Having Read JAPANESE DEATH POEMS

Written beforehand,
fearing that I would be too sick
at that time...this time.

Cedar Bog, Central Ohio, 1995

The downward slope is slight
from the parched field to this cool
and beautiful hell.

The Spring Song of Lady Night

The spring woods
hold flowers of great beauty.
The spring birds
cause thoughts of great grief.
The spring breeze has also great feeling,
blowing open
my gauzy silk skirt.
--Anon., 300-600 C.E.

How few the moments
that my gaze has lit upon
the flowers of spring.

How many the months and days
that I have passed without fruit.
--Fujiwara no Okikase

Ada Banyak Warung

Apple slices
in coarse sea salt.
Sardines
in bitter chocolate.
An avocado shake.
What savor would these have
taken at a food stall
of bamboo
and blue plastic tarp
at the corner
of Jalan Kaliurang
and Jalan Yacaranda?

Another Renga-Like Poem

Dark Sandusky Bay,
Cold across the curving bridge.
Air conditioned car.

Sweet smell of cherries.
Pissing on the pink tablet
in the urinal.

Sweating, cutting grass.
Moldy turd beneath the hedge.
Old dog dead since March.

To stare or glass no
bird calls in the meadow tree.
Deer bark at wood's edge.

Peek up from my book.
A blur through reading glasses,
long hair and long legs.

Clarence, Sylvester.
Like our grandfathers' names, mine
senesces with me.

At a time like this,
there are no words to express
how I feel about.

Though God still the wheel,
still the car turns about it,
this engine of change.

Bone-deep pressure sore.
Waved away again, two flies
land on his penis.

Return to the marsh
or not: the crane won't be still
on the gravel path.

From across the stream,
wind extends a willow thread
to brush a shoulder.

Ruby lay with me
and beneath my fevered hand
nosed her silky head.

Isolation room,
fourth floor: ladybug enters
on my yellow gown.

Sunrise false cadence
makes of fireflies at twilight.
Play on, then, play on.



I don't much like some of the stanzas, but I find linked verse very hard to revise. Recalling that I work as a nurse might be an aid to understanding at some points.

Back to Poetry

In Deep Bamboo


Picking out tunes on my lute,
whistling a bit of something,
I sit here in so much light,
alone and facing the moon.
--Wang Wei