Does anybody knows what "haiku" means in Japanese (I know what it is, but not what the word itself means)?

One small comment: is it a "Perl poem"? It has some reference to Perl, but I thought that Perl poems were "poetic" scripts that compiled without error. (see the archetypical Black Perl or its Perl 5 update). See what Larry Wall himself wrote about it.

There is even a website called The Black Perl, though it seems there is no link with Perl.

Maybe you like to have Black Perl on a T-shirt? Here you see it "black-on-black".

This is the Black Perl song by Porcupine Defense.

Does anybody knows what "haiku" means in Japanese (I know what it is, but not what the word itself means)?

Literally, 'amusement sentence', although I'd prefer to say 'amusing sentence' in English.
hai: amusement (from Middle Chinese b^əij, pha·j)
ku: sentence (from Middle Chinese ku^əh)

--
Rozallin J. Thompson

Based on my own experience and eclectic education, "ku" means "verse" or "stanza". I've heard of "hai" being more "play" than "amusement", though the difference is somewhat ephemeral there and depends greatly upon context.

Oddly enough, in application "haiku" has come to be less about amusement than about kensho (a zen buddhist term relating to an epiphanic moment of self-knowledge, similar to the more general enlightenment of satori). It has become a traditionally zen meditation in poetic form. Haiku typically involve imagery associated with nature.

The senryu form has the same syllabic stanza layout as the haiku, but tends more to have its focus directed at human nature than nature in the more general sense, and senryu are often more "amusing" than haiku as well (even outright funny at times).

Yes, I have spent entirely too much time thinking about stuff like this, and reading about it. The haiku is actually my favorite poetic form.

print substr("Just another Perl hacker", 0, -2);

- apotheon CopyWrite Chad Perrin