yellow dog, haiku Options

[Orion]

yellow dog cocks leg
sprinkles yellow jessamine
new blooms wilt - leaves shine

[laryalee]

Oh Jan, I burst out laughing!
What a great image!

This is a delightful poem, and in the haiku
spirit, its only problem is that you've told
us everything, and there's no work left for
the reader?

Sometimes suspense works well...this is
one quick example:

new blooms
of yellow jessamine --
a dog cocks his leg

This allows the reader to imagine what
you have described....
does that make sense?

When we have to pause to visualize the moment
ourselves, we can experience it our own minds...
we're not just reading about it.
Then we add our own background/knowledge, so each
person's visualization will be slightly different and unique.


Also, do you mind if I ask you if you want
to stick with 5-7-5?
It's okay if you do... there are some excellent
haiku out there.
But I'd urge you to play with free-form haiku...
it does indeed bring freedom!



Lary

[Orion]

Hello Lary,

Glad your response was laughter. This yellow dog is to be loved for bringin' on the shine to the yellow jessamine leaves! Laughter is the intent for this particular haiku; so glad that worked.

I'm learning more & more about the layers of meaning within these short scripts.
They intrigue me, and I love reading & working/playing with them through writing. I'm learning more about whether to show or tell the reader ~ or whether to let them imagine more. I prefer the 5-7-5 set-up until I get my feet wet with the shorter non-traditional haiku forms. And I think with time I will drift into the inferred meanings with these wonderful Japanese-inspired writings.

Gotta go encourage that dog to move to someone else's yard now.

Thank you for your ever-inspiring comments.
Greatly appreciated.
Jan

[Cleo_Serapis]

Hi Jan.

This is full of fun imagery! A few things that caught my eye are the repeat of 'yellow' and 'leaves shine' as the dog pees on them, ! A tad too much 'tell' but fun nonetheless.

yellow dog cocks leg
sprinkles yellow jessamine
new blooms wilt - leaves shine

I like Lary's suggestion to switch around the order and make the 'dog cocks leg' the aha fragment for L3. If you want to restrict the image to a yellow dog, perhaps a substitution of 'blond' or 'tawny' would work?

Another idea is to think of the blooms as naïve, infantile ?

So another spin might look something like this:

innocent blossoms
of golden jessamine --
a dog cocks his leg

OR for a play on words (to visualize what happens when the pee hits the blooms and have 'golden; or 'yellow' have dual meaning):

golden jessamine
shine as innocence is lost --
a dog cocks his leg


Enjoyed!
~Cleo

[Eisa]

LOL!! Oh what fun! I love it!

I have nothing to add to other's suggestions but look forward to where you take this dog next!

Snow

[JustDaniel]

Greetings, Jan... wonderful to see you again! And witty and insightful as ever.

Maybe an only slightly more subtle tongue-in-cheek twist, something like this:

yellow lab duty...
sprinkle wilts jessamine blooms
leaves shine

Lightly, Daniel

[Guest_Rosemerta_*]

What can I possibly say? Ya'll are having way too much fun with this one. It's a wonder with all your experimentation with words that the poor little doggie has anything left to water with.

But then I saw Danial over there filling up his water bowl every 5 minutes. The poor little guy will be floating off at this rate.

Some may think this is TMI but it does bring in the humor and we can all use a little of that. Nice going, Orion.

~~Jackie