Soul Pump

Hi my name is Aidan and by the time you’re reading this I will most likely have just started college. I started writing poetry in late 2018 just to see if I could do it. At this stage I’m pretty sure it’s a yes. I have a particular fondness for wordplay, which I will often try to incorporate into my poems.

A Haiku written on 13/7/2020 after I had just finished writing another poem. I like it quite a lot, especially how you can swap out the word ‘wait’ with ‘weight’. Also because I find a pump to be an unusual item to base a poem off of. Especially a Soul Pump!

I really enjoy good haiku (they are spelled the same in singular and plural, like sheep!) and they are deceptively difficult to do. Trying to crush profound meaning into such a small space does something to your brain, brings everything into sharp focus and gives you a different way of looking at the world. Reading a really good haiku does the same, and I think that this is a really good haiku for the modern world. The imagery is so surprising and surreal that it jolts the reader into heightened awareness, and there is just so much to read into the ambiguous use of the word ‘wait’ instead of ‘weight’ and the deadpan solution offered by the speaker to such a huge existential problem. This haiku gave me that sudden moment of clarity and realisation that haiku poets through the ages have striven to create.