Kelly Lunes

The Kelly lune is a 3-line, syllabic form created by Robert Kelly (1935–present). It's one of several attempts to create a formal equivalent to haiku, adapted for the English language. The lines have 5/3/5 syllables, for a total of 13.

An alternative form also called the lune was created by Jack Collom.

I tend to write Kelly lunes using the short middle line as a sharp pivot or following a haiku-like pattern of a longer 2-line part and a shorter 1-line part (in either order) that somehow complement or contrast one another.

Poems

1. 2025-12-16

   vivisecting chill
   leaves me mute,
   without brain or heart

2. 2025-12-05

   a pummelling rain
   grounds the birds
   and raises the worms

3. 2025-12-03

   branches and moonlight
   reveal
   dark clouds' true colours

   ---

   I paced this with morae instead of syllables. Same idea as a haiku from the same day.

4. 2025-12-02

   we silent strangers
   speak in clouds
   on the frozen bus

5. 2025-11-26

   pierced by the ice queen
   in her keep,
   the sea dog whimpers

6. 2025-11-23

   past the wall of night,
   something screams
   brighter than lightning

7. 2025-11-22

   after the rainstorm,
   children play;
   ripples in the sky

8. 2025-11-20

   as the mountain hums,
   the glacier
   taps its dancing feet

9. 2025-10-31

   floodlit tunnels sigh—
   nobody
   comes back up alive

10. 2025-10-30

    see remortgaged teeth
    clack and rot
    in your bosses' mouths

    ---

    Could also start “your remortgaged teeth”.

11. 2025-10-30

    each window a well,
    each lost frog
    sharing the same moon

12. 2025-10-27

    the cat hunts the sun—
    relaxing
    can be such hard work

13. 2025-10-26

    rot-black blossom drifts
    through autumn
    apocalyptic

14. 2025-09-26

    smash Halley's Comet
    to splinters—
    a billion wishes

15. 2025-09-20

    a froth of fungus
    bubbles up
    from the tire tracks

    ---

    I'm counting both morae in “tire” to round out the last line to, effectively, 5 syllables. I could add a 1-syllable adjective to the last-line to do things more “official”, though. Also: second use of the “froth fungus” wording I first used in an earlier poem.

16. 2025-09-19

    the sky's saliva
    dribbles down
    weather-eaten bricks

17. 2025-09-06

    cloudsun brings to life
    a driftlong
    haze menagerie,
    gargantics
    of lost Atlantis

    ---

    Wanted to make up some terms. Also, I know it's not 100% in the form since it has the extra two lines (I guess it's the Kelly lune's tanka equivalent), but I'm not gonna make a “Kellelly lulunes” page just yet.

18. 2025-09-02

    the migrating rain
    eagerly
    sings and drums on me

19. 2025-07-13

    netherside of leaves
    green aphids
    walk on fields of light

20. 2025-06-23

    wind drums on the trees—
    phantom rain
    dances on the leaves

21. 2025-06-22

    black cats' eyes glimmer
    in dark holes
    where they shouldn't be

22. 2025-06-08

    the hot dogshit bin
    overflows
    with good intentions

23. 2025-05-30

    suburban gutters
    suck nitrous—
    guilt makes the high rise

24. 2025-05-30

    everyone's afraid
    of foot truck—
    loco for motor

25. 2025-05-26

    dark detached houses
    tut and leer
    over car-crash lane

26. 2025-05-11

    drown in suffocating
    climate kitsch—
    painting light in smog

27. 2025-05-03

    beneath the golf course
    a lone tent
    flickers in the dark