gargoyles
Gargoyles are fascinating (and all the rest of the pagan propaganda circus - check sheela na gig and her cohorts!). Hunting for these stone conciliations and warnings is a lot of fun and gets the seeker into all sorts of weird and wonderful hallowed grottos. One thing that comes to mind, though, vis-à-vis gargoyles in particular, is that they visually vomit. This is their message to the world on the back of a utility value:
Quote:
"In architecture, a gargoyle is a carved stone grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building."
So, my query is whether 'vomit' (or 'spew') would be more true to reality and vivacious in the context of this desk haiku's interestingly contrived narrative? Certainly vomiting is more usual than 'spouting' (manically ranting, with a redundant telling play on words - we know it's a down pipe embellishment) in lunatic asylums - the latter being, more or less, a Victorian fairy tale. Or, is it - and does it really matter? ^_^
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Yes, to stand and look at a gargoyle is to get the joke - a Christian commentary about nature, paganism and the new dispensation. It really is. You simply cannot miss it. Just a thought. Otherwise, your senryu makes its point. Quite like it, really.
As an aside. Before going to college I worked for a while in a lunatic asylum (mental hospital). One learned that the Dickensian imagery in popular imagination is a cartoon version of what happens in reality - whatever the historical period. However, having said that, if people buy the caricature, then to run with that, well... why not? All part of the literary associations, in haikai especially, that were the great game back in old Edo, in the floating world.
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And so we reach full circle. The lunatic asylum (madness) being nature's way of coping with the mundane realities of existence, when they become intolerable for the weak of spirit. Her floating world, where gargoyles vomit rain.
jp
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Ukiyo ('the floating world') - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo