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Why doesn't it rhyme? · Poetry Minific ·
Organised by Anon Y Mous
Word limit 50–1000

Original fiction.

Theme: Halloween

Show rules for this event
Spooky Future Haikus
Environment

Even Ours
Air is falling down
While the sky turns near pitch black
All stars extinguished

It Was Us
Soil with rusted red
Cities of ruin and rubble
Aliens attack

Choosing Slavery
Yay panopticon
Welcome to my home today
I installed a nest

Searching for Intelligent Life
Pavement o’er the land
Solar rooftops everywhere
Google awakens

But They’re Still Immobile
Pumpkins with fierce eyes
And intelligence we gave
Have murderous intent

Planet Earth
Trying just to live
In the greenhouse that we made
I wish I could leave

Cockroaches
Humans made this world
So perfect to inhabit
With their nuclear war

Nano
Featureless grey plain
Encroaches my habitat
We retreat daily

Own Worst Enemy
We cured all cancers
Reforested barren plains
Still have prejudice

Contamination Breach
Cities lay empty
Overgrown, crumbling, fading
Only zombies left

Bigger Than the K–T Asteroid
Subtle panic spreads
Half-empty streets abound
Sobbing in the homes

SimHuman
Simulated world
That we will escape some day
Real world has ponies

Hubris
Limitless power
Gave us towers stretched to space
Felled with power loss



Relationships

Close, but Further
Beds floor to ceiling
Space habitat with no space
My friends are distant

Played God
Super soldiers kill
Whenever they find humans
Terribly sorry

Human Studies
They’ve curious homes.
Proof of their intelligence?
Destroy one and watch.

Roboticist
I thought God was fake
At least until we built it
Hail, Omnissiah!

Genes Gone Wild
“Am I a werewolf?
Tall, hairy, and slobbering.”
“Failed experiment.”
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#1 · 2
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This is a poem(s) I want to take a while to analyze. I will be back with this one in a bit, bringing copious amounts of words with me.
#2 · 2
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Light futurist reading. I especially like the format. Sign me down as a fan.

Especially if there are ponies. There are ponies.

Considered one by one I found the haiku to be hit or miss; yet it didn't bother me much.
#3 · 3
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Sort of like I Am Legend if the protagonist wrote poetry, which is cool. At the same time I feel like the author is taking the piss with a couple of these haiku.

HAIKU.
#4 · 1
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I counted three of the poems that had a line with wrong syllable count.

I like the individual poems, but I wish there was a more uniting factor here than just all of them being thematic. There's not a continuous narrative. It's more like reading an anthology than a coherent piece. I can get that you didn't want to tell an overarching tale and the minimum word count doesn't allow for entering single haiku, but that only ends up hurting this, because there's not as much unifying sense to make a single entry out of it and have an overall impression. We've seen haiku collections entered before, but they have been the type that were organized into a narrative. With this many, it's inevitable that some will be hits or misses, but when they go in support of an overall story, then you still have that total effect to judge, and the weaker stanzas don't detract as much from it. I think this kind of thing has the opposite effect, where I'm more looking at a bunch of individual ones, and the whole survives by its weakest part.

I don't really have any suggestions for improving it as it is, since personal taste will drive what verses people like or don't, and I don't have criticisms of the content of any individual ones.
#5 · 2
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Genre: Here We Go

”Often focusing on images from nature, haiku emphasizes simplicity, intensity, and directness of expression... The last line is usually used to make an observation about your subject.”


Most of these haikus are amazing, author. The last lines typically reflect or give a huge insight into the tiny moment or world you’ve given us and yes, while some of them are obviously take the piss, the rest are solid and tell a story as a whole and as individuals.

-I’m going to review them with short lines. Some I may have just no comment for.

Not my favorite to start out with, but makes sense to start with it.
.
Had to look up what panopticon meant. Great haiku.
Oh god not Alexa she’s coming for-
This one’s hilarious.
Good.
Favorite
.
Love the social commentary
.
.
Perfect
Favorite
Claustrophobic
Favorite
Favorite
I accept him as our lord and savior
At least I get my werewolf boyfriend 😎

All in all these were either hit or miss and you hit most of them.

Best line: “Still have prejudice”
#6 · 3
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Like a couple of our reviewers already mentioned, this anthology has some hits and has some misses. Rather than try to talk about them generally, I thought I ought to actually give a couple of thoughts on each piece. One thing that I will have to note about the whole, though is that I found it very tiring to keep up the mental/emotional energy to properly read almost 20 individual entries. They all do start to blur together, especially since many of them have largely similar subject matters.

