The Two-Line Pass

Konnichiwa again.

Partly because I have recently taken a shine to Japanese poetry and theatre (what?), and partly because it will be much, much easier and quicker this way, I have decided to preview the season for each conference in the ancient art of haiku. All teams will be covered in the order in which I believe they’ll finish. Yes, these are meant to take some thought.

dark-haired aggressors
blood mingles with their war paint
lo! their savage grins

primordial fear
the deep their briny palace
a feast ‘neath the waves

the supple earth charred
scythe of the great leveler
Kagutsuchi’s light

their skill yet unmatched
fading heroes, standards borne
sanguine mail ragged

Northwestern keepers!
a nation’s pride rests in you
defend its ideals

the mighty river
songs of sorrow washed away
fresh currents bring joy

again you grow tall,
deciduous sentinels.
no man holds sway here

a pack prowls the night
their hunt a success, feeding
now sated they howl

a calm appearance
submerged fury betrayed!
they paddle nowhere

winter’s brutish truth
bitter wind tears through pretense
tattered cloaks, dreams dashed

eyes in the tall grass
for years they waited to pounce
their chance never came

their plans in ruin
a fiendish court’s young victims
slumping in great thrones

fast news travels slow
the inky void’s brilliant dots!
this light is long-dead

crude imagining;
a fate black as its namesake
unhappy tundra

once they rumbled down
softly alighting today
the sky’s pallid tears

Arigato.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Opinions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.