,
and a big stuffed nose.
His hands were like paws,
and his teeth were sharp like knives.
He seemed not human.
Yet in my dazed state,
I did not mind his looks much.
I simply snickered.
I said, "My dear friend,
you could use a good long bath
even more than me."
He said, "I've seen her.
She's better off without you."
His dog teeth glistened.
"Who is she?" said I.
"It sounds like you know me, friend."
I was displeased.
The creature looked sad,
as opposed to sadistic,
and sat beside me.
He grimaced and said,
"The one you love is happy,
since she's free of you."
My heart tightened up,
on the verge of exploding,
or so how I felt.
"How dare you," said I.
"Look how unhappy I am!
How's this for the best?"
"It's not about you."
He said, "It hurts, but your heart,
it will get better."
He said, "If you sulk,
and cannot move on from her,
you will become me."
He said, "I know you
because I was a human
with a love like you."
"But," I muttered low,
"she broke up with me through text,
through a text message!"
"Even so," he said,
"now it's your job to move on,
to get over that slight."
He appeared patient.
"It takes time, but soon enough,
or else you'll be lost."
I said, "But without her,
who will I be right for, then?
Who can accept me?"
"Someone," he replied.
"There's always someone for you,
though you don't know them."
He continued with,
"You'll find someone in the night,
or they will find you."
It occurred to me
that lovers are discovered,
and not conjured up.
I had conjured her,
this image of my lover
as if she were built.
But she was not made.
She was not designed for me.
She had her reasons.
If I was to live,
to survive as a man,
I had to forgive.
My mind cleared enough.
We talked that night, he and I,
the beast and the man.
My humanity,
thanks to what the beast had said,
was for me to keep.
Our togetherness was short-lived.
Three months and a week.
That time was enough
for us to know we did not work
enough to make it.
It was in New York
where we met for the last time,
though we never talked.
She texted me once
about how she wanted me
to leave her alone.
We were long-distance,
so to me we were alone,
both of us, apart.
She messaged a line
from an old song we both knew,
give or take a word.
She said, "Distance has
no way of making love seem
understandable."
But was she honest?
Did the distance tear at us
and reveal our selves?
Isolated selves
that hunger for more contact
when the well has dried?
In my ignorance,
I took her plea for parting
as pure selfishness.
For months I blamed her.
Never had I felt so crossed
by someone before.
I wanted to die
for someone who loved me not,
who cared for me not.
"And to think," said I,
"she was not even my type!"
Still, I hated her.
Deeply unhappy,
I took to walking the streets
in the dead of night.
Then, on certain nights,
I would sit under bridges
like a troll, waiting.
Waiting for what now?
Nothing, except maybe sleep,
for sleep without dreams.
But to my surprise,
I had a guest one cold night,
a greasy fellow.
He looked like a beast,
with his hair almost like fur,
and a big stuffed nose.
His hands were like paws,
and his teeth were sharp like knives.
He seemed not human.
Yet in my dazed state,
I did not mind his looks much.
I simply snickered.
I said, "My dear friend,
you could use a good long bath
even more than me."
He said, "I've seen her.
She's better off without you."
His dog teeth glistened.
"Who is she?" said I.
"It sounds like you know me, friend."
I was displeased.
The creature looked sad,
as opposed to sadistic,
and sat beside me.
He grimaced and said,
"The one you love is happy,
since she's free of you."
My heart tightened up,
on the verge of exploding,
or so how I felt.
"How dare you," said I.
"Look how unhappy I am!
How's this for the best?"
"It's not about you."
He said, "It hurts, but your heart,
it will get better."
He said, "If you sulk,
and cannot move on from her,
you will become me."
He said, "I know you
because I was a human
with a love like you."
"But," I muttered low,
"she broke up with me through text,
through a text message!"
"Even so," he said,
"now it's your job to move on,
to get over that slight."
He appeared patient.
"It takes time, but soon enough,
or else you'll be lost."
I said, "But without her,
who will I be right for, then?
Who can accept me?"
"Someone," he replied.
"There's always someone for you,
though you don't know them."
He continued with,
"You'll find someone in the night,
or they will find you."
It occurred to me
that lovers are discovered,
and not conjured up.
I had conjured her,
this image of my lover
as if she were built.
But she was not made.
She was not designed for me.
She had her reasons.
If I was to live,
to survive as a man,
I had to forgive.
My mind cleared enough.
We talked that night, he and I,
the beast and the man.
My humanity,
thanks to what the beast had said,
was for me to keep.
Again, I'm not up on the subtle differences between haiku and related forms, and whether it's technically appropriate to have a continuous narrative. The syllable counts were right for the few stanzas I checked, and none of the rest seemed out of sorts.
For me, this one falls victim to a common problem with poetry: the structure restricts how much story you can tell in a single line or stanza, since you're fighting to get all the rhymes and rhythms and whatever right, so when you actually have a narrative to get through, it gets stretched and compressed by how well it can adapt to those structural considerations. The effect here is that there's a fairly short setup with a very drawn-out resolution, and it feels like a lot of it drags. The message is one I would have expected as well, though I rather like the surprise that the man immediately treats the beast very casually, despite his appearance.
For me, this one falls victim to a common problem with poetry: the structure restricts how much story you can tell in a single line or stanza, since you're fighting to get all the rhymes and rhythms and whatever right, so when you actually have a narrative to get through, it gets stretched and compressed by how well it can adapt to those structural considerations. The effect here is that there's a fairly short setup with a very drawn-out resolution, and it feels like a lot of it drags. The message is one I would have expected as well, though I rather like the surprise that the man immediately treats the beast very casually, despite his appearance.
