Ninja

Haiku written for a prompt from Jason McBride of Weirdo Poetry

Images created on Midjourney

Shinobi

Ninja; shinobi
Stealth warrior; assassin
Descriptors, not names

Extinction

Silent Assassins
Extinction looms over you
Ninjas fade from world

Hattori Hanzō

World’s greatest ninja
Demon Shinobi Hanzō
Temple-building monk

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A while back, Jason McBride of Weirdo Poetry published a post titled “More Haiku Silliness” with a subtitle of “And a new haiku prompt.” He asked writers to “Write a haiku, or series of haiku, about something in the life of a pirate (or ninja). It can be as silly or serious as you like!”

I didn’t get around to creating my images until today, but I wrote the haiku immediately. I had a very busy day that day (my birthday) and didn’t manage to submit to his comments, but you can read his haiku and the prompt responses from others here:

More Haiku Silliness

Being me, I naturally decided to write three haiku to answer the prompt. I also created a bunch of images, experimenting with both different color palettes and genre mixing.

I chose a mix of chinoiserie and impressionism for the genres and combined this with dark, charcoal, ashen, and achromatic color palettes, thinking each of these might produce images with the feel I was looking for.

Here are a few more of the images I created:

Of these images, I like the center image best, followed by the bottom center.

I’ll leave the comment button here, in case you’re tired of reading and would like to move on. For those interested, I’ve included a bit about Hattori Hanzō below.

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Hattori Hanzō is probably one of the most famous Ninjas who ever lived. He is considered the most deadly.

The television series, Heroes, about a disparate group of people who were born with varying “superpowers,” brought the Ninja in as one of them. His power was immortality—he couldn’t die. But they also made him a villain and a white man. I enjoyed the series at the time, but now question this latter choice.

Also known as Second Hanzō (and Demon Shinobi Hanzō), he lived during the sixteenth century and served the Tokugawa clan during the Sengoku era. According to Wikipedia, he is credited with having both saved Tokugawa Ieyasu’s life and then having helped him unite Japan under his rule.

There are a few theories surrounding his death. One says he died in 1597 (55 years old) and that he was assassinated by a rival Samurai. The other says he became a monk and lived in a monastery in Edo until he died of an illness.

I prefer the latter theory, with the addition from mai-ko.com that “toward the end of his life he built a buddhist temple,” changing his name to “sainen.” It claims he was the founder of the Sainen-Ji temple that still exists near Akasaka and Shinjuku and that his grave lies within the temple.