There's something appealing about this deceptively simple form.  It first appears that anybody could write one.  Then one begins to look into the "rules" and finds that perhaps it isn't as simple as it first appears (http://www.toyomasu.com/haiku/ ).  Some argue persuasively that the 5-7-5 rule just doesn't translate well from Japanese to English .  ( "If one wishes to have the brevity and the fragmented quality of Japanese haiku in English haiku, 17 syllables are too long. On the other hand, if a rigid structure is desired, 11 syllables are too short. One must choose between the two. The choice depends on which of the two factors a poet considers more important to haiku. The majority of contemporary English-haiku poets have let go of the tight forms in favor of brevity to develop the mainstream North American haiku.").

     Then there are the other things...the reference to season, the zinger at the end.  Personally, I'd rather think of these as guidelines only.  Somehow the very idea of regulations seems antithetical to the form, but I know that discipline and study in this art is really necessary in order to do well (Robert Frost said that poetry without rules is like a tennis match without a net.)  One studies and masters the forms and then one is free to do as one wishes in a fluid and easy manner, making the complex appear simple...quite deceptive in a way (Basho had this motto: "Learn the rules; and then forget them."). 

    But then simplicity is sometimes just what it seems to be, as a person can begin to comprehend after enmeshing oneself in needless complexity (see Simplicity).  As a person fascinated with photography, this "taking" a verbal picture of an instant in time draws me...