Amplifying a recent comment, I give you what is essentially a guest post by “richardelguru” (thus, “I” = richardelguru, not Cuttlefish):
Some years ago, and for one of my silly radio essays, I invented (unless anyone can come up with an earlier attestation) the hairimeraku.
As its name suggests, this is a bastard of the limerick and the haiku.
All (or possibly more) than you ever wanted to know about the form is hereand here.
Anyway, due to the lack of violent public protests, I am thinking of wheeling the damn things out again for ‘Hairimeraku Trek III: The Wrath of Camus’ and it occurred to my innate writers’ laziness that If I solicited some from others it would save me absolute minutes of effort.
Anyone up to it? I’ll of course credit any submissions (Hey! If it fills space with even more lack of effort…)
If you can’t be bothered to follow the links (and I don’t blame you)
“…the hairimeraku consists of seventeen on (a term that can be loosely translated as ‘syllable’) rhyming upon the fourth, eighth, eleventh, fourteenth and seventeenth on, in the pattern AABBA; (this is a damn sight easier to do in Japanese where almost all words rhyme, than it is in English translation where hardly any of the buggers do) and finally having it’s kireji (the caesura-like grammatical break), usually on the eighth on or fourteenth on, or occasionally on the eleventh on or rarely on the fourth on or indeed on the seventeenth on; and even finally-er, the best of them having both seasonal and salacious aspects as befits their combined ancestry. …”
A certain amount of hypermetricallity is tolerated (especially with feminine endings and extra-especially in the last line).
Autumn rain drips,
Walking girl slips.
Yobs cry “Ha!
“Boo!” and “Ya!”
—Foolish quips.
A young lady,
Name of Sadie,
Cherry pit
Wants to spit
Somewhere shady.
Or this which investigates propriety frankly though enigmatically:
See that girl there
Climbing the stair.
She should know,
Crowd below…
Underwear.
Come on, especially The Lord Cuttle himself, and post some here and become … what’s the word?… Famous? Notorious?? Ignored???…
Frankly (Cuttlefish back here again), I think this is fantastic. So I’m going to leave it here on the front page, and let you all have at it while I grade papers and essay tests. And with luck, I’ll be so annoyed with grading that I will fling myself headlong into hairimeraku. And yes, you can post them in Japanese. And by all means, follow those links; having invented the sepielle, I am frankly fascinated by the evolution–or perhaps, in this case, the hybridization?–of verse forms.
Grading papers
After capers:
Each line is
F minus…
Bring vapors.
Teacher annoyed
Remembers Freud:
Always worse
When in verse…
Mark it void.
What bodes ill next?
Bad essay text.
Read and weep,
Slice it deep,
Feel less vexed.
Of course now I’ll have to justify “the Wrath of Camus”
Albert Camus
Hit by gnu doo:
Cried “In Spring
“Aardvarks’ll fling
Now gnu too!”
Doesn’t quite do it, though it does manage the correct plural for game animals.
BTW thank you for the re-post sans riposte. :-)
memehunter, I bet I can guess what you are doing (or escaping from) at the moment
Supreme Court nods
At calls to gods.
Bye bye the gate
‘Twixt church and state.
Silly sods!
Somewhat topical, if technical:
Secret pipe needs
Keep-alive feeds
Client asked
More than tasked
My heart bleeds.
Maybe I’m an idiot, but I can’t find any way to contact you privately so this will have to do. It is regarding a comment you left in my blog recently on my thoughts regarding a letter written by Jonathan Swift. I have taken your comment seriously and have tried to examine your claim, but I find it wanting. It is true that Swift is a satirist (I said as much in my own introductory line of the man) but to then suppose that everything he writes is therefore satire… it is like saying that since Swift is a poet (also true), he can only write poetry. And judging from his religious affiliations (he was the Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral) and his other works (like An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity), I sincerely and respectfully think that you might have erred in your characterisation of Swift in reference to his A Letter to a Young Clergyman.
