And it is thus:
Sorrow in my soul.
Death is bound to everyone.
There’s no point in life.
Heavy, man. Just… wow. Note to self: give daughter a good long hug.
(Athena adds: “Of course none of this is how I actually feel but I just felt like writing it. Hope you enjoyed.” Whew!)
Add your own goth haiku in the comment thread. See if you can out-goth a 12-year-old. I dare you.
You don’t understand!
I didn’t ask to be born!
Can I have some cash?
Summer heat came early.
Melting, melting, melting.
No AC for me.
No one is the goat rodeo is
Demonstrably better
Than Bush
The grave’s soft embrace;
Love is a bitter lie’s dream.
Dying bats in my heart.
—————
Ennui, discontent:
Peter Murphy’s Greatest Hits
*hand*staple*forehead*
Far in the future,
Heat death claims the universe.
Nothing, forever.
Not empty, but black.
Not life, not death, just blackness.
Blackness goes the soul.
Death all around me.
Black ribbons tying my hair.
No release from life.
Tumbleweed @1: That’s out-twelve-year-olding a twelve-year-old. You’re supposed to out-GOTH her. Lessee.
O! my life is done
bleeding out on white lace dress
My vampire left me.
Forlorn words pour out
like a fetid gazpacho
from my rancid soul
Death will let me sleep
A long respite from my pain
OMG puppies!
Cancer: nature’s way
Of saying to everyone –
You’re not important.
Parents bought me a Beetle
Hot pink with flowers
My soul oozes misery.
First of all, you have to be 12 to out goth her and the haiku. So, I’ll try to reach into my inner self as was my inner self way back at my close to birth 12 year old age. Hmmmm…
LOL. Tumbleweed just cracked me up. Okay, all seriousness. I can and will do this….
My love is unforgiving
Children forget the unforgiving parent
Parents forgive their children,
(poetic license: Athena’s POV:)
My father’s web page
Filled with summer goth haiku
Oh! What hath Dad wrought?
Crap, I was supposed to out Goth the 12 year old? Really? It’s not possible! Goth and 12 year olds are the same thing. Adults have no clue how to do it. Good luck suckers!! Scalzi’s playing you all!
Oh, and that little excuse that Athena was just pretending… Yeah, I believe it.
Ozone depletion
A third Transformers movie
These, your gifts to us?
School is total crap
Summer vacation bores me
My life sucks big time.
My life’s transience
Is all the proof needed that
God is indiff’rent
An Haiku take on an old t-shirt slogan:
I am so goth-y
Whenever I flatulate
Bats fly out rectum
The razor that cuts
Is the light in my darkness
Blood is life and death
And I thought I found
True love; you met another
And *pthththbbb* you was gone
Hee-Haw was goth before it was cool.
Necromancy fails
to satisfy bloodlust
Satanism’s next
Oh, and, “Conformist!”
What’s the freakin’ point?
You’ll all just laugh anyway.
Haikus are for norms.
pathetic haiku
not worthy my derision
so emo am i
Dead leaf hero flies
One legged cricket song ends
Darth Belle is a beast
My black eyeliner runs
Rivulets etch pain like tears
from This Mortal Coil
I bleached my black shirt.
The Death Guild bouncer mocks me.
Woe, I am poseur.
black eyes, hair, hat, nails
alas, one among many
rebellion conforms
black: the shadow war
of the night dragons book one
the dead city: night
Anyone, can you
Think of a reason to put
This razor away?
Worse than monocrome
Is supreme goth stigma
Sparkling vampires
Despite my Peace Sign
headband, my heart is a deep
fathomless black hole.
I envy Christians.
Sure, it’s all lies, but at least
They can sleep at night.
performed teenage angst
devil may care made emo
want to paint it black
endless darkness gloom
light’s existence tenuous
no bulbs no bulbs none
We’re specks on a rock,
Flying through the nothingness,
SO WHAT’S THE DAMN POINT.
(Oh, by the way, I’m fine, thanks. No intervention necessary.)
Whatever
nowhen
vacuum
Summertime writing
Children screaming in my ear
Please, give me a break
(Or, failing that, earplugs)
Await dreams, loves, life;
There is always tomorrow.
Until there is not.
—
Grieving love unsaid.
Someday tomorrow will fail.
Tell them today, OK?
