Being a lover of All Things Japanese - the food, the culture, samurai traditions, and, yes, Godzilla movies - I hesitate to admit there is one area of the Japanese arts in which I am sadly lacking: the Haiku. (I will commit ritual seppuku at the end of this article.)

If you recall your lessons in school, haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry consisting of three lines. The first and third lines of a haiku have five syllables, while the second line has seven syllables. In this rigid structure, the lines will rarely rhyme.

Marc Allie, writer of the books I Was Geeky When Geeky Wasn't Cool and The Thing From The Drive In (both available on Kindle), is a master of the haiku. Based on his geek credentials - his books touch on everything from the Superfriends cartoons to Star Wars to Transformers toys - he is also a Star Trek fan. 

Naturally this resulted in Star Trek haikus.

Mr. Allie did a haiku for every. episode. of. The. Original. Series. Plus The Cage, which was the first pilot filmed but never aired during the original 1960s run of the show.

Here is a small sampling of those terrific Trek haikus:



The Corbomite Maneuver



Arena



All Our Yesterdays

Mr. Allie - at his website marcallie.com - has also turned his talents to creating haikus for Star Trek: The Animated Series, several Transformers cartoon series, and the Godzilla animated series based on the much reviled in some quarters Emmerich/Devlin movie from 1998. (Yell out "GINO" at a Godzilla convention and see what kind of response you get.)

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