You are invited to a reading of
The Larger Geometry: poems for peace
Featuring
Jim LaVilla-Havelin, Patricia Spears Bigelow, Jeanie Sanders, Rachel Clark, Michael Vecchio, Robert Okaji, d. ellis phelps, and Rebecca Raphael
With Brianna Martinez on flute!
Friday, April 12, 2019 P.M. at The Twig Book Shop, 306 Pearl Parkway #106, San Antonio
Free & open to the public.
I’m delighted to be reading at my favorite San Antonio bookshop in the company of good friends and friends-to-be!
Rain Forest Bridge
To cross
you must first
trust the strands
to hold.
The second tentative
step precedes
the next,
each successive one
gaining strength:
here to
there, now
to then, a summoning of
entreaties
within
one’s faith.
Vapor meets cooler air,
forming droplets,
clouding the far side.
I have feared endings
and the strictures of the unseen,
but here
in this vast
swaying,
I know
one line
bisects the void.
* * *
“Rain Forest Bridge” first appeared in Four Ties Lit Review in August, 2014.
A recording of it may be found on the Four Ties site.
Your Armpits Smell Like Heaven
But your breath could melt a glacier at three
miles, she says, and then we might consider
the dirt under your nails, the way you slur
your sibilants, and how you seldom see
the cracked eggs in a carton, a downed tree
branch in front of you, the ripened blister
of paint in the bedroom, or your sister
lying drunk on the floor in her own pee.
Back to your armpits. Do you realize
we could bottle that aroma and make
a fortune? I inhale it and forgive
your many faults. The odor provokes sighs
and tingles, blushes I could never fake.
Ain’t love grand? Elevate those arms. Let’s live!
Never in my wildest dreams did I envision writing a poem about armpits. But the August 2015 Tupelo Press 30-30 challenge, and Plain Jane, the title sponsor, provided that opportunity. This first appeared here in April 2016, and was subsequently published in Algebra of Owls. Many thanks to editor Paul Vaughan for taking it.
Letter to Schnee from the Stent’s Void
Dear Dan: I’ve been trying to revive that dream,
the one in which the rare Texas bird sings “cuckoo, y’all,”
before shimmering through the night’s shrilling heart
and wakefulness, as you clamber up the balcony to join me
in knocking back Japanese single malt, chilled soba and Doritos.
The distance between earth and a first floor balcony may vary,
but the fall’s impact can’t ache so much as what never was or won’t
be. My mother’s family hovers out there in the World of Darkness,
while I stumble through my days under the Texas sun, rice grains
trickling from holes in my pockets, studding the way between
there and here, back and forth, between us and them, now and
maybe. I confess that communication doesn’t come naturally
to me. I’m reticent and slow on the uptake, and enjoy my time
as a shaded diminishment with only occasional forays
into the light. So much to learn, so little capacity. I could spend
hours watching the spider working among the unread books,
while my mandolin languishes in its case and the earth
keeps spinning, spinning, holding us in place. What tunes
have I forgotten, which remain unsung? The wire mesh tube
in my heart cleared the way from a numbered life, and now
I roll along in words, which bear their own bags of worry.
But I’ve learned to empty and stack the burlap on the floor near
the resonator, and the sacks magically replenish themselves
every night. So it goes. Empty, refill. Like a glass of Hibiki,
or blood pumped through our anterior descending veins.
Tonight rice and peppers will fill my belly, with fish, a mango
cream sauce, and a bitter ale, which I would share with you,
perhaps in another dream, or better yet, in person, under
stars announced by mythical birds on a warm night with
laughter in the breeze. No ladder needed. Come on up. Bob.
“Letter to Schnee from the Stent’s Void” was first published in Lost River in August 2018. Many thanks to editor Leigh Cheak for publishing this piece.
Agave
It might deceive.
Or like a cruel
window, live its life
unopened,
offering a view
yet reserving the taste
for another’s
tongue, ignoring
even the wind.
The roots, as always, look down.
