April Poetry: Haibun for existential dread
Playing with poetry forms can fun and serious. This time, it's serious.
Sunsets come and sunsets go and we watch, one more—like cotton candy melting on our tongue—one more. A cotton-candy sky melting over the city, making even the drab wet concrete feel pretty. One more day, one better day, tomorrow. Enough clouds, the sun is due, as if the sun were a government employee late to his shift. As if life were a stern supervisor we can bribe. Enough clouds, enough rain, please, will you accept this gift of cupcakes and a yearly ultrasound? Perhaps a run surrounded by the morning mist? Some of our offers earn us charitable smiles we drink like sorbets. Heart rate improved, the last scans showed no signs. Well done my children, spells the cotton-candy sky. Keep trying. So, we drink up, one more sunset, one more toast into oblivion, to forget that we are tin clerks on a clock, tin primates on a leash waiting to be called inside for the night, tin soldiers who
shaky-kneed, we all
face the vast unknowable
wielding a toothbrush
If poetry can be defined as playing with form and sound and expressing our deepest emotions in a condensed, sometimes compressed, shape, I have always loved poetry. Whilst narrative can be incredibly fulfilling, sometimes what I need is to just pour my mind on the page and play without the constraints of plot, characterisation, continuity.
Of course, poetry has its own constraints, especially when trying to follow a form like a sonnet or a haiku; to me, this adds an element of challenge to the play. I weave rhymes and count syllables like a gamer practices a tricky combo of buttons. Even when the topic is serious, there is a joy to this side of my writing practice.
I learned about the haibun poetry form on this website, which has been an invaluable source of inspiration in this quest to deepen my poetry play. This article is a beautiful love letter to the form, and perhaps might inspire some of you readers to try it out, too. To come play along.
Thank you for your reading, this is a first attempt at what I hope can become a regular poetry issue. I’ll catch you at the end of the month with another oddball tale!
Magnolia Fay
Oh my, I loved this. Thrilled to see you continuing to explore poetic forms!! Also the haiku portion at the end reminded me of this night a couple weeks ago when I was trying to clean my shower tiles with an actual toothbrush and having a whole existential crisis about life. Will have to tell you about that at some point 😝💕