Time for our fourth annual SPECULATIVE FICTION HAIKU CONTEST! Anyone can do this!
As a reminder, here are the rules:
For haiku, the typical subject matter is nature, but if you decide to be traditional, you must give it a fantasy, science fiction, or horror twist. We expect to be told that the peaceful wind you describe is blowing across a landscape of an unfamiliar, distant planet. And if your poem is about a flower, we hope that elegant little touch of beauty is about to be trampled by an Orc. We welcome the sublime as well as the humorous, the pedestrian along with the momentous.
Though you may use the traditional three-line haiku following a 5-7-5 syllable pattern, feel free to break that pattern. Many poets who write English haiku adhere to other expectations:
- Written in three lines, though sometimes in two or four lines
- Often offers a juxtaposition of two images or ideas
- Doesn’t rhyme
- Often uses a season-term or a word/phrase that implies a time of year
- Employs compressed, objective, descriptive language
- Often divided in two parts (the break usually comes at the end of the first line, the middle of the second line, or the end of the second line).
As inspiration, here are a few from last year:
To tremble and rage
Is the nature of the sea
Caught between two moons.
The engineer dreams
Of an AI breakthrough
As the AI dreams
Of breaking through
Blackened limbs wasting,
Water ceasing, stones settling:
Our final season.
Tentacled spheroid
Sitting by the warp-drive doors
Please don’t drip acid
Elric’s Grand Sword Fights;
Ripples Across Multiverse.
. . . (i’ve lost a button)
Our interference
Disrupts the spinning seasons
Wakes the sleeping one.
Meditating minds
Explode into the future
Dragons flying high
You may write as many haiku as you like. We’ll choose one author to win a book from our stacks.
Pink Toes and Crickets
I sit in my cave,
Admiring my soft pink toes,
Eight to be exact.
Cricket chirps softly;
Drool drips from mandibles.
Crunch crunch crunch gulp burp.
Pink toes slowly step;
Many eyes watch for danger.
Scuttles back to cave.
Blank pages mock me:
Infinite, white, inviting.
Where do I begin?
This is a little too close to home, Mark.
Are an AI’s dreams,
Virtual reality,
Or a glitch in time?
Fire in the sky
Apollo’s chariot burns
Under Phaeton’s lash
No one remembered
The dragon that had died here.
But now, it’s teeth grew.
A knight, clad in words,
Bears a sword without a name,
Defending the lost.
Leathery wings gliding
Above the winter storms,
And hungry eyes searching.
The classic Haiku 575 I wanted to offer is:
Stalker Haiku
© Andrè M. Pietroschek, all rights reserved
See a lurking foe
Who is too cruel to care
A living nightmare.
But I really read your wishes, and going freestyle I offer a myku-interchained:
Iteki-Freestyle Haiku-Myku, ahem, I meant: GROAR!
© Andrè M. Pietroschek, all rights reserved
A beautiful woman
with passions of dark, sad origin
rose too high to reach.
My heart’s dark waters
are a trial for the soul,
risky and deceptive.
Faith is a whisper
blowing strongly through my soul,
guiding my way forth.
Honor embodies
the sword of truth, loving hearts
despite of anguished darkness.
In such monastery within,
where the soul humbly dwells
true ascension can be found.
A lone fox barks
in the calm forest night,
what indomitable urge…
Before I announce the winners, I want to say how impressed I am with the quality of poetry this year. Wow!
Andre M. Pietroschek, if you live in the USA, you win a book of your choice from our stacks.
Please contact me (Marion) with your choice and a US address. Happy reading!
Wish I was this creative! Great job everyone!
Hello fellow Haikuers! Our Eighth annual Haiku contest is going on here: https://fantasyliterature.com/giveaway/eighth-annual-speculative-fiction-haiku-contest/