* * *
This first appeared in Ijagun Poetry Journal in December 2013, was featured in poems2go in April 2016, and is also included in my micro-chapbook, You Break What Falls, available for download from the Origami Poems Project: http://www.origamipoems.com/poets/236-robert-okaji
My poem “Houston” has been published at The Green Light. Many thanks to editors Caitlin and Ash for taking this piece!
Earth’s Damp Mound
for P.M.
I. February 1998.
That week it rained white petals
and loss completed its
turn, the words finding themselves
alone, without measure,
without force, and no body to compare.
Though strangers spoke I could not.
Is this destiny, an unopened
mouth filled with
pebbles, a pear tree
deflowered by the wind? The earth’s
damp mound settles among your bones.
II. Count the Almonds
What bitterness
preserves your sleep,
reflects the eye’s
task along the inward thread?
Not the unspoken, but the unsayable.
Curious path, curious seed.
A shadow separates
to join another, and in the darker
frame carries the uncertain
further, past silence, past touch,
leaving its hunger alert and unfed,
allowing us our own protections.
III. The Bowl of Flowering Shadows
Reconciled, and of particular
grace, they lean, placing emphasis on balance,
on layer and focus, on depth of angle
absorbing the elegant darkness,
a lip, an upturned glance, the mirror.
What light caresses, it may destroy.
Even the frailest may alter intent.
So which, of all those you might recall,
if your matter could reform
and place you back into yourself,
would you choose? Forgive me
my selfishness, but I must know.
IV. Requiem
Then, you said, the art of nothingness
requires nothing more
than your greatest effort.
And how, seeing yours, could we,
the remaining, reclaim our
space without encroaching on what
you’ve left? One eye closes, then
the other. One mouth moves and another
speaks. One hears, one listens, the eternal
continuation. Rest, my friend. After.
Prentiss Moore influenced my reading and writing more than he ever realized. We spent many hours talking, eating, arguing, drinking, laughing. Always laughing – he had one of those all-encompassing laughs that invited the world to join in. And it frequently did. Through Prentiss I met in person one of my literary heroes, Gustaf Sobin, whose work Prentiss had of course introduced me to. Those few hours spent with the two of them driving around in my pickup truck, discussing poetry, the Texas landscape, horticulture and the vagaries of the publishing world, are hours I’ll always hold close.
Earth’s Damp Mound last appeared here in April 2018. It was first published in the anthology Terra Firma, and is included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform.
Read Richard Lemm’s review of Anna Marie Sewell’s FOR THE CHANGING MOON!
A poet, story-teller, musician-songwriter, and collaborative performer, Anna Marie Sewell was born in Fredericton, and is of Mi’kmaq, Anishinaabe and Polish heritage. Lee Ellen and I met Anna Marie, a long-time Alberta resident, when she was Edmonton’s Poet Laureate in 2011-2013 and beginning a multi-disciplinary community history project, Reconciling Edmonton.
Lee Ellen was touring the country for the Canadian Capital Cities Organization in preparation for Canada’s celebration of its 150th anniversary, and I was tagging along on one of her western jaunts. Anna Marie was the highlight of our Edmonton visit – a radiant spirit with a hugely loving and grateful heart, and a sweet wisdom and warm sense of humour to match her muscular devotion to justice and opposition to iniquity. In our short time with her, we felt blessed to meet one of those people who make you feel that we humans can and do survive and triumph…
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Love Song for the Dandelion
When you scatter
I gasp
aware that the windborne
carry truths
too powerful to breathe
too perfect
to bear
What is your name
I ask
knowing the answer
all along
* * *
“Love Song for the Dandelion” first appeared in Rue Scribe in September 2018. Many thanks to Eric Luthi and the editors at Rue Scribe for accepting this piece and several others.
My good friend Ron Evans died last September, leaving behind a lost trove of writings. I received permission to seek publication for a selection of his haiku, which are now published at The Zen Space. Guest editor Daniel Paul Marshall assembled a superb selection of poetry (not just haiku). Check it out!
O at the Edges 