Amusing yes. Have I read it before. Yes and No. I believe it follows a country song. (Save a horse ride a cowboy) Not sure of Song Title? or singer. It does work as a cult saying.

You use a shorter syllable structure. Then the 5-7-5-7-7. It caught me off guard. But works well. There is a good message and it's almost perfect. You could take some of the smaller words and combine the syllable (on,in,and,and a) to give your tanka a 3 dimensional feel. L2 - trees outline granite L3 - morning light sculpts Bad suggestions, I do like the tanka. don't make it to clear or all the fun and fascination are taken away.

I wanted to get to the meat of the flash fiction faster then it was allowing. I am sorry. I don't mean to be cruel. For a flash story it's a bit wordy and drags on. If this was part of a short book it would have excellent detail and imagery. Your word choice gets the reader on the beach and involved in the story. But there is no shocking moment or moment that made me think "WOW I get it" "I never saw that coming"

You make two bold statements, lacking all emotion. Which makes me think you have no clue on writing haiku. But your third line gives us the why. With a unique use of a cliche. Very clever.

The concept of Polly going into the picture of Dorian Gray was appealing. The reality of the story was not. To use Oscar Wilde "Dorian Grey" for your backdrop, would only work if the writing was on at the same level. You go from writing the story as a adult - "While browsing through my collection of books I stumbled upon ‘The picture of Dorian Gray’." To writing as a child plus misspelled words.- "It had been my first big story of Oscar Wilde and has been one of my favourite stories ever sinc...

You wanted to know how this made me feel. Well I felt nothing. The writing is good and the verses run seamlessly, but I have read before. Maybe not word for word, yet close enough. (Your eyes are like ice that burn my very soul) I just don't get a happy or sad feeling. Maybe a smile but that's as far as it goes. It seems so 80's

You have a good start, but you tell us the whole story in three lines (not easy to do) not good in haiku. Let the reader find the meaning to your writing. You Do Not need the word "tight" if you use "white knuckled hands" it tells the same thing.The latter tells us in more detail.

My first read of the story left me with a jagged, disjointed feeling. This impression was right, but my reasoning was wrong. Flash fiction is written with word limits. When reading your story all I thought about was the choppy feel and the author was doing this for the number of words allowed. Paying no attention to the story. After reading the story two more times. not that I had to, but wanted to. The main character who's name is never mention (Buck, The New) I felt an emotional tie with. T...

This is a great start to a poem, but in haiku/senryu you need to use certain structure. The basic 5-7-5 3 line syllables, but not always. To manipulate the words/syllables correctly you need to study haiku. The basics are.. lines 3 first line 5 syllables second 7 third 5 A reference to nature and two line make the third true. The, I, All, too, to and with are filler words. Try to use words that convey your feeling without telling the whole message and meaning.

Looks like you were forced to chose between writing and ? the writing loses. Very well done. It tells a life story in six words. Excellent.