The tanka has a very long history, having originated in Japan in the 7th century a.d. Metrically, it consists of five lines with a syllable count of 5,7,5,7,7.  Along with the haiku, it has been taken up by American poets, who have sometimes used it as a stanza form.

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The following tanka was written after a pleasant encounter with some pilots from the  U. S. Strategic Air Command, followed by a most unpleasant encounter with a curator of an important collection of oriental ceramics. It fulfills the required syllable count.

As everyone knows,
K'ang Hsi vases make less noise
than hydrogen bombs.
Then why do the SAC colonels
Make less noise than curators?
                --H. T. Kirby-Smith

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