Balance
Navigating
by stars,
one ball
buried,
another
gathering,
the dung
beetle
straight-lines,
maintains
position,
forever
looking forward
and up.
“Balance” first appeared here in February 2016, and is included in my just released micro-chapbook Only This, available for free download from Origami Poems Project.
“Nightdreams” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
If you aren’t already, you should consider following Underfoot Poetry. Marie Marshall always makes me think. I’m still mulling over these.
Awakened, He Turns to the Wall (Cento)
Then, everything slept.
Where were you before the day?
You see here the influence of inference,
whereby things might be seen in another light,
as if the trees were not indifferent, as if
a hand had suddenly erased a huge
blackboard, only, I thought there was
something even if I call it nothing,
like the river stretching out on its
deathbed. No one jumps off.
* * *
A cento is composed of lines from poems by other poets. This originated from pieces by: Larry Levis, Jacques Roubaud, Lorine Niedecker, Gustaf Sobin, Denise Levertov, Elizabeth Spires, William Bronk, Vicente Huidobro, Ingebord Bachmann
For further information and examples of the form, you might peruse the Academy of American Poets site: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poetic-form-cento
This last appeared here in February 2017.
I have the honor of being the featured poet in Volume 3, Issue 2 of MockingHeart Review. I am grateful to editor Clare Martin and her tireless dedication. She is a blessing!
My latest micro-chapbook, Only This, is available via free download from Origami Poems Project. Many thanks to editor Jan Keough for taking this!
Find folding hints here.
Even the Darkness
We must, she said,
open ourselves.
Like desert
to the night
sky, like a baby’s
mouth. Or words
in the unread book.
I nod, say
I understand, turn
and close the door.
Even the darkness
knows better.
Dark Rain Ahead, Hummingbird
The black-chinned hummer buzzes my flowered shirt,
bringing to mind the letter H, its history of an inferior life among
letters, and a Phoenician origin signifying fence.
An aspirate dependent upon others, or a line strung between posts,
even whispered, H does not contain itself.
Disconsolate or annoyed, the bird moves on.
Do names depend upon the power of symbols, or do they power the symbols?
In the 6th century A.D., Priscian disparaged H, saying it existed only to accompany.
Clouds shade the way.
The black-chin extends its grooved tongue at a rate of 15 licks per second.
Alone, the H’s voice is barely audible.
Through the trees, across the crushed rock driveway and beyond the barbed wire
and chain link, I hear deadfall snapping under hooves.
At rest, its heart beats an average of 480 beats per minute.
Modern Greek denies its existence.
Say khet, say honor and where. Say hinge, sigh and horse. Say depth.
Originally published in Prime Number Magazine, one of my favorite online literary journals, in 2013, it subsequently appeared here in June 2015.
Links to my publications for September – November 2017:
This Island is a Stone, Mockingheart Review, September, 2017.
That Number Upon Which the Demand Lieth. Posit, September, 2017.
Pleasure in Absence of Ending (Enso). Posit, September, 2017.
At Work I Stand Observing My Diminished Self. Posit, September, 2017.
N is Its Child. Reservoir, October 2017.
Better Than Drowning. Underfoot, October, 2017.
Ghost, with a Line from Porchia. Underfoot, October, 2017.
Elegy. Underfoot, October, 2017.
Some Answers You Never Considered. Underfoot, October, 2017.
As Blue Fades. Underfoot, October, 2017.
River Carry Me. Underfoot, October, 2017.
The Three Disappointments of Pedro Arturo, Main Street Rag, October 2017. Print only.
Snails.Vox Populi, October 2017.
Letter to Schwaner from the Toad-Swallowed Moon, Hamilton Stone Review, October 2017.
Yellow, Lost. Wildness, October 2017.
Happy Circuitry.Figroot Press, October 2017.
If You Drop Leaves. Bad Pony, November 2017.
Earth
Tremor and
stone
beset upon the calm.
Now water
lines the road’s
bed, and we see
no means to pass.
Even so
you break what falls.
* * *
This first appeared in Ijagun Poetry Journal in December 2013, and is also included in my micro-chapbook, You Break What Falls, available (free of charge) for download from the Origami Poems Project: http://www.origamipoems.com/poets/236-robert-okaji
O at the Edges 