Office Haiku

Here's something that holds my interest these days. We've all been exposed to the exalted haiku of the greats from Japan like Issa and Basho, even if we don't recognize their names. I decided that it was time to do what I should have done when I was still a teenager and try writing some of my own. Fortunately, I am still a juvenile at heart, so all is not lost.

While as a teenager, I might have written mediocre haiku about love at first blush (a subject I didn't know anything about) I am now writing haiku about work-life (another subject I am no expert in).

If you have never ever attempted one, I urge you to try writing a few. It is great fun and very addictive! I will lay out the bare minimum rules – A haiku has 3 short lines with a 5-7-5 syllable-count (though the count is often dispensed with in English Haiku), written in the present tense, with strong visual elements and usually with an "insightful leap" somewhere towards the end.

I can show you how to construct them, if you are really interested. However, remember that Puritans frown upon “crafting” haiku (insisting that they should occur to the poet fully formed) and refer to constructed ones in a pejorative fashion as "desk-Haiku."

It is said that one gets better at writing haiku after practicing, and I submit my first set of a dozen Office Haiku as proof that they are absolutely right.

Ram Prasad-san
May 2002

         Midwest wheat sunshine
tugs heart
         Gloomy cubicle

         wide campus
floors and rows sprout
         mini-cubicles

         Spring cherry blossoms
unwanted meetings land softly
         on my calendar

         All suits in same room
All chanting same slogan
         Think outside the box

         Talkative but clueless
Ineffective yet harmless
         Promote!

          Long coffee walks
In between every two
         little work

         Three tailgated coffees
Nothing else achieved
         Seven hours left

         Office cafeteria
daily menu sameness
         forced fasting

         Thick snow on car tops
Smiles in all cubicles --
         Friday evening

         Time flies
Shamefully fast
         Outside work

         Monday morning alarm
Systems, schedule, staff & status
         Snooze!

         Exit doors open at 5 p.m.
Be back tomorrow at 8.30
            Parole granted