Author Archives: robert okaji

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About robert okaji

At one time I was a sailor. I once owned a bookstore. I live in Texas with my wife, two dogs, and a few books.

While Trespassing I Note the Sadness of Old Fences

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While Trespassing I Note the Sadness of Old Fences

I write poems when I can,
in late morning or during

the afternoon, between chores
but before dinner. And sometimes

I duck through spaces
void of wire barbs, and consider

how to fill the incomplete, which words,
what materials could repair

those particular holes. I cut my own
fence once, to access our house

when the creek flooded the road,
lugging uphill through the snake

grass a jug of scotch, my mandolin
and a watermelon, essentials for a weekend’s

respite. To be truthful I cut only the lowest
strand, to help the dog get through — I

was able to climb over, but he couldn’t dig
through the limestone rubble to wriggle

under, and we’d come too far
to simply turn around.

 

* * *

This appeared in riverSedge, Volume 29, Issue 1, released in October 2016. I first encountered riverSedge in 1983, and vowed that one day my poetry would be published in this journal. It took a while…

 

Agave

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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

 

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A Herd of Watermelon

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A Herd of Watermelon

My work tools include rubber boots, a hydraulic
jack and snake tongs. Prevention over cure, always.

A helicopter’s shadow crosses the yard.
I sweat in cold weather; today even the shade burns.

Ants swarm a dead bat on the gravel.
No keys for these locks, no fire for that place.

Stepping inside, the city welcomes me.
We drain coffers for this grass, and hope for rain.

This morning two deer jumped the east fence while I
updated software. The significance eludes us.

A dream of watermelons rising from their viny beds,
lumbering through the field to the creek. Rebellion!

How many have sat at this desk before me, plotting
murders and rumors or rhymes. Die, mosquito. Die!

 

 

“A Herd of Watermelon” was drafted during the August 2016 Tupelo Press 30-30 Challenge. Thank you to Plain Jane for sponsoring the poem and providing the title. Alas, my time at this very special place has ended. No longer in Texas, I seek work elsewhere. What will I find?

 

Irretrievable

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Irretrievable

How we grieve the simplest
truth: we are

the scatterings,

relics of
the mind’s
erosions,

less than the sum
of our bodies. I cannot see
the word

but it smokes like
the color green
burning, but not of
flame, and once

the knife enters
you must avoid
its secretion

and peel the flesh
to reveal
what hides within:

the stem’s
purchase, pith,
seeds,

the irretrievable
shape

of a word
my lips cannot
form.

***

“Irretrievable” first appeared in a slightly different form in Vayavya, in December 2013, and subsequently appeared here in April 2016..

jalapeno

Hey, I’ve Won a Chapbook Contest!

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The Sadness of Old Fences 2

I’m delighted to report that I’ve been named the winner of the 35th Annual Slipstream Poetry Chapbook Contest:
 
Slipstream is pleased to announce that the winner of our 2022 Poetry Chapbook Contest is Robert Okaji for his collection, “Buddha’s Not Talking.” The book will be published in late summer. All entrants in the contest will receive a free copy of the chapbook, along with a copy of the latest issue of Slipstream (Issue #42 Bread/Blood/Beats theme issue.
 
Robert Okaji lives in Indiana with his wife, stepson and cat. He holds a BA in history, served without distinction in the U.S. Navy, toiled as a university administrator, and no longer owns a bookstore. His honors include the 2021 riverSedge Poetry Prize, the 2021 Etchings Press Poetry Chapbook Prize, and the 1968 Bar-K Ranch Goat-Catching Championship.
 
Poet Robert Penick writes: “In an era of ego and agenda-based poetry, Robert Okaji ties us to the moment, the gesture, and the event. What few may understand is how important his commitment is to the truth. Okaji measures speed, spit, and distance, always taking the velocity of time into account before launching an image or forecast. And he never misses his target.”

I’ll post order links when available. Cover art by the inestimable Stephanie L. Harper. Author photo by Matthew Harper. 

Cover Photo

The Fog (after H.D.)

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Man in fog

 The Fog (after H.D.)

I am dead.
You avoid me.
I open like a shell.
You expose me with your breath.
What am I, heartless one?

This was an exercise in which I used H.D.’s poem “The Pool” as the launching point. It’s fun and occasionally illuminating to try these. “The Fog” first appeared on the blog in April 2016.

shell

 

 

 

Ikebana

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leaf on stone

 

Ikebana (You without You)

Between frames, between presence and negation, authority.

If your body lies in the earth, why are you here?

Limits admired and sought: the way of the flower.

I pluck leaves from the lower half to achieve balance.

Shape and line detach, yet comprise the whole.

My father, awake in his chair, mourns quietly.

A naked twig forms one point of the scalene triangle.

Starkness implies silence, resonates depth.

Heaven, earth, man, sun and moon invoke your absence.

As you trickle through the interval’s night.

 

* * *

Ikebana is the art of Japanese flower arrangement.

chair

This first appeared on the blog in March 2016, and is included in my mini-digital chapbook, Interval’s Night, published by Platypus Press in December 2016, and available via free download.

 

Poem Up at Tiny Wren Lit

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My poem “Self-Portrait as Blemish” is up at Tiny Wren Lit. I am grateful to editor Dana Knott for taking this piece.

The Sky Refutes East and West

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nest

The Sky Refutes East and West

Here, the horizon lingers.
The open eye, the mouth’s shape.

A hoop, the circle without iris.

Does the screech owl acknowledge latitude and hemisphere?

The Semitic alphabet contained no vowels, thus O
emerged as a consonant with a pupil, morphing into a dotted ring,

and later, with the Greeks, an unembellished circle (which of course

they cracked open and placed at the end). The female lays eggs

on the remnants of earlier meals lining the bottom of her den.
If you listen at night you might hear the purring of a feathered

cat (the Texas screech owl’s call varies from that of its eastern cousins).

The difference between sphere and ball.

To pronounce the Phoenician word for eye, sing the lowest note possible,
then drop two octaves. They usually carry prey back to their nests.

Screech owls are limited to the Americas.

Coincidence and error, the circumference of other.

 

***

“The Sky Refutes East and West” was first published in Prime Number Magazine, and also appears in my chapbook The Circumference of Other, included in Ides: A Collection of Poetry Chapbooks (Silver Birch Press, 2015). It made its first appearance here in May 2016.

eastwest

Poem Featured at Great Lakes Review

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Jar of Grief

 

My poem “Where Grief Falls” is featured at Great Lakes Review. I am grateful to the team at GLR for taking this piece.