Hello, Victims of Heartbreak!
The only way to avoid heartbreak is to never love, and to live without love is to not live at all.
sky waits for color sun chases away the fog dew bends autumn grass
The Heartbreak Haiku Club
My dad tentatively entered my room. This was unusual because he usually moved through the world with either swagger or anger.
He sat on the edge of my bed while I sat in my desk chair and he said something that foreshadowed all of the difficulties we would face in our relationship up until he died, would influence what kind of father I would be, and that still hurts my soul three decades later.
He looked at me failing to stop crying, sighed, and said, “You’re sensitive. You’re like your mother, you feel everything and take in everything everyone says. I don’t know how to deal with that.”
Then he left my room.
He wasn’t angry or lecturing. I’d been on the wrong side of those moods enough times to know. He also wasn’t apologetic, men of his time and place never apologized to subordinates. He was resigned.
At the time I was heartbroken because my dad had just confirmed my adolescent fears, he didn’t know what to do with me.
Now, my heart hurts for him. He lived his entire life cut off from most of his feelings and disconnected from the feelings of everyone in his life.
I’ve chosen to be a different kind of man from my father. Poetry is one of the ways I consciously work to stay connected to my feelings, and the feelings of others, without drowning.
Here is where I will let you in on one of my secrets1. I hide emotional stories inside of metaphors disguised as haiku.
Today’s haiku is not just a seasonal observation. It’s about how generational shifts are slowly transforming toxic masculinity2.
Once I write a poem and send it off into the world, it becomes its own thing. You have your own interpretation of today’s haiku, which likely has nothing to do with toxic masculinity. I rarely talk explicitly about the metaphors I use because that’s not very interesting to anyone else and it ruins the effect of the poem for you the reader.
But, by placing my contraband metaphors into the haiku, a little bit of my soul goes out into the world and that works some kind of magic. It connects you and me. This is why organic intelligence-generated poetry will always have more metaphysical heft than artificial intelligence-generated poetry.
For me, this practice also makes each poem a vehicle for dealing with the joys and heartbreaks I accumulate as I move through the world, feeling everything and taking in everything people say.
Haiku Prompt
Write a haiku that doubles as a metaphor for a heartbreak you have experienced. Feel free to be as opaque or transparent as you like. Use either the traditional 5-7-5, three-line haiku format or any other format that feels comfortable.
Please share your poems in the comments. Let’s flood the world with poetry that means something.
Be the poetry you want to see in the world!
Cheers,
Jason
If you’re a regular reader, what follows will probably not be much of a surprise. You will likely think it’s about as much of a secret as Batman’s true identity.
This is one of my great haiku heresies. Many feel that haiku should be devoid of metaphors, similes, and other poetic tricks. Bah!
inspired, writing
more and more your poems, with hints of your story help me to sustain the love within , even more
I have an increasingly clear purpose for myself
I trust this creation of yours
Have you find Spinoza to read ?
You be a great time for your poetry
Still felling here your haiku from this morning
Thank you very much for sharing