I was cleaning up my phone the other day—sorting through and deleting unneeded notes and photos—when I came across a picture of a dog that I had never seen before. In fact, there were five pictures of said dog. So I showed my husband the photos:

Me: “Do you know this dog?”
Dan: “No clue.”
Me: “So you didn’t take these pictures?”
Dan: ‘Nooooo. Didn’t you? Or did someone else take them?”
Me: “No clue. I can’t figure out who this dog is.”
Dan: “When was the photo taken?”
Me: “Looks like it was after you came home from Arizona, but before my sister’s birthday.”
Dan: “That’s a pretty narrow window. Oh, you had that wine night with your friends.”
Me: “… Nevermind. I remember the dog.”
Dan: “Who’s the dog?”
Me: “Nicole’s dog. Huh. I guess now we know how much wine I had to drink that night.”

Isn’t she cute? It’s my friend’s dog. Be careful: she steals pizza.

While cleaning out my phone, I also came across a bunch of haiku that I had written during Suburban Haiku’s Twitter Haiku contest. Remember that? I couldn’t stop haiku-ing. And then I kept haiku-ing.

[Read more…] about I Found Some Haiku in My Foxy Wine Pocket

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Yeah, I admit it. I went a little haiku crazy. After my last post about not being able to stop haiku-ing, I kept going. And going. And going. I’ve been haiku-ing up and down Twitter and Facebook. I think I sprained a finger counting syllables.

I wrote a shit-ton of haiku. Almost 100 all total. I won’t include them all here, but I will give you the highlights of Twitter. And also some that I didn’t submit to the Twitter Haiku Contest because Suburban Haiku is “polite society” haiku.

Haiku Inspired by Being a 40ish Mom

I wore yoga pants
And then did yoga. Sorry,
I broke the rules.

It is a good thing
I was safe on the toilet
When I sneezed just now.

I put on some clean
underwear today. Hooray!
for small victories.

Haiku Inspired by Parenting

Take the kids to work—
always a fun day for you.
Can you keep them there?

Science fair projects:
another form of torture
or of birth control?

Tweeting is lots like
parenting. No one listens.
They all want gold stars.

Will I fix your toy?
Yes, I absolutely will.
*hides it forever*

Weekly laundry time:
one pair of undies from son.
The math doesn’t work.

If we didn’t have
kids, we’d be so stinkin’ rich.
And much less tired.

My gawd! Clean your room!
I can’t take it anymore!
Suburban landmines.

Spring break is over.
Now I have the freedom to
go to the dentist.

Haiku Inspired by Modern-Day Living

It’s been so long since
I sent you that friend request.
Who are you, again?

It’s been way too long.
I can not remember why
#orangeisthenewblack.

Here at the office.
It's about as much fun as
brushing my cat's teeth.

I had a dream that
I cleaned up my house. So I
will just call it good.

I’m pondering life’s
important questions. Mostly:
Can I trust this fart?

Haiku Inspired by Booze

A bottle of wine
has 600 calories.
Sounds like dinner, no?

That wine wasn’t good.
I just finished the bottle
to get rid of it.

Going up and down
the stairs to get one more beer
is exercise, right?

Haiku Inspired by Haiku

#suburbanhaiku
week is better than #sharkweek.
Fighting words, for sure.

I’m spewing haiku.
Not all great. Still better than
spewing other things.

I'm gonna take this,
put it on a button,
and wear it forever.

Some of my very favorite haiku contained curse words and/or inappropriate topics. These I didn’t enter into the contest.

Oh, my yoga pants
My not so secret lover.
Caress my ass now.

When I hear the word
“moist,” I snicker just like a
12-year-old boy would.

To my dear husband:
Thank you for the credit card.
Want that blowjob now?

And one of my very favorites was sent to me by my friend Pattie at Bitter Ex-Nuke Wife:

Shit Fuck Shit Shit Fuck
Sharp Pieces of Hell Sent Toys
Legos can suck it.

And that, my friends, concludes my haiku hysteria. Oh, I’ll still haiku from time to time, but I won’t assault Twitter with a barrage of haiku. Unless, Suburban Haiku has another contest…

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I’ve made no secret of my blog-crush on Suburban Haiku. Peyton is simply a master of the 5-7-5 art form. (I’m totally gonna fan-girl her when I meet her in-person.) As if she couldn’t be more awesome, she’s having a Twitter Haiku Contest in celebration of National Poetry Month.

