Haiku Battle

Last night I, and Jacqui, and a few friends, went to see Moonrise Kingdom, the new Wes Anderson film, down in Union Square. Beforehand we grabbed a couple beers at Heartland Brewery. 

The movie was nice, like an old children's story book put to film. It's one of those movies that I need to see a second time. There aren't many movies that make me feel this way.

But before the movie there was an email sent to confirm plans. This email sparked a series of poems that are shown and discussed below:

Here is the initial email: 

Tomorrow 7pm @ Regal Union Square Stadium 14- 850 Broadway?
Maybe Bill Murray will be there?
Is this a haiku? -Lindsay Hess via Gmail

To which I responded with:

I'll make sure I'm there

It should be a real good time

I can hardly wait

Now grammatically I understand it should be "really" not "real" but I had syllables to consider. Then Lindsay decided to not only show her disdain with studying for "Step 1" a test for medical school, but also how long it takes for her to write a proper haiku, and yet she was able to do it all in a three line poem:

Glad someone knows poems

No haikus on step 1 please

This took a long time

Eleni responded with:

Is it ridiculous that I didn't realize Jon's message was a haiku until Lindsay replied??  This is what happens when you spend too much time with science.  You lose sense of everything.
And just for sake of haiku completeness:

Learned something today
Pheochromocytoma
Bad blood pressure bad.

This, as well as a couple DIPA's from Captain Lawrence, triggered me to write a slew of haikus in quick succession: 

Med students are square.  

I write haikus in my sleep.

It seems too easy. 

I could do this all

day while Jacq studies away

and I make them rhyme

I'm watching TV

G4 Ninja Warrior

My arms are too weak

Captain Lawrence beer

I hide it in my stomach

Yum yum in my tum

Eleni then drew first blood, or I did with my "Med Student's are square" line...

Jon needs a hobby.
Other than writing Haiku
Your brain will be mush.

Now, she mentions nothing about her mush-ed brain, which constant studying has wreaked havoc upon. And I responded most facetiously with:

Sounds like this could be

a classic rap battle in

progress bring it on

  

And without hesitation,Eleni, a thirty-something medical student with a PhD in Nero Science, decided to crank it up a notch:

West coast represent
You don't wanna mess with me
LBC for life. 

I can almost see your fingers counting syllable now.  So I decided to represent the East Coast a little bit by biting a couple lines from Game Theory:

I'm from 'illadel

the land where the killaz dwell 

Go study nerve cells

At this point in this Haiku email battle I realize that the last few emails have been strictly between me and Eleni because she initially forgot the click "reply all." Then, as if this series of Haikus couldn't get any more ridiculous, she responded with this:

Tupac, biggie, snoop
Dre and n.w.a.
No comparison.

There are no words I can write here that even begins to describe how this last one made me feel. Dumbfounded I responded simply with this:

Biggie's from NY.

So is Jay, Prem, and Wu-tang.

West Coast rap is weak.

Now look: I don't really think West Coast rap is weak, Dre and N.W.A. changed the rap game forever, but if I had to pick a coast, I think we know where I lean. However, the east vs. west battle ended at least ten years ago, which is probably the last time Eleni found a moment to sit down and actually listen to some Hip-Hop. And, let's face it, I know Prem isn't originally from the NYC but it's where he currently resides, and where I first heard his music.

And at 1:20AM, nearly an hour after my most recent Haiku, while I was asleep, she sent one last desperate email which read:

Philly ain't NY.
Noticed biggies roots too late
Couldn't change haiku.

And after the dust cleared, after Wes Anderson showed us a new way to tell the "boy meets girl" story, we all realized something: Poetry would never be the same again. Either that or we hadn't actually done anything worth a damn.