Don’t tell me Swift wrote Hairimeraku!!
(Though, on reflection, that last comment is probably aimed at someone other than me)
I’m off to England for a few days, but I may get a chance to work on essays.
Is everyone, apart from k0k s3n w4i, OK with me including their contributions (with the attribution as their posting name)?
The piece will be broadcast on the syndicated Weekend Radio sometime in the future (since the past is already taken, but otherwise I never really know exactly.)
Now I’m just waiting for hairimeraku with the breadth (if not the length) of a Paradise Lost, or an Inferno or that thing by Vergil about the weapons and diseases of the dog (How does that one start “Arma virumque cano…”?)
And, yes DC I am looking at you! :-)
“In the beginning”
Too much sinning
Paradise lost
Christ crossed
–God winning
“Abandon hope”
The damned grope
Nine Hells
Concentric shells
–Ask the pope
Who can it be
who tends to see
spring in air
everywhere
– Wait, that’s me?
@richardelguru, I at least have no problem with that.
notta lotta
galsa hotta
hi-heelin
she’s feelin
teetatotta
Rancher won’t pay
Gunslingers play.
Might is right
If you’re white –
Mooching’s okay.
Sorry,misread the rules.
Rancher won’t pay
Gunslingers play.
Might is right
If you’re white –
Mooch away.
No more extra syllabubble.
He swore love then
Time and again
Mocked my fears
Gave my tears
To other men
His eyes held wide
My lover lied
Innocent
Arrogant
Satisfied
do not demean
my chosen scene
exciting
inviting
and obscene
agonized squeals
herald my meals
for in life
all is strife
and alleles
From ‘somewhere in the south of England’ as they used to say (in WWII IIRR)…
Wow FTB is the cat’s whiskers and the fount of all knowledge and wisdom.
People here really do contribute!
The fish, cuttle,
Wiley, subtle.
Not a fish,
Nor a knish…
Sad rebuttal
Bubble, bubble,
Toilet trouble.
Oh what Woe!
I must go
On the double.
And of course Our Mutual Mastercuttle rose effortlessly to the Miltonic-Danteësque challenge. I sense the two of them rotating merrily in their graves over their combined waste of all those extra lines.
Unsure of form
Am I getting warm?
Trying to rhyme
Taking the time
So, hey, what’s the harm?
Maybe I’ll sing
To hear how it swings
Between each verse
(Could sound quite worse)
Give it a fling!
I’ve no dispute
Use my name – cute!
Though my rhymes’ lame
Part of the game
I’ll contribute
Lucifer fell
Straight to Hell
For his freethought
God’s wrath he caught
Freedom is swell
Beezebub
Got himself drubbed
Back in time
Did no crime
Aye, there’s the rub!
Wanted to be free
Of servitude, see?
God took offense
(’cause he’s quite dense)
Unblessed trinity.
Springtime disease
Pollen in breeze
This way flies
Itchy eyes
– Think I’ll sneeze
Regicide
Says MacBeth’s wife:
“Beth, take king’s life”.
Duff wins the bout
Beth moans “Life is nowt”.
Wife uses the knife.
Jealousy
Brave but dull
His trust is null.
Iago sly
Dez must die –
Othello the gull.
Revenge
Dead his sire,
To Hamlet’s ire.
Poison’s served
For some, deserved,
But *all* expire.
Unfilial
Lear names his hour,
Resigns his dower.
Daughters betray,
Lear flees away.
So, don’t cede power!
Some old verses in a related form.
An enthusiast poet
Wrote limmericks as haiku to show it
Could be done wellish,
Though it was hellish
To let a Tweet fad grow it.
A limeraiku sublime
From two split haiku in two and three lines.
Fourteen syllables
Twice sent legible
And grouped in limmerick rhyme.
Cerulean sky. A tree
Eucalyptus white, Graceful curves and me
Painting a picture
Solitary lecture
Of an elegant tall tree