Poem of the Month - July 2018

If these words were the last  
ink I were about to bleed    
they'd surround you and caress you    
succumbing to your ever loving need    
   
they'd dance in your fullness    
flutter aloud in your grace    
graze upon the cherished crimson    
accentuating your precious face    
   
the type, bold with cursive mixed in    
would capitalize where all that beauty begins    
each curve christened and every form traced    
slowly oh so so slowly elegant words we'd embrace    
   
beheld in the contextual lingering of your eyes    
hearing accents accentuated with flowery reprise    
sentences will serve with orgasmic exchange    
as the pens erect position is neatly rearranged    
   
endearing a climatic exclamation wound before hitting send    
dipping into the well oiled well again and again    
 

( Rensaku: linked Tanka )  

1) Aokigahara Dream  
 
this belov’ed sight  
I’ve grown up with a lifetime,  
even out at sea  
helping Father mend his nets—  
he and brother haul a catch  
 
lurching from the waves,  
thoughts of late spring pilgrimage  
family outing days—  
tossing back the smaller fish  
before we set sail for home  
 
early next morning,  
Mother’s honored sisters come,  
cherished reunion—  
helping prepare the lunches  
when we honor Fuji-San  
 
Father’s ‘Buddha’ truck  
loading for the trip, and us  
packed just like sardines—  
off we go with happy shouts,  
Yamanashi Prefecture!  
 
2) In Mount Fuji’s Shadow  
 
honored sisters sing  
old tradition travel songs—  
men on bicycles  
smile and wave as we pass by  
watching glancing scenery  
 
Father nodding head  
in time with sisters’ singing,  
brother Yoshi grins  
as Mother leans, turns around  
focusing through camera lens  
 
and when we arrive,  
the forest, black, forbidding  
where no sun enters,  
of bones dangling from branches  
and no life leaves after dark  
 
we walk the thin trail,  
it fades where thick roots tangle  
when time and rain caught,  
o’er layers of eruption  
the humid breath and strangle  
 
I haven’t seen them,  
anyone, since darkness fell,  
and only silence  
what I hear and cannot tell  
if I died or everyone  
 
3) The Black Sea Of Trees  
 
costs of being old  
the elderly forgotten—  
abandon a soul  
having done what love dictates  
for the chance to die in bed  
 
and the lovers flock  
like two birds of a feather,  
for they too are mocked  
as the end, their tragedy,  
never knows eternity  
 
hoops of braided hemp  
as if trees make offerings—  
the death po’ms of monks,  
scratched out kanji on tree bark  
of sentinels’ no longer  
 
a single bird call,  
rustlings of its floundering—  
in which direction  
did it make its last mistake,  
‘fore once again a calming  
 
4) The Suicide Forest  
 
as the forest stands,  
forever firm in lava  
regurgitated  
a millennium ago—  
storing its own in the caves  
 
trespassers no more  
and the volcano is stilled,  
snow cap is unchanged,  
with the belly of the beast  
bulging till more come again  
 
to honor dark spawn,  
to consecrate the mother,  
the roots with their blood—  
and even they are all gone  
In the fires of Fuji-San

 
Just another day in the surreal
watchin yet another thrill kill
rollin' along on the newsreel
while talkin' heads spill spiel
'bout how it doesn't seem real
all wonderin' "what's his deal"
stickin' strangers with a life uphill
leavin' 'em dippin' in their own till
payin' debts that're society's bill
America again back on it's heels
and you gotta wonder, do we really feel?
or is it all just piggy squeal?

Perhaps it should be our national seal!

No one round we agree to blame
no one willin' to face the shame
pointin' fingers and callin' names
keep on keepin' on, playin' the game
while politicians avoid the flames
all settlin' for more of the same
showin' we're the one's who're lame
and all the while another takes aim.

And all that's agreed, "the whole fuckin' thing's insane"

It's time to determine how to fight
what's now become a bloody blight
or is this now some sort of new rite?
images that torment into the night
and then again in the mornin' light
is it guns or people, which answers right?
which do we choose to lock up tight?
or do we just keep on avoidin' the sight?

While another soul's forced to take an earlier flight.

The slaughter now comes to the lambs
and we're askin' at who's hands
at who's feet the blame should land
who's at fault for removin' the bland
I think it's all of us, from where I stand.
and it's about time we realize it......."Goddamn"!

So, if you really want to solve it, start by sayin' "I AM"



Submitted for consideration in the "Yet Another Mass Shooting" comp.

 
 
When will I know  
that I am  
as old as sack of  
bones, stripped of all  
there ever was  
of who I am  
walking down the path  
barefoot  
the day I was born.  
 
 
I can hear  
whispers and laughter  
strangely close; yet apart  
holding together by  
a silver thread  
between  
fingers on a hand  
no longer mine.  
*  
*  
*  
 
I saw them, again  
the sweet couple from Norway  
walk in from the cold, bundled up  
in the unfaithful February air  
looking for shallots to start a new patch.  
She wore her usual pink hat and rouge  
dark and sultry; reminding me of Sophia Loren  
and he seemed taller today all of his 5 feet frame  
holding her hand protectively, pulling her gently  
as he had pulled and her followed  
through dimensional photographs  
knowingly  
in silence and in verbosity  
but  
knowledge  
is a fickle thing  
ferments and thickens  
in steps and in the mouth  
muddling with curve of the light.  
*  
*  
*  
 
I combed my hair  
for the last time  
put on a yellow dress  
faded to a shade of runny yolk.  
The gloves on my hands  
tugged unnaturally on my fingers  
in an odd shape of ‘yoU’  
that too seemed to have faded  
burrowing color of dust  
from somewhere  
waiting too long.  
 
 
I sat on the couch  
in the silence of the room  
and  
verbosity of the mind  
in familiarity of the unknown.  
*
*
*
Wondering

Not every goodbye is an ending  
Not every ending is a new beginning.