Quitting the game of this
Moment is somehow not an option.
When the smoke rises and
The air conditioner blows
Its quiet song with the
Power of its voice
Extending, expressing what
Hands do in their spare time: they pull
And something pulls back, retracting from its game plan
Extracting the essence of you, somehow, me
Somehow, all of us: waiting for a bright amusement
That gratifies the six senses, convenient and
Not tiresome, drawn out over mountainsides
All of us like graffiti etched
onto some ancient wooden structure or oddly
shaped rocks, scratches of a
name: a sense of
placement.
Iga-Ueno City, Mie Prefecture, Japan, 2005
***
Crossed over? Gone beyond?
Too many moments
bedazzled by the charms
of the ferry.
Kyoto, Japan, 7.13.2005
***
Within the rolling wave
of thunder,
fireflies ignite.
In the mist of each drop
my dreams swim
for ages
–not to be communicated.
If you can listen carefully
the minutia of this world
unfolds — back, forward, sloshing
through a piercing collision
of space and attention:
if you listen carefully,
in each wave.
in each drop.
Kyoto, 7.15.2005
***
this poem writes itself out of a hole
and crawls bleeding out of the trenches
with a can of Campbell’s soup strapped
perpendicular to its waist
this poem gets itself out of a
shitty
situation
this poem is fluent in birdcries
knowledgable about the seasons
and takes tender care
not to step on cockroaches
this poem has a long list of
things it needs to
get done.
this poem was written long ago
in the ten directions
and magically makes itself known
through modern technological
skillful expedient devices.
this poem can hold it in
stand it up
and sprinkle dewdrops
on your head.
this poem is tired of
the limits
of language
and so decides to enact
a diversification
program.
this poem changes into
music, dance, and film;
sculpture, art, and massage;
international corporate business transactions
and a drunk man
outside a Japanese bar
that is glued to the parking lot
this poem doesn’t feel like
it has to
prove itself
and so refused to call itself a poem
disregarding all such labels
and calls itself
a legend
instead.
Japan, 2005
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