(Also fine; final polish on the haikus for the deaths of the first, a mench who threw his life at the world with love, and reaped grander treasures and stories and loves and adventures than any ten fictional characters; and the second, a pair of high school classmates, grandmothers both, who’ve died too young, of cancer, at 63 and 64. Miss you, Chuck, Gina, Sheryl.)
midnight raven tears
golden liquor surrender
in eyes like death’s dreams
It’s about a depressed raven, which I think is probably the most gothic thing I know of.
We all do evil.
But my biggest problem is
I really want to.
spent the day writing
the death song of a woods colt
you say it’s been done?
Light fails to the west
hope travels along it’s wake
Death will take me now
I travel this life
using a one way ticket
live forever? no
I’m not sure if I Goth well.
I’m generally to effing happy
The blood beads up, bright.
Think I’ll carve another gash:
Maybe feel this one.
The voices mock me.
“You’re no good, you have no worth.”
I wish they were wrong.
Chris Pierson @ various
you are on a roll
@ 47 just hit it square in the head
Mom washed all my clothes–
All my lovely black is gray–
I shall kill myself.
Um, ravens and stuff.
My black cold tunnel exit.
Reality fades.
Pretty pink bow ties
A unicorn died today
My life sucks, does yours?
Wearing bondage pants
around the mall on weekends
Is totally goth.
Suffering and death
A crematorium urn
Ashes in the wind
Infinite sadness
is what my folks are feeling.
How’s my hair looking?
U.S. dirigible
German sub founders
Tumblr reblogs world
Ooh, here’s one from Stephan Colbert:
Blood in the urine;
a tingling down the left arm?
Walk it off, grandma.
Sometimes, sacking Rome,
Like a mildewy cookie:
It’s just not worth it.
Oh wait, you did mean Visigoth, right?
I wish my front lawn
Was all moody and goth
So it would cut itself
I know, extra syllable on the last line, but totally worth it.
Claws rending my flesh
Fetid odour wafts message
Clean the litter box!
btw, Aaron @ 59: just drop “So”. Makes the statement stronger too.
Temps in seventies
For first time in hundred years
or so. Life is good.
It’s possible I’ve missed the point.
Darkness consumes me.
My Hot Topic has run out
Of black nail polish.
Blood drips in my veins.
Ice congeals my lonely heart.
Pointless suffering.
I think this contest is in a L.J. Smith book.
Black is as black does.
How can one be a true Goth
Without having sacked Rome?
I see in comments
Kai told my joke before me
All is misery.
Missed the rave last night
tempus fugit you’re a bitch
I shall dig a grave.
#47 definitely my preferred so far …
It’s #48 that does it for me – very ‘ouch’.
Joyful is my soul
Life is bound to everyone
There is no point in life
The darkness of my
Ever damned and broken
Soul oozing fresh pain
Nothing has purpose.
Black is the color for me,
’til something darker.
A friend demanded that I post this bit of IRC detritus here. I have no idea what the original context was:
the pain and blood flow
joy seeps from me like childbirth
sale at hot topic
Spent black eyeliner
Broken melted on the floor…
Clara Bow’s matches?
I’d argue that lacking any connection to gothic romance/horror, that the original haiku is simply emo.
I yearn for the end
where Cthulhu fhtagn.
Madness? No, Sparta.
My Haiku for Gov. Rick Scott:
They said 3%
wasn’t much to contribute.
Four months groceries.
I’m feeling so goth,
bats fly out of my behind.
Wish we could be friends.
No haiku, Goth or otherwise. Just applause for you, Athena, for writing that. It’s very good.
Sorry, I can only write haiku for what I Know: middle age ennui.
Sorrow in the fridge:
Someone ate my chocolate.
You must pay dearly!
It may not matter to you, but it was Good chocolate!
The Shadow War starts.
Night Dragons rule Dead City.
Curse you, April First.
Even pain will die
The empty void engulfs all
Nothing left to feel
so sad that I missed
the goth event of the year
Bats Day at Disney
WARNING! Do not read this thread if you are feeling suicidal. Oops, too late.
Out-Goth Athena?
Channeling Wednesday Addams?
Wisely, I decline.
No one can out-goth a 12 year old girl. Fortunately, they survive and only realize how awful it is in retrospect. :)
Shunned by all the Goth’s,
For being such a downer,
I go full Emo.
By Grabthar’s Hammer
By the twin suns of Morvan
You shall be avenged.
It’s gothier if you know Grabthar and see how gloomy the dual shadows are at Morvan. Just sayin’.
Just read Fuzzy Book
Please write a sequel, Scalzi!
Your voice suits the tale.
