an old lost song and / the fog damp night when your words / were warm on my neck
You can read more haiku about love on my blog
Haiku | “words warm on my neck”
January 31, 2016 by Peter Galen Massey
2 Responses
Leave a Reply
Popular Posts
Categories
Blog Stats
- 342,079 Page Views
Peter Galen Massey 
Massey Grade: B
Massey Comment: So the trick with this haiku was to take a common, familiar experience and make it feel new. One way I went after this was to use specific detail — so the fog damp night for example — which seem to anchor the poem in the “poet’s” experience (note I didn’t say “mine” and I didn’t say “mine” deliberately). The second, and more essential, way is to use fresh — or at least non-obvious and not yet exhausted — images, so the intimacy of the warm breath of the poem’s “you”.
The other thing I like about this haiku is that it hints at a story and while it seems to be about “me” (note the quotes again) it leaves vast room for you (the reader you in this case) to make it your own. What words are the “you” saying? Why has the “poet” forgotten those words, that moment, until the old lost song is heard? Those are questions for the reader to answer, with her answers, not mine.
the poem connects to my own lost song of the past, your ‘exegesis’ connects with my understanding now.