A haibun is one of those lovely poetic inventions that sneaks up on you. It is part story, part poem, and entirely its own creature. It comes from 17th-century Japan, made famous by the wandering poet Bashō, who mixed gentle prose observations with small, luminous haiku.

In modern hands, it feels surprisingly fresh: reflective, compact, and a bit like opening a window between the everyday and the poetic. No wonder it appeals to me. I’ve always believed curiosity keeps us young, and haibun offer the perfect excuse to wander, wonder, and watch what AI does with a few well-aimed prompts.

Why Haibun Works So Well With AI

AI loves structure. Give it a shape to fill, a short prose scene followed by a haiku, and it behaves remarkably well. The prose lets it ramble pleasantly; the haiku forces it to simmer everything down to one sharp, distilled moment.

What I enjoy is the difference between intention and surprise: I think I know what the model will produce… and then it hands me something unexpectedly moving or oddly atmospheric.

So this week, I set myself a small challenge: four very different prompts, four AI-written haibun. And what came back felt reflective, strange, and sometimes beautifully melancholic.

Here they are.

The Haibun Experiments

Haibun 1 – Growing Old

Prompt: Write a contemporary, melancholic haibun about growing old.

The years have slowly weathered me, like waves eroding a rocky shore. Once I stood tall, looking out at a future rich with dreams. Now I am hunched, marvelling at how quickly time has washed past.

My wrinkled hands shake as I lift the coffee mug to my lips. Daily tasks once effortless now require concentrated effort. I glance around this house, once filled with cheer and commotion, now far too quiet. One by one, the rooms grew still as loved ones departed before me. Their remnants remain in faded photos and familiar echoes.

Out the window, a vibrant world bustles by, heedless of one old man’s creeping isolation. I yearn for the sweetness of bygone days, even as my own ending nears. But like sand through an hourglass, the grains of life pour toward their inexorable conclusion.

adrift in deep waters
memory and regret swell
the nearer I draw to shore

My Reaction:
This one hit close to home, in the gentle way good writing should. It’s not bleak, just honest, and oddly comforting. What struck me most is the quiet dignity of it. Growing older is never just sadness; it’s a catalogue of moments, echoes, and stubborn resilience. And the haiku lands beautifully, like a final exhale.

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Haibun 2 – The Witchling With the Light Bulb

Prompt: Write a haibun inspired by a painting of a child in a yellow witch hat holding an orange light bulb, swirling fantasy colour, glowing effects. (This was actually a prompt I’d used in Midjourney to create an image)

He peers up at me, eyes glinting under the brim of his oversized witch’s hat. The hat’s jagged silhouette casts dramatic shadows across his smiling face. One small hand clutches an orange light bulb, as if preparing to replace the pale moon that illuminates the night sky behind him.

Swirling blues and bronzes engulf the scene, blending magic into the mundane. The child seems to float within this polychrome vortex, comfortable amidst mystical currents. Though he appears young, an ancient wisdom radiates from his steady gaze.

With a wink, he raises the light bulb higher, and the painted world around us dissolves into vivid abstraction. Bathed now in radiance, reality reconstructs itself anew according to the child’s whim. Here is one attuned to magics beyond the ordinary, shaping life’s very matter through his unfettered imagination.

wielding wonders
see how his eyes eclipse
the glowing orb

My Reaction:
I love this one purely for its sense of play. The AI grabbed hold of the fantasy imagery and ran off cackling into the night. It feels like a cross between witchcore and children’s book whimsy, and the haiku neatly captures that mischievous magic. Ann read it and said, “Well, that’s exactly what our Milly would do if she ever got hold of a light bulb and some cosmic authority.”

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Haibun 3 – The Regulated Dawn

Prompt: Write a sinister dystopian haibun.

The morning siren wails, jolting us from restless sleep. We shuffle into grey corridors, eyes downcast, avoiding the cameras that track our every movement. The daily quota looms, another twelve hours in the processing plants, manufacturing compliance for the State.

At meal time, we queue for our rations of synthetic protein and vitamin paste. The taste has been engineered to discourage lingering, to keep us moving efficiently through the system. Around me, hollow faces chew mechanically, thoughts carefully blank lest the monitors detect unauthorised neural activity.

Tonight, like every night, we will return to our assigned pods. The walls pulse with subliminal messages while we pretend to dream. But in the depths of artificial sleep, fragments of memory sometimes surface, whispers of a time when choice existed, when the sky held colour beyond regulation grey.

we shuffle forward
our footsteps echo
in perfect unison

My Reaction:
Delightfully grim! The AI went full Orwellian here, corridors, quotas, tasteless food, and a deeply disappointed sky. The haiku was my favourite part: that eerie “perfect unison” is exactly the kind of detail that makes dystopias feel uncomfortably plausible. I’m not saying our world is heading that way… but I am keeping an eye on any government proposals involving vitamin paste.

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Haibun 4 – Little Red Riding Hood: The Urban Edition

Prompt: Retell Little Red Riding Hood with a modern twist and write it as a haibun.

The city looms like a concrete forest, buildings towering overhead. Gripping her crimson sweatshirt tight, Red walks the cracked sidewalks, wary of lurking shadows. A special delivery for Grandma awaits in her backpack, lifted from the corner store on Main.

Red pauses at a graffitied overpass, sensing watchful eyes. A hooded figure emerges from the gloom, face obscured. His gravelly voice directs her down a quicker route through the park ahead.

Leaves skitter as Red hurries into the darkening green. She recites street smart lessons, fingering the pepper spray in her pocket. The path ends at a spiked iron gate looming over worn stone steps leading below street level. Red steels herself and descends into the gloom.

The shadowed tunnel swallows her up. Scuttling echoes surround as she navigates the tiled walls. At last she emerges, climbing toward a dim apartment block. She buzzes Grandma’s unit, glimpsing a hulking form approach the cracked door.

descending unafraid
through shadows and concrete
still the backpack remains

My Reaction:
This one tickled me. It keeps the danger, swaps the forest for brutalist architecture, and gives Red a bit more agency (and pepper spray). The haiku’s final line, “still the backpack remains”, hints at mysteries the AI wisely leaves hanging. A lovely blend of fairy tale and urban grit.

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What I’m Learning From This

Four prompts. Four wildly different moods. And somehow, each haibun feels like a small window into another world. That’s the fun of it: AI isn’t replacing anything, it’s expanding the playground. The structure of haibun keeps things tight; the imagination inside them can go anywhere.

At 75, the joy isn’t in knowing everything. It’s in discovering you can still be surprised.

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Fancy Writing One Yourself?

A few copy-and-paste prompts for readers:

• Write a haibun about a childhood object you still own.
• Write a haibun set on a train during a rainstorm.
• Write a haibun about a place you miss but can’t return to.
• Write a haibun where someone casts a spell by accident.

If you write one, share it in the comments, I genuinely love seeing what people come up with.

Final Thoughts

Haibun may be hundreds of years old, but they still feel wonderfully modern. A splash of prose, a breath of poetry, and a moment of stillness at the end. And with AI in the mix, the form becomes a delightful way to explore creativity without pressure.

As always, I’m wandering, and happy for the company, so, please drop me a line in the comments below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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