Haiku #3 Poem by Long Tooth

Christmas time haiku -
'tableaux d'une exposition'
post-it notes on walls

Long Tooth
May 2016

The painting here is a beautiful portrait of Mussorgsky the composer of the famous classical work 'Pictures At An Exhibition.'

This haiku is a very dense multi-layered haiku unlike any you have ever seen before. Let me explain what it means to me and then please share if you think I accomplished my goals in writing it.

The Christmas appellation refers not only to a season of the year but also stretches this seasonal reference in nature to include the gift giving season which, for a poet like myself, is any day that my muse offers me an idea for a haiku or a poem.

Since haikus are usually images, like a painted picture, that the post-it notes on my wall are suggested frames of each picture (individual haikus) in my exhibition. Using the seven syllable French phrase for 'Pictures at an Exhibition, ' a very famous piece of classical music by Mussorgsky, gives the exhibition an erudite air as if my haiku were hung in the Louvre rather than my office. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!