By Ashley Lister
Last month I mentioned that I’ve recently published a collection of my personal poetry: Old People Sex (and other highly offensive poems). Most of it is rude, or political or simply offensive for the sake of being offensive. However, towards the back of the book, I’ve included some of the contributions I made whilst participating in local haiku death matches. 
A haiku, to use the Western interpretation of the form, is typically a three-line format with 17 syllables arranged in a 5–7–5 pattern.
A haiku death match, for those of you unfamiliar with the concept, is a face-to-face challenge between poets. The poets are given a list of themes. They have to compose haiku on each of those themes. And then, once they’ve read their haiku to an audience, the audience have to judge which was better.
It’s a bizarre competition. It seems absurd to judge something as subjective as poetry with the objectivity of such audience-pleasing shenanigans. And the phrase ‘death match’ seems wholly inappropriate as I’ve not seen many people die during competitions.
Nevertheless, it’s a lot of fun and I’m regularly successful. The reason why I’m regularly successful is because I usually try to make the content of each haiku embarrassingly sexual. For some reason audiences enjoy the ribald content.
Consequently, out of the following five themes, I managed to turn the content sexual: Dry January, Fancy Dress, Old Rope, Feet and Crufts.
Dry January
Dry January:
Great for my liver but not
for her vagina
Fancy Dress
I wore 300
And 65 used condoms
I was a goodyear
Old Rope
Old rope or new rope
I don’t mind so long as I’m
getting some bondage
Feet
It’s not foot fetish.
It’s a feet fetish. I’m not
a pirate fucker.
Crufts
I once entered a
dog at Crufts. The police said
I was barred for life.
If you fancy writing a haiku on one (or more) of these themes, I’d love to see your poem in the comments box below.
Ash
“I’m not a pirate fucker” just made my whole week.
FANCY DRESS
I wore no panties
Under my little black dress.
Best party ever.
FEET
My man: size 15.
And, girlfriend, that thing they say
About big feet? Not true.
Old Rope
By Lisabet Sarai
Every knot a claim
staked on eager flesh, but now
it’s all unraveled.
Here’s another…. Sexual humor isn’t my specialty.
Fancy Dress
By Lisabet Sarai
Frederick’s special, black
satin, scarlet lacing, bare
where it’s important.
Lisabet – these work so well. I love the rhythm of your writing. It fits so perfectly with the subject. In the old rope poem you can feel the knot with each consonant cluster in a way that exemplifies sound structuralism.
Ash
Thanks, Ash!
Your posts inspire me.
FEET
Finger stroking bare sole —
Can’t help laughing!
Preview of pleasures to come.
Good one, Jean!
A haiku death match sounds intense! It sounds as if it should involve hilariously over-the-top gothic haiku.