doors that keep revolving

[tsubame]

I want to write something lovely and poignant here. Barring that, I want to write some Emrys-story.

I shall do neither. First of all because I'm tired and it's late, and second of all because I want to read more of Kafka on the Shore. Blasted cliffhanger chapters.

Instead I shall post several haiku, none of which were written by me. No, these are my favorites exerted from One Hundred Great Books in Haiku, by David Bader. The book was my Christmas gift from Pam, and in the interests of saving suitcase space I typed my favorites into my laptop and left the book at home.

I typed all of my favorites save The Rise and Fall of Rome, which was just too bloody long.

Inadvertant joke, heh.



The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffery Chaucer
Pilgrimmes on spryng braecke--
roadde trippe! Whoe farrtted? Yiuw didde.
Noe, naught meae. Yaes, yiuw.

Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles
Chorus: Poor bastard.
Oedipus: This is awful!
Blind seer: Told you so.

The Inferno, by Alighieri Dante
Abandon all hope!
Looks like everyone's down here.
Omigod-- the Pope!

Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
Vengeance! Black blood! Aye!
Doubloons to him that harpoons
the Greenpeace dinghy.

The Confessions, by Augustine
This is just to say
I screwed around. Forgive me.
I enjoyed it so.

Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
Snowdrops hang like tears.
Shy, sweet, saintly Beth has died.
One down, three to go.

Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Becket
Act I. "It's hopeless.
My boots don't fit. Where is God?"
Act II. The same thing.

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
Wild. Strange. A bit damp.
Heathcliff waits for Cathy's ghost.
Women. Always late.

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
Lecherous linguist--
he lays low and is laid low
after laying Lo.

The Metamorphasis, by Franz Kafka
"What have I become?"
Uncertain, Gregor Samsa
puts out some feelers.

Tao Te Ching, by Laotze (no lectures on Chinese romanization, please, I've heard them before)
The eternal tao.
To know it is not to know.
What is it? Don't ask.

Faust, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He's damned-- no, he's saved!
For German engineering,
another triumph.

Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
The darkness darkened.
Oh, the horror, the horror.
It was horrible.

Comments

[daharmaster.livejournal.com]

Those are awesome. I'd read a book of humorous synopses of famous books in poem before, but the haiku beat them all to hell. I have to get that book.

long road

[grey-damaskena.livejournal.com]

Those are really the best of the bunch, in my opinion. The other ones were good, but not as good as those.

Excepting, of course, the one I mentioned but did not type. Which was freaking awesome.

[apis-cerana.livejournal.com]

Yay! I love that book -- I need to get a million copies so I can hand it out to my friends. :)