The Japanese haiku, considered by many one of the world's most sublime, rigid, and subtle forms of poetic expression, is seventeen syllables long, and is traditionally associated somehow with the change of seasons (or the related topics of time, loss, mortality, change, etc.) (Thus, numbers 13,14, and 15 below would seem to meet all the classic criteria except the traditional images of nature.) And what could be a more fitting subject for that most Japanese of all forms of poetic expression, than the most American form of canned meat, Spam(tm)? I pass this forward on as a public service to the many other collectors of Spam(tm) haiku. Dean. ---------- S p a m H a i k u s: 1. Blue can of steel What promise do you hold? Salt flesh so ripe 2. Can of metal, slick Soft center, so cool, moistening I yearn for your salt 3. Twist, pull the sharp lid Jerks and cuts me deeply but Spam, aah, my poultice 4. Silent, former pig One communal awareness Myriad pink bricks 5. Clad in metal, proud No mere salt-curing for you You are not bacon 6 And who dares mock Spam? You? you? you are not worthy Of one rich pink fleck 7. Like some spongy rock A granite, my piece of Spam In sunlight on my plate 8. Little slab of meat In a wash of clear jelly Now I heat the pan 9. Oh tin of pink meat I ponder what you may be: Snout or ear or feet? 10. In the cool morning I fry up a slab of Spam A dog barks next door 11. Pink tender morsel Glistening with salty gel What the hell is it? 12. Ears, snouts and innards A homogenous mass Pass another slice 13. Old man seeks doctor "I eat Spam daily", he says. Angioplasty 14. Highly unnatural The tortured shape of this "food" A small pink coffin 15. Pink beefy temptress I can no longer remain Vegetarian