Possibly only in the original language of Japanese, but not in translation ...Darkness. The blank monitor Says nothing to me, Grasshopper.
I thought that haikus had to have 17 syllables. :-/
See tinywords.com for more (modern) information and links to good other places, like http://home.pacific.net.sg/~loudon/alexey_def.htm :-
2. 5-7-5 syllables in 1st-2nd-3d lines.
Also optional: firstly, even Basho broke that rule. Secondly, we don't write in Japanese -- the average Japanese syllable has dif- ferent length and bears the different "amount of meaning" as compa- red to those of other languages; thus "holy 17" can't be saved so formally. When poets write or translate haiku into their language they try to save haiku spirit, and somehow imitate the Japanese form (the length of the lines, the breaks) - but at the same time they take into account the common patterns of their own language so that it sounds natural. This way most of Russian translations of classic Japanese haiku have about 20 syllables; on the other hand, a haiku in English, according to W.Higginson's "The Haiku Handbook", is bet- ter when it's about 12 syllables:
old pond... a frog leaps in water's sound
Basho
See, there is no need to stuff it with more syllables; everything is clear and reads well. Besides, the use of cutting word (kireji) is demonstrated. Kireji is a special word in Japanese that indicates the pause, the end of the clause. It's not translated into English, but can be imitated with punctuation ('...', '--', ':', '!') or with proper line breaks (usually kireji splits haiku into two parts, the pause occurs at the end of the first or the second line).
