First Haiku

[alatos]

Edit 1:

We stand in the door.
With snow falling, I ask you...
two moonlit smiles.

Original:

We stood in the door.
With snow falling, I asked you...
two moonlit smiles.

[danny_]

We stood in the door.
With snow falling, I asked you...
two moonlit smiles.

i like the image of standing in the open door, snow falling outside. really nice start. after that though i have a problem. asked you what? to marry me? to buy the cheaper toilet paper? just being silly, sorry. also moonlit smiles is not bad, but i imagine in an open doorway there being some living room lights coming through lighting at least one person's face.
keep writing!

[Tamara]

We stood in the door.
With snow falling, I asked you...
two moonlit smiles.

The image you've tried to capture is beautiful. But I feel it's too wordy for a haiku. Maybe you could pare it down a bit to make it more effective.

[billy]

We stood in the door. in the door or in the doorway?
With snow falling, I asked you...
two moonlit smiles.

be as succinct as you can get away with;

snow falling at the door
i ask you
two moonlit smiles

try and make it a snapshot of the now. (just suggestions)

[Magpie]

We stood in the door.
With snow falling, I asked you...
two moonlit smiles.

Hi alatos, this works as a short piece in it's own right in quite an interesting way but as a haiku there are a couple of elements that wouldn't usually be in a haiku. Firstly the tense indicated by 'stood' means that it was in the past whereas haiku are always in the present and very much a snapshot, so the narrower you can make the time frame of all the things happening in the haiku the better. So in your second line when it moves to the ellipsis there is a suggestion of time passing and also time that the reader is not part of, whereas in a haiku as well as aiming for brevity the reader would be aware of the time frame and included in the whole of the the poem.

Although as I said before I do like the effect that you have created here and I get it, but it wouldn't usually be seen as part of a haiku.
Hope this is of some help. Also for your first attempt at a haiku it bodes well if you were to try and write more. And you are in a good place here to be writing them and learning about them as there are some excellent haiku writers here.

Cheers for the read,
Mark

[alatos]

Thanks everyone! As to some peoples comments about shortening it down further, don't the parameters of a haiku require a syllable count of 5-7-5?

[heslopian]

The last line is fabulous. A warm and lovely piece. billy's suggestions for stripping it down to its barest elements are good, if you really want to make this a haiku. As it stands, however, you could just remove the haiku label and call it a short poem, which it's a fine example of

[Magpie]

Thanks everyone! As to some peoples comments about shortening it down further, don't the parameters of a haiku require a syllable count of 5-7-5?

The 5-7-5 syllable count used to be the way to write haiku but that is now considered to be outdated and because of better understanding in the Japanese language people now see that the 5-7-5 was never a particularly accurate representation.
The key thing to go for is brevity and conciseness. Some people still use a syllable count of 3-5-3 or 3-4-3 to be honest the syllable count is the least important aspect of any haiku. A better marker for length would be to go for the "One-breath" aspect of haiku, so that the whole Haiku can comfortably be said with one normal breath.

For years I wrote 3 lined 17 syllable poems and I thought that they were haiku. It wasn't until I came here that I eventually changed my habit of 17 syllables. So seeing that you've only wrote one haiku then the first thing I would recommend above anything else in haiku is to forget all about 17 syllables and 5-7-5 leave that to people in blog world, it keeps them happy.

[ThisGuy1]

Deep and really well worded. A solid Haiku

[danny_]

i'd forgotten about this kind of writing. went back and read again more patiently. i do agree the question doesn't matter. poetry like this doesn't flash the way it should when you're on a coffee crash. your first revision works for me, perfectly well. but i do like the shorter suggested versions too. up to your style i guess

[tectak]

quote='ThisGuy1' pid='173107' dateline='1409754433']
Deep and really well worded. A solid Haiku
[/quote]

This is made no more valid by cut and paste. Is that well worded...and deep enough? Please give meaningful crit out of courtesy. If ability is lacking opinion is a good substitute.
Mod

[Gaslampfantasy]

Also, to return to Danny's original comment, there would only be light from the living room if they were going out of the door. If they were coming in from outside that would not be the case.
I like this poem. Perhaps the question should be as mysterious as the answer. Although I think that many people will come to their own conclusion as to The Question.

[danny_]

Also, to return to Danny's original comment, there would only be light from the living room if they were going out of the door. If they were coming in from outside that would not be the case.
I like this poem. Perhaps the question should be as mysterious as the answer. Although I think that many people will come to their own conclusion as to The Question.

good point! the house would be dark if arriving together. thank you.

so, the poem provides a nice little frame of that moment they arrive in the quiet snowfall, moon bright on their smiles, the perfect moment for that question.