Lost

[Wjames]

Above street noise 
three birds find
harmony

[billy]

would it work better without [find]

i love the that beauty rises above ugly

[Wjames]

would it work better without [find]

i love the that beauty rises above ugly

It's a clearer image without find, but I like the lost/found play with the title.

I'll think some more about it, thanks for reading.

[rayheinrich]

would it work better without [find]

i love the that beauty rises above ugly

It's a clearer image without find, but I like the lost/found play with the title.

I'll think some more about it, thanks for reading.

I like the poem's idealism; I wish the world was like that.
But that's one of the reasons I like poetry so much as it doesn't have
to allow for reality; stuff doesn't have to follow rules.

Around here a lot of the damn noise comes from birds trying to find mates.
If there are three, it's because two of them are males vying for a female.
Not that harmonious.

I'd keep that "find".

[Wjames]

would it work better without [find]

i love the that beauty rises above ugly

It's a clearer image without find, but I like the lost/found play with the title.

I'll think some more about it, thanks for reading.

I like the poem's idealism; I wish the world was like that.
But that's one of the reasons I like poetry so much as it doesn't have
to allow for reality; stuff doesn't have to follow rules.

Around here a lot of the damn noise comes from birds trying to find mates.
If there are three, it's because two of them are males vying for a female.
Not that harmonious.

I'd keep that "find".

Thanks for your thoughts Ray, you're definitely right about the lack of realism here.

[RiverNotch]

would it work better without [find]

i love the that beauty rises above ugly

It's a clearer image without find, but I like the lost/found play with the title.

I'll think some more about it, thanks for reading.

I like the poem's idealism; I wish the world was like that.
But that's one of the reasons I like poetry so much as it doesn't have
to allow for reality; stuff doesn't have to follow rules.

Around here a lot of the damn noise comes from birds trying to find mates.
If there are three, it's because two of them are males vying for a female.
Not that harmonious.

I'd keep that "find".

it's still harmony! Perhaps not of notes, but if you're listening to three birds trying to make babies, that's the most superficial point about it! LISTEN WITH YOUR HEART! or at the very least your gonads

The "find" does make the second line weaker, but I wouldn't remove it for the sake of clarity, in the sense that the poem wouldn't sound as harmonious if the connections weren't, well, grammatically clear. I suggest moving it to the last line.

[Emz]

Above the noise of the street,
three birds find
harmony.

Hi WJames,

I like this. I have made a couple of adjustments below:

Above noise 
of the street, three birds 
find harmony.

I believe this balances the shape of the haiku, while also providing the contrast of the two images which meet in the middle line.

I think it does work better with the "find", but I'd remove the "the" from "Above the noise".

I enjoyed this haiku

Emma

[Wjames]

Thanks for your thoughts Em (and river), I definitely like the line breaks in yours better - I'm not sure about cutting "the" from the first line though. I'll think on it some more, and then make the edit.

[Akira]

Better line breaks would help. Sometimes, I feel with Haiku especially, the the overall visual impression of the text matters.

In your original, the first line appears to almost be a street, with the birds below it. Not that that couldn't be an intentional irony or contradiction, but I didn't get the sense that that was the point.

If you wanted to tighten it, you could just say "above street noise", as in:

Above street noise 
three birds find
harmony.

or even

above street noise 
three birds find
harmony

but since it is not too long yet, you might want to consider finding an image for the street noise, rather than generic "street noise" -- so, "above the honking cars"  (I wouldn't use "honking", just wanted to illustrate). If you picked a good image for the noise it could create a lovely counterpoint or juxtaposition to the birds.

You could even formally break it to increase the effect, such as:

[your street noise image] --
above, three birds 
find harmony

Just ideas to bounce around.

[Wjames]

I like the compactness of your suggestion Akira, I've changed it to that - thank you.

[Jeremiahcp]

Above street noise,
three birds find
harmony.

Great effect for a short poem, very clear message given with imagery. Hits a lot of major points a poem should. But you kind of wrote this like it is a sentence, with a capitalization and period. Personally, I would drop the cap, the comma and period; as it is now, I am compelled to read it like a sentence, and not a poem. I also would suggest you try to find a different word than harmony. It just seems like too easy of a word, and it is a bit overplayed in poetry. Just some suggestions: stillness, breezeless, windless, at rest. Remember show don’t tell; show us harmony.

This may take more work to narrow down, but I think you miss an opportunity to add more to the story when you just call them birds.  I say pick a specific type of bird. Don't let the reader imagine noisy ugly birds, tells us what kind of birds we should be thinking about. What type of birds inspired the poem?

[Wjames]

I think I agree with you about the punctuation here, I just always write with it. This one would be better stylistically without it, though.

I like harmony because it adds another element about sound, their musical harmony rises above the street noise as well as them being physically above it. I do agree it is a common word in poems like this, but I like the way I use it. Of course, as Ray said, you would never really hear three birds singing together except in a Disney movie, so I don't know if that part actually works; but I like it anyway.