Now, of course, I also LOVE poetry—especially my own bad poetry. So yesterday, I naturally jumped on the Twitter Haiku Contest wagon and tweeted out some of my very own (bad) haiku.

It’s not always easy to find inspiration for poetry under pressure. For some of my haiku, I drew inspiration from events going on around me in my everyday life.

Shrieks, heavy stomping
Music blasting through the walls
Anthem of tween angst

It is Spring Break time.
Threats of deep cleaning their rooms
Make bored kids not bored.

I didn’t shower,
Cook, clean, or drive anywhere.
I nailed Earth Day.

What’s the only way
My husband believes I’m sick?
If I refuse wine.

For some of my haiku, I drew inspiration from some of my recent blog posts (linked for your convenience).

This drought kinda sucks.
I want to take long showers.
And flush the yellow.

Oh, my pooping tree,
Die a horrible death, please.
(Take the birds with you.)

You wish to discuss
The birds and the bees with me?
I’ll drink more wine first.

After all these years
My MIL is still aghast at
The size of my breasts.

For one of my haiku, I simply drew inspiration from my nearly broken ass.

Jillian told me
I’d have killer buns and thighs.
Yes, they’re killing me.

The problem was, however, that I couldn’t STOP haiku-ing. I was talking to the kids in haiku. I was spewing haiku all over my house. All over the Internet. And then, of course, I drew inspiration from that… for more haiku:

Can’t stop haiku-ing.
Damn that Peyton Price woman.
(That evil genius.)

Meal prep can wait.
Those screams don’t sound serious.
Just one more haiku.

I was even having conversations with other bloggers about haiku… in haiku:

To my friend Joy at Comfytown Chronicles who shared my Twitter/haiku status:

Trying to think of
A really witty reply. 
I’ll just say, “Thank You.”

My friend Chris at pixie.c.d. and I had this ridiculous exchange in haiku:

But perhaps my favorite haiku of them all?

My teachers told me
That I should write what I know.
Wine, wine, wine, and wine.

P.S. Expect more haiku from me today.

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This poem is a followup to last week’s haiku. Both are bound to make me some enemies over on the right side of the country. (Don’t worry, most of my state will fall off during the next big earthquake.)

It’s 64 out!
Cold enough for my new boots.
And a tank top, natch.

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Every once in awhile I am inspired to write a haiku. I mean, I’m no Suburban Haiku—not by a long shot. But I just discovered Pinterest and have lost a few days of my life. And, well, a contribution to Bad Poetry Thursday was born.

It’s not even March.
Stop the St. Patrick’s Day crafts.
Unless it’s Guinness.

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Oh, my yoga pants,
‘Tis your season of greatness!
Please pass the egg nog.

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After I posted my bad poem from college, my friend Jonathan texted me to tell me that poem hit an all-time low of horribleness. I believe what he said was, “Your bad poetry is really, profoundly, bad today.” I stifled a “fuck you” and told him that if you read the poem slam-poetry style, then it’s a little better. Or possibly worse. (Go ahead, try it. I’ll be here when you get back.)

Anyhow, that got me thinking that my bad poems could be used in other ways than me (and Jonathan) ridiculing them. Music lyrics, for instance. Country music even. Brilliant. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of this sooner. So I tweaked the words and turned this bad poem into a country song. Unfortunately for you me, the bad poem wasn’t quite long enough for a full song so I had to add some more content—from another bad poem.*

So, just for you, here are the completed (bad) lyrics:

He Did Not Say Good-bye: A Country Song

He passes by my doorway
 not even bothering to say “Hello.”
So many times I ask myself
 where did our love go?
He captured my heart
, and he led me on.
He stole my feelings,
 and now he's gone.

He ran off with another love 
and left me here to cry.
He ran off with another love
, and he left my heart to die.
He ran off with another love
. He did not say, “Good-bye.”
He did not say, “Good-bye.”

He said it would last forever
 and then he walked away.
So many times I tell myself,
 there’s so much he forgot to say.
He forgot to say, “I love you.” He forgot to say he cared.
He neglected all emotions—all the feelings that we shared.

He ran off with another love 
and left me here to cry.
He ran off with another love
, and he left my heart to die.
He ran off with another love
. He did not say, “Good-bye.”
He did not say, “Good-bye.”