I think the story you're trying to tell here is a simple one: a selfish man must learn to deal with rejection from love lost. However, I think some aspects of your approach may make it complex and difficult to read through.
I think attempting to compartmentalize each "individual idea" in a separate haiku may be a mistake. Some of the haiku contain very little information, sometimes an idea that could have been conveyed in two or three words. Others feel cramped. This also happens within some of the individual haiku, as you try to stick separate ideas into each of the three lines. This degree of rigidity makes the poetry feel unnatural.
It also feels like there's a lot of padding. The story takes much longer to tell than it should. Part of this is the formatting, but in some cases there are entire haiku which don't contribute much:
This haiku appears in a place where we've already spent many haiku learning this directly. Some of the same rules that apply to prose apply to poetry. Show, don't tell. Don't tell the audience something we already know.
This is less important, but while haiku do not need rigid 5-7-5 structure, so many of these take that exact form that when you deviate from it with 5-8-5 or 5-7-4 or 5-7-6 it is noticeable.
At the end of the story I am not quite convinced the man has learned. He only cares about the girl's happiness because he worries about losing his own humanity. He's still just as selfish and doesn't seem to understand what love is.
I think attempting to compartmentalize each "individual idea" in a separate haiku may be a mistake. Some of the haiku contain very little information, sometimes an idea that could have been conveyed in two or three words. Others feel cramped. This also happens within some of the individual haiku, as you try to stick separate ideas into each of the three lines. This degree of rigidity makes the poetry feel unnatural.
It also feels like there's a lot of padding. The story takes much longer to tell than it should. Part of this is the formatting, but in some cases there are entire haiku which don't contribute much:
My mind cleared enough.
We talked that night, he and I,
the beast and the man.
This haiku appears in a place where we've already spent many haiku learning this directly. Some of the same rules that apply to prose apply to poetry. Show, don't tell. Don't tell the audience something we already know.
This is less important, but while haiku do not need rigid 5-7-5 structure, so many of these take that exact form that when you deviate from it with 5-8-5 or 5-7-4 or 5-7-6 it is noticeable.
At the end of the story I am not quite convinced the man has learned. He only cares about the girl's happiness because he worries about losing his own humanity. He's still just as selfish and doesn't seem to understand what love is.
Really interesting choice to make stanzas out of haikus. I'm with >>Pascoite in that I can't quite recall how this kind of format is classified—I vaguely recall that an extended haiku has its own name/type, but I don't remember the rules and the nomenclature and whatnot.
I will actually have to disagree with >>Trick_Question in that I wish the individual haikus had stronger encapsulation of thoughts. I thought the strongest stanzas were the most self-contained, with a couple of stand-out examples being the fifth one and the second from last one. Outside of these, the ones that didn't really have a strong idea associated with them definitely felt like connective tissue to me. They brought me to the next idea (and sometimes would need to take 2 or 3 stanzas to get there), but I felt like they didn't really do anything else.
In the end, I kinda get the feeling that this could be reduced by about 20-30% if you focused on making each stanza more meaningful. I feel like you're trying very hard to make the reading experience from one stanza to the next as smooth as possible, and while that's a nice thought, it has the unfortunate side-effect of making many of these stanzas feel like filler. I think it'd be okay to risk a bigger hop or two from one idea to the next, if this means you'll be able to give the piece a greater sense of focus.
Thank you for submitting!
I will actually have to disagree with >>Trick_Question in that I wish the individual haikus had stronger encapsulation of thoughts. I thought the strongest stanzas were the most self-contained, with a couple of stand-out examples being the fifth one and the second from last one. Outside of these, the ones that didn't really have a strong idea associated with them definitely felt like connective tissue to me. They brought me to the next idea (and sometimes would need to take 2 or 3 stanzas to get there), but I felt like they didn't really do anything else.
In the end, I kinda get the feeling that this could be reduced by about 20-30% if you focused on making each stanza more meaningful. I feel like you're trying very hard to make the reading experience from one stanza to the next as smooth as possible, and while that's a nice thought, it has the unfortunate side-effect of making many of these stanzas feel like filler. I think it'd be okay to risk a bigger hop or two from one idea to the next, if this means you'll be able to give the piece a greater sense of focus.
Thank you for submitting!
It took me a few readings before the structure grew on me. I like the self-contained verses. You could roll them up into prose paragraphs. Would you lose anything? A question I'll ponder when I next inject poetic forms into my prose by removing some structure.
Very nice:
Since you're using haiku as stanzas, let me suggest giving each stanza the exact 17 syllables of traditional English haiku and then structuring the poem into two groups of 17 haiku, each section then being a haiku of haiku, if you will. You can then go Even Crazier and connect the first 5 haiku thematically somehow, then have the next 7 advance on that, then let the last 5 round the whole theme out. But then I'm a nut for that sorta stuff... :)
Mike
Since you're using haiku as stanzas, let me suggest giving each stanza the exact 17 syllables of traditional English haiku and then structuring the poem into two groups of 17 haiku, each section then being a haiku of haiku, if you will. You can then go Even Crazier and connect the first 5 haiku thematically somehow, then have the next 7 advance on that, then let the last 5 round the whole theme out. But then I'm a nut for that sorta stuff... :)
Mike
I once had a girl
friend break up with me like that.
I took it better.
I counted your lines.
The syllables weren't quite right
In a few of them.
Still, I enjoyed this.
Haiku are fun to play with.
It was a good read.
friend break up with me like that.
I took it better.
I counted your lines.
The syllables weren't quite right
In a few of them.
Still, I enjoyed this.
Haiku are fun to play with.
It was a good read.