The tired traveller
Sits beside the winding road
Dazed and quite confused

Lonely wanderer
Traversing such a distance
Only in circles

Silence fills the air
Creatures hide from the wint'ry chill:
They wait for the sun.

It's been haunting me why I want to flee ( Read more... )

Meaning slips away
Words are unwieldy weapons
That work against us

Here's a quaint senryū by John Cooper Clarke:
To express oneself
in seventeen syllables
is very diffic

I don't disagree with him, but people tend to waffle when strict limitations are not imposed on them.

( Please go easy on me. I don't normally inflict shitty poetry on you! )

In order to express something poetically I have to break it down into every component. And that's hard! Nearly as hard as writing erotic poetry, which is what I wanted to do.

As wisdom comes
So too do memories
Better forgotten

Only a fool
Assumes foolishness
It's all relative

Senryū are similar in form to haiku, but they are about people and human nature, and don't have to mention seasons. They're harder to write, methinks, and it feels like trying to come up with clever proverbs rather than poetry.

Mimicking the stars
City lights in the river
Life underwater

Yes, that's missing a kigo. Screw the concept of non-seasonal keywords, though, it can just be a non-traditional haiku anyway.

Summer theme now. I declare fireflies to be an Australian summer kigo!

Flickering insects
A smaller world within our own
Only sometimes shown

The night beckons, the
Scent of wattle lingering
In the chilly air

Haiku traditionally include kigo, or words associated with a particular season. There are actually lists of Australian kigo, although these lists are unfortunately quite short.