English Original
lightning flash
my whiskey
rippling
David Watts
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
閃電
我的威士忌酒杯
泛起漣漪
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
闪电
我的威士忌酒杯
泛起涟漪
Bio Sketch
David Watts' most recent haiku collection is Breath (Red Moon Press, 2026). He has published poetry, short stories, mysteries, memoir and westerns and is professor of English and Poetry Writing at the Fromm Institute of San Francisco. He is a scientist, a classically trained musician and creator of poetry workshops.
This is a highly effective “mood haiku” because it captures a sudden, charged moment without wasting a word.
ReplyDeleteL1, “lightning flash,” gives the reader an abrupt, brilliant image. L2, “my whiskey,” suddenly shifts from the external world to something intimate and personal. Then the unexpected L3, “rippling,” invites the reader to connect the lightning, the drink, and the speaker’s response.
The evocative verb “rippling” suggests that the whiskey is physically trembling in response to the lightning flash. This creates a compelling movement from external event → intimate object → implied emotional response. The "physical disturbance of the whiskey also subtly registers the speaker’s unsettled mood."
The possessive “my” is especially important: because the whiskey belongs to the speaker, its disturbance can feel like an extension of the speaker himself. The haiku never tells us, “I am shaken.” Instead, it allows the glass to reveal that emotional state indirectly.
That indirectness is perhaps the strongest feature of this minimalist, five-word haiku. Its emotional force comes not from explanation, but from the tension between what is seen—a flash of lightning and rippling whiskey—and what is felt.