And Now, Goth Haiku, From Athena

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.

116 Comments on “And Now, Goth Haiku, From Athena”

  1. 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*

  2. Far in the future,
    Heat death claims the universe.
    Nothing, forever.

  3. Death all around me.
    Black ribbons tying my hair.
    No release from life.

  4. 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.

  5. Cancer: nature’s way
    Of saying to everyone —
    You’re not important.

  6. 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,

  7. (poetic license: Athena’s POV:)

    My father’s web page
    Filled with summer goth haiku
    Oh! What hath Dad wrought?

  8. 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!

  9. Oh, and that little excuse that Athena was just pretending… Yeah, I believe it.

  10. School is total crap
    Summer vacation bores me
    My life sucks big time.

  11. An Haiku take on an old t-shirt slogan:

    I am so goth-y
    Whenever I flatulate
    Bats fly out rectum

  12. The razor that cuts
    Is the light in my darkness
    Blood is life and death

  13. And I thought I found
    True love; you met another
    And *pthththbbb* you was gone

    Hee-Haw was goth before it was cool.

  14. What’s the freakin’ point?
    You’ll all just laugh anyway.
    Haikus are for norms.

  15. 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.

  16. I envy Christians.
    Sure, it’s all lies, but at least
    They can sleep at night.

  17. We’re specks on a rock,
    Flying through the nothingness,
    SO WHAT’S THE DAMN POINT.

  18. Summertime writing
    Children screaming in my ear
    Please, give me a break

    (Or, failing that, earplugs)

  19. Await dreams, loves, life;
    There is always tomorrow.
    Until there is not.

    Grieving love unsaid.
    Someday tomorrow will fail.
    Tell them today, OK?

  20. (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.)

  21. 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.

  22. spent the day writing
    the death song of a woods colt
    you say it’s been done?

  23. 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

  24. The blood beads up, bright.
    Think I’ll carve another gash:
    Maybe feel this one.

  25. The voices mock me.
    “You’re no good, you have no worth.”
    I wish they were wrong.

  26. Chris Pierson @ various
    you are on a roll
    @ 47 just hit it square in the head

  27. Mom washed all my clothes–
    All my lovely black is gray–
    I shall kill myself.

  28. Sometimes, sacking Rome,
    Like a mildewy cookie:
    It’s just not worth it.

    Oh wait, you did mean Visigoth, right?

  29. 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.

  30. Claws rending my flesh
    Fetid odour wafts message
    Clean the litter box!

    btw, Aaron @ 59: just drop “So”. Makes the statement stronger too.

  31. Temps in seventies
    For first time in hundred years
    or so. Life is good.

    It’s possible I’ve missed the point.

  32. Blood drips in my veins.
    Ice congeals my lonely heart.
    Pointless suffering.

    I think this contest is in a L.J. Smith book.

  33. Black is as black does.
    How can one be a true Goth
    Without having sacked Rome?

  34. 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

  35. Spent black eyeliner
    Broken melted on the floor…
    Clara Bow’s matches?

  36. 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.

  37. My Haiku for Gov. Rick Scott:

    They said 3%
    wasn’t much to contribute.
    Four months groceries.

  38. I’m feeling so goth,
    bats fly out of my behind.
    Wish we could be friends.

  39. No haiku, Goth or otherwise. Just applause for you, Athena, for writing that. It’s very good.

  40. 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!

  41. No one can out-goth a 12 year old girl. Fortunately, they survive and only realize how awful it is in retrospect. :)

  42. 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’.

  43. 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!)

  44. 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!”

  45. 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”

  46. Sadness, sorrow, pain,
    Murder, we’re all gonna die…
    Jam-jamma-jam-jam…
    (after rereading some fairly emo college lyrics)

  47. Ash and splintered bone.
    Sole remains of cherished one.
    Numbness steals my voice.

    (Don’t mind me, I mostly lurk here.)

  48. 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!

  49. 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.

  50. #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.)

  51. the goths on the bus
    go mope mope mope – mope mope mope
    all through the goth town

    /ex goth (we had fun with it)

  52. 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?

  53. 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.

  54. 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.

  55. err .. . let’s try that again:

    The voices in my
    head, no one hears but myself.
    They don’t know I hear.

  56. 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!

  57. I know I’m 12 and I’m more goth than many adults who think they’re goth but really have no idea

  58. Vicky, that’d work better as a haiku:

    Knowing, I’m twelve
    more goth than aging fossils
    who have no idea.

    You’re welcome.

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