Last night while reading blogs and lamenting my bone-dry creativity well, I came across this post at Jean’s site in which she invited her readers to head over to Sparrow’s site for what apparently is Sparrow’s regular Haiku Do, where people are asked to submit a haiku.

At the outset, let me say that until a few years ago when daughter TJ put me wise to what a haiku is, I would have thought haiku was some sort of Japanese ritual that involved one or more very sharp knives. But, now that I know that a haiku is a three line poem containing five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second line and five syllables in the third and final line, I figured, ”Yo, Jimbo. You can count syllables, and you like music, so what the hell.”

About sixty seconds later, I headed over to Sparrow’s site, popped open the comment box and left my poetic gem behind. After a while, I got to thinking about the last time, many, many years ago, when I quickly penned some poetry and how it went over like a pew-rattling beer fart in church.

Now, a bit apprehensive about my precipitous action, I headed back to Sparrow’s site (which by this time contained a follow-up post) to see what others who really can write some serious poetry (e.g. Jean and the Joanster) had submitted. Oy! I felt as if I had entered a place where everyone was elegantly dressed and I was wearing a dirty raincoat covered with dog shit and snot.

I think I’d better stick to Hillary and Talking Matzoh Balls.

Update: I apologize for previously referring to “Swallow’s Site,” when the correct name is “Sparrow’s Site.” I guess I got my boids mixed up.