The link to my two poems appearing in Kindle Magazine was damaged and readers were unable to access them. Kindle Magazine has kindly corrected the link to make them available again. These poems, with two others, also appear in the print collection Gossamer: An Anthology of World Poetry, published by Kindle Magazine this past December.
I’m delighted to have two poems appearing in the inaugural edition of MockingHeart Review. Many thanks to editor Clare Martin for her efforts in assembling this publication.
One Day I’ll Market Your Death
Do not mistake this phrase for one contiguous with threat.
Even its flower knows the theory of attractive quality.
An ideal medium for cochineal production, the prickly pear
shelters a host of creatures we seldom caress.
Which displays greater motility, the cactus or the cochineal?
Life-cycle of attributes, packaging, excitement, the unknown.
In the Aztec language, the word meant prickly pear blood.
The insects’ bodies and eggs yield carminic acid, which mixed with
aluminum or calcium salts yields the red dye.
Reaching for substance is neither metaphor nor effect. Sessile
parasite: carmine. The product of Dactylopius coccus
became the second most valued resource in Mexico, behind silver.
Opportunism unveiling itself, revealed, or, layered greed.
What appears to be fungus is wealth.
One-dimensional / attractive / indifferent. We look together
through the window and observe our separate selves.
This poem originally appeared in a slightly different form in Otoliths, and was included in my chapbook length work, The Circumference of Other, published in IDES: A Collection of Poetry Chapbooks, by Silver Birch Press.
(This first appeared in March 2014).
Quite the interesting mag back in the day. This particular issue saw the likes of Bukowski, Ivan Arguelles, Lyn Lifshin, Norm Moser, Sheila E. Murphy, and, well, me, among others. I was thinner back then, as was my poetry.
no more than
the slow grace
of light turning
the leaf so
patient in the
air and colder
now that sense
of permanence unfurled
it is not
long to wait
as Wang Wei
said in his
letter I listen
for a sound
but hear none
(Originally appeared in December 2013)
Christina Davis’s Forth a Raven offers stark, textured, intelligent and lyrical pieces in a stripped-down yet ultimately complex, reflective language. Encompassing the tension of different realms – the spiritual and the secular, the extraordinary and the mundane, her work, quite simply, astounds. Read this book. Seek out her work. It’s sublime.
Many thanks to Shinjini Bhattacharjee for including one of my poems, with an audio recording, in Hermeneutic Chaos, Issue 11, alongside work by Nancy Bevilaqua, Kenzie Allen, Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick, and others. This is a lovely, well curated publication, and I’m excited to have work in it.
My chapbook, The Circumference of Other, is one of fifteen contained in Ides, the Silver Birch Press one-volume collection of chapbooks scheduled to be released on October 15, 2015. Ides is priced at $15, and rounds out at 283 pages. I believe it will be available through Amazon. Many thanks to editor and publisher Melanie Villines for including my work alongside that of such a fantastic group of poets.
I have three poems appearing in the latest (and evidently the last) issue of Shadowtrain. Many thanks to editor Ian Seed, for allowing these to hop aboard.
I am pleased to announce that Emily Hancock, extraordinary letter press printer and proprietor of St. Brigid Press, is hand-setting a small broadside of one of my Chinese adaptations.
It will be available in August as a fundraising premium for a non-profit press (more details about that later), and the remainder will be offered for sale in September.
This is pure fun! My micro-chapbook, You Break What Falls, is available through the Origami Poems Project. What is a micro-chapbook, you might ask? In this case, it consists of six short poems on one sheet of paper, folded (hence origami) to form a chapbook. You may download it, free of charge, here: http://www.origamipoems.com/poets/236-robert-okaji
Oh, yes. Folding instructions are on the Origami Poems Project site.
O at the Edges 