spilled ink

My Top 15 Songs of October 2013 in Haiku

It’s been some time since I’ve dabbled in the art of Haiku poetry. I admire how Haiku use words and syllables to describe, cut, and leave open. It’s a freeing form of poetry, and since it’s easily recognizable to many, I’ve decided to work it into My Top 15 Songs of October list. Haiku needn’t necessarily follow the 5-7-5 syllable rule, but since it’s the form I originally learned, and it’s probably the most recognizable form of Haiku poetry (in English), it’s the one I’ve chosen to employ here.

15. Active Child f. Mikky Ekko – Subtle

Subtlety is lost

In your face is the standard

A wayward approach

 

14. Sleigh Bells – Bitter Rivals

I try to be nice

My rivals are people too

‘Til I stomp them down

 

13. Die Antwoord – Cookie Thumper

Gibberish sounds good

When it’s Zef above all else

While baking wear mitts

 

12. Janelle Monae f. Miguel- Primetime

No one was drop kicked

In the making of this song

Of this I’m not sure

 

11. Chvrches – Lungs

Lungs through which air flows

Distributing oxygen

I use ears to breathe

 

10. Placebo – Bosco/Exit Wounds

I can say sorry

How many times the same way?

When you leave I’ll stop

 

9. Shad – Love Means

You get what you give

It has eyes and can see all

Careful eyes betray

 

8. Charli XCX – Superlove

Japan likes neon

Lights that alter what is seen

Darkness eats it all

 

7. Sky Ferreira – You’re Not The One

I can see clearly

What I did not see before

Gone from you, happy

 

6. The Naked & Famous – Rolling Waves

Water cascading

Time after time on the beach

A new way to breathe

 

5. QOTSA – My God Is The Sun

The orb of life, warmth

Praised, praying, please rise today

All things some day sleep

 

4. Miley Cyrus – Wrecking Ball

Twerking unsteady

When practised on wrecking ball

Hip replacement, shame

 

3. Tame Impala – Elephant

Pink Floyd meets Lennon

It took me more than a while

Speakers shaking, taught

 

2. Arctic Monkeys – Do I Wanna Know?

Crawling back to you

Dread tingling up, down, my spine

I shouldn’t have asked

 

1. The 1975 – The City

A metropolis

Lit, cunning, unforgiving

The place I call home

The Man Who Had Legs

Crab-crawling with a frown, jumping, jacking up and down,

With the man who had legs,

Standing by The Falls, leaning on graffitied walls,

With the man who had legs,

Walking my dog, crouching in a bog,

With the man who had legs,

Sprinting ’til collapse, lungs tired, prolapsed,

With that man, he had legs;

 

Kneeling to pray, molotov-cocktailing the fray,

With the man who had legs,

Obsessive and astray, playing How To Save A Life by The Fray,

With the man who had legs,

Dougieing as performance art, stealing my Dr.’s only eye chart,

With the man who had legs,

Smuggling illicit contraband, heckling the local calypso band,

With that man, he had legs;

 

White-picket painting and the mending of fences,

With the man who had legs,

Olympic-qualifying and pawn-shop fencing,

With the man who had legs,

Coming to, shielding blows, picking up, wielding hoes,

For the man who had legs,

John Deereing a doe, writing moribund prose,

For the man who had legs;

 

It’s all fun and games, until someone loses a leg,

Because that man, he had legs,

Causing a wound, then licking up the dreg,

That’s how he is, the man who had legs,

Doing things I despise, and then making me beg,

That’s him, the man who had legs,

Selling gratification, lusting, listing with Craig,

That’s who he is, the man who had legs;

 

It’s gone to hell, torn apart,

Because of the man who had legs,

Clueless, desperate and back to the start,

With the man who had legs,

Sent like death from heaven above,

By a man who had legs,

I can’t quit him, he fits like a glove,

He’s mine, the man who had legs.