Also, while I’m making irrational fan demands: My 7 year old is mad because I said she’s too young to read your books. She demands that you write a middle grade novel for her pleasure. Also, she thinks a few picture books would be good for her younger sibs. I suggest you get to work, because she is VERY IMPATIENT.
Now, for some actual gothness:
Gleaming knife, moonlight
taunting me with sweet relief
from my shallow peers
(That one would get you kicked out of school in a jiffy!)
Free after the S.O.D. song:
“Kill yourself, kill your-
self, why don’t you kill yourself
End it all right now”
(NOTE: like the S.O.D. song this is meant tongue-in-cheek…;-)
Or:
“Kill yourself: why not?
Don’t rely on no one else
End it all right now!”
Lost soul, awaken!
There is still hope for you!
Go back! Try again!
My 12 year-old son Alaric felt inspired to try to outdo Athena:
I am a mistake
I do not deserve to live
Death shall come to me
I felt inspired to mock my son:
I am a mistake
A mere accident of fate
“Oops, I think it broke”
Sadness, sorrow, pain,
Murder, we’re all gonna die…
Jam-jamma-jam-jam…
(after rereading some fairly emo college lyrics)
Ash and splintered bone.
Sole remains of cherished one.
Numbness steals my voice.
(Don’t mind me, I mostly lurk here.)
Her haiku isn’t actually a haiku. A standard haiku has 3 lines with 5,7,5 syllables per line, respectively.
Line 2 has 8 syllables!
I have no recollection of the haiku I wrote for our school Arbor Day celebration about 45 years ago, but the one Norman Plankey delivered to great acclaim (from his classmates if not from the parents in attendance) has stayed with me all these years:
The rain comes down hard,
Splashing and splashing on me,
Making me all wet.
George:
No, it has seven. I suspect you pronounce “everyone” with one more syllable than we do.
You know, if you get enough responses, you might have the makings of an anthology here. Call it FANNISH GOTH HAIKU.
Detached retina
Enjoy the summer sunsets
Soon you will be blind
#4 Rafe’s second piece wins for the funny. # 21 (Critter42) nailed it. Just beautiful.
Now if I could just find the haiku I wrote when I was 15. I saw it the other day scrawled on the same piece of paper as my epic poem “Suicide Song”. (No, really.)
the goths on the bus
go mope mope mope – mope mope mope
all through the goth town
/ex goth (we had fun with it)
Blank-eyed drool drippers
Only I see the whole truth
The in-crowd are dogs
Like a cat, I prowl
Avoiding their stupid gaze
Do I smell bacon?
Sadness, death, an end.
Where has the best of life gone?
Sweetness, surrender.
This whole thread make me want to send hugs and much love to all our loved ones.
Not feeling the haiku today.
However, for your pleasure, and to the tune of “In My Own Little Corner” from “Cinderella”:
In my own emo corner, in my own emo chair
I can be whatever I want to be.
I can’t look in your eyes ’cause I can’t see past my hair,
And the world means nothing at all to me.
I’ve got nothing I can dance to on my iPod,
I’ve got nothing that’s not black or grey to wear;
On my desk there is a webcam on a tripod,
And I just sit in front of it and glare.
I’m a world-weary cynic, it’s a game I can play
With a whiny, petulant sort of air,
Just as long as I stay in my own emo corner,
All alone in my own emo chair.
Son loathes Father as
inept ignoramus, wait
for end of soul winter.
The voices in my
head, no hears but my self.
They don’t know I hear.
err .. . let’s try that again:
The voices in my
head, no one hears but myself.
They don’t know I hear.
I am the saddest
sad person of the sadness
sadder than the sad
The girl in my head
is tormented by voices
spewing from my mouth.
Dayam, that is one of the most beautiful portrait photos I have ever seen. Make certain you have that backed up somewhere permanent! That pic could win art contests! The perfect lighting… the highlights in the hair…She looks like something Vermeer would have used as a reference shot, if he’d owned a black & white camera!
Death coming for me
A dark and lonely shadow
Searching for Victims
By the way, I’m 12 too.
In deep depression
I soak my woes and sorrows
Fearing painful death
Night shrouds her pale form
A vampire’s thirst for warm blood
Alas, feeding time
i am so tired
an eternity of dread
no sleep, no quinched thirst
deep, deep, in the wrist
waiting, waiting, death’s relief
blood spilled, cold and dead
How do people see
What the comment numbers are?
I’m inadequate.