CLICK HERE for one link that explains haiku. CLICK HERE for an historical account of haiku and examples.
The best-known haiku is by Bashó:
Furu-ike ya
kawazu tobi-komu
mizu-no-oto
A quiet old pond--
then a frog jumps into it
with a sudden splash
--trans. H. T. Kirby-Smith
Here is a twentieth-century American haiku on the death of Mike Quill, president of the transportation workers union of New York City, of a heart attack, in the 1960s:
When it snowed, he called
the transit strike and then died
of clogged arteries.
--H. T. K.-S.