Janna has been in my “Round 2” of feed reading since I added her to my feed reader long ago.  Time for a promotion.  I really need to bump her up to “Round 1,” because I’m never disappointed in her posts.  They’re a little wacky, very cerebral, and I connect with them on various levels. 

Maybe its because Janna “does Band” for a living and I completely and totally miss band.  I miss high school band, I miss Army band, I miss dreaming about being in a band.   I’m currently living vicariously through my awesome daughter, who is in the best middle school band around, is about to be in the best high school band around and is pretty darn good herself (she was 1st chair flute, 1st band last year at UT’s Middle School Band Camp as a 7th grader).

One of the more recent Janna posts I connected with was her “janku” post, where she invented her own style of poetry, namely, a “janku” which she defined as a 3-line poem following a 4-6-8 rule of vowel usage instead of a 5-7-5 rule of syllables.  It was a great follow-up to her Haiku of Melancholy.  I’m especially proud of my work on her Thirteen Things the Letters TCB Could Stand For (check the comments for a story made entirely of 3 word TCB lines).

I submitted my own collection of janku’s in her post’s comments.  I find it only fitting that I completely copy her idea and make up my own form of poetry, and I need to name it “whallku”. 

There are several reasons I want to name it this:

1. It’s a fantastic greeting response.  When someone tells you “hi, whall!” you can say “whall, ku” and it won’t sound so awkward, like if you hadn’t said it at all.
2. You can use it after someone sneezes, because “whallku” is actually swahili for “gesundheit,” which is actually German for “hi, did you read the blog of whall today? haha of course you did, I only ask because it is custom!”
3. If there were a martial art made entirely of the expert use of a guitar hero controller and a euphonium, delivered with an unfaltering stream of perfect LOLcat references, it would be called “whallku“.  What am I saying, “if”?  Pshaw.
4. whallku.com isn’t taken.  Yet.

So, now for the rules of what a whallku is.

1. It shall have 3 lines, like a haiku and janku
2. The numeric phrase to remember is “3-5-7”.
3. First line has three (3) words
4. Second line has five (5) syllables
5. Third line has seven (7) vowels
   (“y” does not count as a vowel)

Here are my submissions.  Give me some whallku lovin’, won’t you?  Submit yours in the comments!

What The Hell?
Does he really think
this a good idea?

Obama, Obama, Obama…
All we ever hear.
Well, better him than Hillary!

Guitar Hero IV
A.K.A. “World Tour”.
Guaranteed addict.

blog of whall:
Insommnia cure
if ever I saw one.

Cabbage Patch Dolls.
Innocent toy trend,
or evil spawn of Satan?

CPS wrong re: 
Polygamist sect.
Yoda: “Much power they have.”

For double extra credit, see if you can create a haiwhallku, which means you satisfy BOTH requirements: 5-7-5 for syllables and 3-5-7 for words/syllables/vowels.  You might be asking yourself, “how in the world can a line have both 5 syllables AND 7 syllables for line 2? Have you gone crazy, Wayne?”

Yes, I’ve gone crazy.  But that’s beside the point.  There is an answer, and the answer is – use words that can be pronounced in multi-syllabic ways.  Like Hyundai can be pronounced “Hi-un-die” or “Hun-Day”.  The word “actually” can actually be pronounced “act-you-al-lee” or “actch-yule-lee”.  Some leniency is granted, but it’s mob rule.

I don’ recommen’
Hyundai, actually.
dey be too darn cheap.

US building first
Nuclear athlete man.
Noose at eleven.