I stand and cry as he walks away, never to come back.
Thinking of the emotions in the heart that he lacks.
I guess it must have been pretend, but I never thought that it would end.
Don’t leave me here all alone—no place to go.

He ran off with another love 
and left me here to cry.
He ran off with another love,
 and he left my heart to die.
He ran off with another love
. He did not say, “Good-bye.”
He did not say, “Good-bye.”

Naturally, once I had “lyrics” written, I had to put them to music. Or rather, I had to have Dan put them to music. And he had to sing too because my singing voice is legendary for killing animals and small children. So then it became a gay country music song. Which I really kinda love because I don’t think there are enough of those out there.

And here, my friends, is that song. Enjoy. Or not. Whatever.

* This bad poem was written about the same time as the other one so it’s pretty safe to assume I wrote it about Brian as well. Although it *was* Junior High, so it’s entirely possible that someone else had broken my heart within that same month. Or week.

I stand and cry as you walk away,
  never to come back.
Thinking of the emotions in the heart 
  that you lack.
I guess it must have been pretend, 
  but I never thought
   that it would end.
Don't leave me here all alone, 
  no place to go, no real home.
I will sit down and cry right now, 
  but I will get you back 
   someday, somehow.

“Cowboy boot” by runran is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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I loved 4th grade, and a big part of that was because I had an amazing 4th grade teacher. She had a knack for bringing out the best in her students and recognizing that each kid excels in different activities. She made sure to provide opportunities for each and every child to shine—whether it be in sports, spelling, math, art, or another area. I wasn’t the best student in the class, and I was a terrible athlete (that might be a very large understatement). So I appreciated her efforts to help the “rest of us” stand in a spotlight—however briefly.

Every year, she put together a book of poetry written by the class. Every student could submit a poem (or more if you wished). Naturally, I seized the opportunity to submit my poetry. In fact, I took “or more” to the extreme and submitted 20% of the total poems in the book. Clearly, 4th grade is when I learned the principle of “quantity over quality.”

Some of the poems I wrote were simple and sweet—what you’d expect from a 4th grade girl. Take this one for instance:

THE DOVE

Oh I really just love
Oh that beautiful dove,
Way way up high,
In that blue blue sky,
Oh why can't I,
Fly in the beautiful sky.

(You’re going to have to ignore the punctuation disaster in all of these poems.) Beautiful birds, blue skies, and the desire to fly are all very wholesome and innocent—very age appropriate. This poem sat nicely in the book with the other kids’ poems.

Some of my poems, however, were a little darker. Well, darker for a 4th grader anyhow.

THE SNAIL

Once there was a snail,
Who loved to sail and sail.
He slammed the door,
And fell on the floor,
And he was there no more.

Deplorable punctuation AND dead snails. Lovely. Okay, I didn’t come right out and say that the snail was dead; I took the gentle approach for that poem. And at least we had an adventurous snail. Fun stuff for a 4th grader. Then, further in the poetry collection, we get to my existential phase:

THE CAT

There was a cat,
That had a hat,
That was flat,
Because the dog was a rat.

I’d like to think I was already starting to explore canine identity in an absurd or meaningless world. But it’s possible that, after so many bad poems, I just ran out of ideas and words that rhymed. (Though I did later develop a fixation on Kafka and Dostoyevsky so the former is still possible.) My poems were starting to stand out a bit from the other kids’ poems, but they still seemed benign.

And, then, there were a number of poems that seemed to cross a line. Apparently, my fascination with all things dead started in that class.

THE DOG

I had a dog,
He was a hog,
He ate a log,
And sat on a frog.

(By the way the frog is dead.)

Pair that poem with the lovely one below, and one might start asking what’s going on with my home life.

THE FOG

The fog was so foggy,
The hog was so hoggy,
the dog was like a doggy,
The frog was so froggy,
And the rat was dead.

And there we have it, folks: dead frogs and rats. If my daughter Erin had produced these poems in 4th grade, I would have hoped the teacher might have said something to me. My 4th grade teacher never did say anything to me or my parents. She never let on that any of the poems might have seemed a little off. Maybe she just knew that I needed to explore different ideas and imagery via poetry.

But, then again, she taught all of my 5 siblings before me. I guess being the youngest of 6 kids kinda explains it all?

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