garage cleaning day
my father’s fishing pole
wrapped in dust

Published by

Ray Rasmussen

Ray Rasmussen's haiku, haiga and haibun and articles have appeared regularly in the haiku genre journals. He's the managing editor of contemporary haibun online. He dreamed that in a previous life he was a university professor, but now spends his time feeding the dogs, doing housework, writing and doing photography.

29 thoughts on “”

  1. 13th birthday
    dad & gramps inspect
    my first dry fly

    playing him…
    the trout leads me into
    a raspberry thicket

    birthday dinner
    the day’s catch sizzles
    in a cast iron skillet

  2. how ’bout a new poem? this is a great website. hope

    it’s not your roof again.

    day done
    the roofer leaps
    from the roof

  3. Hmm, Bobby rides his horse, you ride another. It’s easier to to the American English hybrid. Doing the 5-7-5 requires more crafting. Keep on doing it..I know I do whenever I can.

  4. Hmm, Bobby rides his horse, you ride another. It’s easier to do the American English hybrid. Doing the 5-7-5 requires more crafting. Keep on doing it..I know I do whenever I can.

  5. anne, i was of the opinion i was experiencing déja vu or even an echo at this early hour.

    what if””, as i’d (once) been known to say, what if basho et al had adhered to the rules as stringently as most (today) would have (you) do .
    and yet, in all their lives, they were criticized for pursuing their (curiosity) down a different path.”

  6. anne, sad these days, most who write of the haiku would have you doing the same as was once done a thousand years ago.
    i can’t recall the last time i wrote a sonnet. these days i’m not that single minded.

    anne, i don’t enjoy riding the same horse day-in and day-out.

  7. A horse of another colour… may [by just being] cause the rider to choose another path… and why not_?
    Old roads of insight remain… as does the contrary -Less is More-.

  8. I think 575 still has a place.It takes a bit more discipline to mold your thoughts into a rigid form. I think the problems begins when people try to fit themselves into the 575 framework only to find they have a limb.. or two sticking out. Genetically speaking when hybrids cross it produces diversity, ultimately resulting in stronger offspring. I say lets produce healthy children.

  9. Anthony, in general I agree with you. Bobby, sometime I agree with you. My concern arises when writers approach haiku as an I can name that tune in 9 (7,5,3 whatever) syllables”” contest. The genre is already brief and making it briefer runs the risk of stripping it bare”

  10. 5-7-5
    5-7-5
    5-7-5

    does anyone understand (nor) realize it’s not about (5-7-5)

    it’s the thought(s) being conveyed.

  11. anne, if one can name that tune in 9, 7, 5, 3, whatever syllables””, then i say something remarkable has taken place.
    as i’ve mention before, the haiku gives me grief, and yet…
    i can’t seem to stay away.

    as i’ve mention before, “”there are times one has to get down to the (bare) essence””, in order to perceive what’s taking place”

  12. OK, Bobby. Yes, by its nature poetry IS more than the sum of its parts! If it were not, it would be prose. Poetry relies on the ambiguity that is figurative language; hence, there is the literal level which equals the sum of parts PLUS the figurative which, in essence, doubles the meaning, at the very least!

  13. anne, your comment is very mathematical(physics), or to say the least it borders on quantum mechanics.
    anne, i trust you remember this is an informal discussion with no malice intended from my words; having said this, i’ll continue…

  14. anne, you’ve forced me to reread my words;
    i feel somewhat at a lost.
    i hadn’t realize this was the point you were attempting to make.
    in one man’s literary sense, a prose is hybrid poetry

    in poetry and prose, they’re both poems

    whether one existed before the other is a different debate.

    however, to this i must add, the prose surely existed before the poem, it simply didn’t know of it’s own existence, until someone decided to give it a name, in hindsight

  15. excellent!! :) the contrast of the fishing poll with the chore of cleaning out the garage, plus the layering of other metaphors like loss, the passage of time… very good!!

  16. 17 english syllables is the equivalent of 20+ japanses
    sound units or on.”” 17 only applies to the japanese
    language. studies were done, 12 english syllables
    is equal to 17 japanese on. thus the ideal length
    of an english language haiku is 12 syllables. i think
    variation is essential in the written arts. language
    is always evolving and expanding.”

  17. bobby, spider, Anne … why do I feel degraded by the fact that your egos are running while while I’m trying to have a dialogue via a haiku of whatever form about a memory of my father?

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