Even Ours: I like how the last line calls back to the initially confusing title. It's a nice little mini-reveal, which is a cool take on the haiku format that usually makes a revelation without actual surprise. I liked it overall.

It Was Us: That second line looks to have 8 syllables to me. Not sure if this is a localized pronunciation, but I've always said "ruin" with two syllables. This one overall has less of a reveal or the "cutting" quality that one often looks for in a haiku. While the last line gives context, it doesn't really alter the mood.

Choosing Slavery: I'm not 100% sure what this is supposed to mean. My best guess is that its trying to draw a comparison between one's home and a prison, but the last line (where we'd normally find this kind of connection in a haiku) seems only tangentally related to this interpretation. So I guess something is going over my head.

Searching for Intelligent Life: I'm having trouble figuring out how the last line relates to the first two. Since I'm sure my comprehension is affecting my reading, I'm having trouble making out the juxtaposition of meanings that makes up the core of a haiku. So I'm afraid this one's not striking home for me right now.

But They’re Still Immobile: I read "murderous" with three syllables, so the last line comes across as having six to me. But other than that, I like this one. It has both a clear break/cut, and it calls back to its title nicely.

Planet Earth: Another one that I like. It's a little on-the-nose with the last line, but in a way that I think works overall.

Cockroaches: I like this one too. Less on-the-nose than the previous one, but it still has a great moment of understanding and a good mood.

Nano: Like it as well. Saw this one coming from the name and the early use of the word "gray", but it's still nice.

Own Worst Enemy: This one has less mood than my favorites of the bunch, but it does still execute on its juxtaposition, so it's a plus in my book.

Contamination Breach: This one feels a little, um, generic I guess? Describing a pretty typical zombie apocalypse situation without really getting a mood.

Bigger Than the K–T Asteroid: I read the second line with six syllables. I might be feeling some fatigue from reading so many of these already, but this one feels kind of straightforward with how it presents the mood. There's not really any elements of juxtaposition, contrast, or imagery here, which is what I think the haiku format is most suited for.

SimHuman:Small nitpick, but I kinda want "some day" to be one word here. This one doesn't quite strike a mood other than being silly, and I think its "twist" feels more random than it feels revelational. In other words, it doesn't seem to put very much into context, outside of being a little surprising in and of itself.

Hubris: I think this one kind of suffers from the repetition of the word "power". It comes across a bit like an "of course" situation, since if power gave you the towers, then the loss of power would surely remove the towers. I personally think that finding a way to replace the first use of "power" with a synonym like "energy" would help create a stronger gap of meaning between the second and third lines.

Close, but Further: I like this one a lot; it's probably my favorite of the bunch. The last line has just enough distance from the first two to set up the "cutting" contrast, and then it does a great job of recontextualizing the mood of the previous lines. My only quibble is that the first line definitely feels awkward to me. Maybe consider putting a comma after "Beds", if the intention of the line is that the beds fill the space from floor to ceiling.

Played God: This one's another nice one. The whole feeling of sardonic absurdity that the last line creates is really nice. It's a little bland in terms of imagery, but I think it still gets the job done.

Human Studies: Unfortunately, I'm not 100% on board with this one. There's no easily discernible point of division or cleavage that a haiku would typically try to establish, so I don't feel like I'm gaining any sort of recontextualization or clarity. There's also not really any imagery, so overall it's hard to feel out this one's mood, other than the vague intellectual curiosity that I'm sure these aliens must be feeling.

Roboticist: Okay, so this one made me laugh. It's really different in tone from the other ones, and the last line throws it straight
into silliness territory. Honestly, I think I would have liked this to be placed somewhere in the middle of the bunch since it breaks up my reading experience so nicely.

Genes Gone Wild: I'm not sure how I feel about dialogue in a haiku. To me, it kind of goes against the principle mood of solitude that is prevalent in the format. As with some of the others, this one struggles, I feel, with building a good mood or creating one through insight from the second part. Overall, this one's not for me I think.
#7 · 1
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Hmm, some of these I like, and some a little less. A mixed bag, but that's what happens with a lot of haiku, I think :P

I think everyone else has said mostly everything, so just a couple additional thoughts. With a haiku, less is more, so there needs to be more meaning packed in each syllable. Some of these I feel should be expanded to different forms of poetry, because with the haiku sometimes it feels like saying it just for the sake of saying it.