looking for Zen, again.

[lagilman]

How can you buy cut flowers? They die so soon.
Yes, I know, I said, and rearrange the stems, standing back. That's the point.
We stare at each other, uncomprehendingly.


Micro-fiction? Or poem?

Discuss.

Comments

[jamileigh17.livejournal.com]

The only possible answer to that: Yes.
It's both, and neither, and that suits it perfectly.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

I'm almost tempted to say "non-fiction", given some of the discussions I've had with my wife.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

I don't know. It sounds almost as if it would make a decent haiku.

[saruby.livejournal.com]

It could be either, although the last line leans toward micro-fiction. Without that line it is definitely poetry. Why the difference? The final line is a sort of closure that poetry often leaves unresolved. Then the reader can create closure from her/his own imagination. At least that's my take on it.

[faos.livejournal.com]

English version of tanka (or waka) -- basically, a haiku with two final lines (or fourteen syllables) giving an emotional context/perspective on the poem. (Haiku are 5-7-5 syllables, tanka are 5-7-5 + 7-7 -- the final two lines are sort of a commentary on/emotional reaction to the first three lines).

But given the massive differences between English and Japanese, this reminds me of nothing so much as a modern tanka.

In any case, it's quite beautiful.

[neko-san.livejournal.com]

I say micro-fiction. Maybe since I don't get poetry.

Somewhere in my archives I have a stack of 100 word stories that I saved from talk.bizarre in the early 90s. That's where this fits in, in my mind. Lovely, poetic, tiny story.