The Garden
But what of this notion
of the romantic?
It rained last night.
I could smell it
before it fell,
each drop a perfect
sphere until the final
moment. This
is fact, impractical but
lovely for its truth.
* * *
Initially posted here in January of 2014, the poem was published many years ago (30?) as a poetry postcard offered by the literary journal Amelia. I admit to being wrong about the shape of raindrops. But hey, they start out spherical…
Roof Charm
What is home if not exile to the familiar?
A serrated kiss at the closet door.
We duck our heads and cook meals undercover,
the sun’s rays deflected.
And every relentless day finds
our hands wanting.
The black shawl, unfolded.
Wax melted on the whetstone.
You say stars shiver despite their light.
You say one hand mirrors its mate’s arc.
I say warmth flows through you, the roof our sky.
“Roof Charm” made its first appearance here in June 2016.
Moths
Small moths stir
in the darkness.
I feel their
wings brush my
face, my hands,
remembering the cry
of something unseen.
It is windy
again this morning.
* * *
“Moths” first appeared here in July 2015.
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.
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.
My poem “Warm Nectar” is live at San Antonio Review. I am grateful to editor William Pate II for taking this piece.
Palinode (birds)
Simplicity, as in the cloaca. One aperture for all: eggs,
urine, sperm, feces. The majority of birds copulate
by joining the openings of their cloacae (most male
birds lack penises). Nothing is for nothing.
Nothing is for nothing, but the ache of emptiness
bestows its own reward. That movement from outer
world to inner, to anima, to breath, to flight,
approaching heaven. Birds know the way.
Knowing the way, birds express our envy of the
boundless, testament to the unity of earth and sky,
instinct’s voice. We see feathers not as epidermal
outgrowths, but as emblems of what we forever seek.
As emblems of what we seek, crows exploit man’s
folly, exposing hidden truths. Thought and memory
recede, leaving us foundered. Altered consciousness,
flight, the space to believe, simplicity’s forms in one.
“Palinode (birds)” first appeared in slightly different form in Otoliths in fall 2016.
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.
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
Well Pump
To be within, yet without: the rootless seed.
Staring through glass, we see only the surface
sliced thin like cell-thick specimen slides.
I dream of knowing, of inclusion.
The well pump is fried, but only thieves
return our calls. How to deflect the lure
of complicity? Stack stone, observe clouds.
Tap the cistern. Absorb its hollow tune.
* * *
“Well Pump” first appeared in January 2018 in Amethyst Review.
Many thanks to editor Sarah Law for accepting it.
Inscrutable
The river fills her body
like handwriting on a scrap
folded into a book
and found years later.
No one reads that language.
Undiscovered,
she remains closed, cleansed,
awaiting interpretation.
* * *
“Inscrutable” was first published in Volume 3, Issue 1 of Ink in Thirds. Thank you, Grace Black, for taking this piece!
O at the Edges 