the peak of success //
tucked just outside the gutters
of my heart’s dark side
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A 5/7/5 haiku about anything for Trifecta’s weekend challenge, combined with the Daily Post’s (several days ago) challenge about what would make me call myself a blogging success.
What are you thoughts on success? What are your thoughts on haikus?
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Cheat notes for the non-poetry lovers follow! Poetry lovers should skip this so no interpretation, or redundant poetry knowledge, is forced upon you:
A time-honored tradition with haikus, though not specifically requested by the Trifecta editors, is juxtaposition. If you start with quiet, you end with noise. If you start with cold, you end with warmth. I started with peaks, and ended with gutters. 5/7/5 haikus have five syllables in the first line, seven in the second line, and five again in the last line.
With this one, I intended to implicate two definitions of success:
- I will be successful when I reach the areas of my heart that are unknown even to me (my heart’s “dark side”)
- I will be successful when I am able to move past the area of my heart where the hateful awful stuff goes (to get “just outside the gutters”)
There’s also an implication that I know exactly where success is, and have chosen not to seek it out. Perhaps, even, I was the one who tucked it away.
I could have said, “Found right beside the gutters”, implying I was there, or “hiding beside the gutters”, implying that I was searching. Instead, I decided that I know exactly where it is and I’m not quite ready to get there yet. It’s scary, dark, and lonely– and I am not prepared.
In other words, this haiku said in 17 syllables, what I wrote in 1500 words back in May — which is yet another reason I love poetry.
Did the notes help or hurt? 
