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!
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
Window Open, Closed
We enter daylight in the shape
of praise, little words
billowing through wire mesh. Across
the highway a busboy questions time
and the concept of never, while
someone plucks leaves from the bay
tree and plans her day. Roger Bacon
longed to manipulate the inner essence
of inanimate objects, to harness their force,
and a lonely man swallows prescription drugs
deliberately, releasing their attributes over time.
My eyes redden from juniper pollen as the moon
spins invisibly above our roofs, tugging at the
clouds. I once traced in a building of music
the organ’s sound to the woman I longed
to attract. Now, the window prevents the passage
of solids, but waves penetrate. I spread my fingers
across the glass, but feel no vibrations. Distant
sirens announce a procession of cause and intent,
of carelessness and indecision. Somewhere a voice rises.
* * *
This originally appeared during Bonnie McClellan’s 2015 International Poetry Month celebration, and is included in The Circumference of Other, my offering in the Silver Birch Press chapbook collection, IDES, available on Amazon. A recording of the poem may be found on Bonnie’s site.
Door Harp
tear-shaped or is
it the inviolable
form of the
candle’s flame ever
changing but constant
in its own
presence that being
momentary or fixed
as a loved
one’s death I
listen and hear
only three notes
each one solitary
and aloof yet
of one purpose
Yet another piece from the eighties. It first appeared here in November 2015.
Curtain
Adept at withdrawal, it retreats.
How appropriate, we think,
that its body curls
with the wind’s
tug, offering
only the
slightest
resistance. Then
it returns,
bringing to mind
the habitual offender
whose discomfiture
lies in choice,
the fear
of enclosure
removed. The
forward glance.
And back again,
whispering its
edict: concede, reclaim.
Give and take. We are as one.
“Curtain” last appeared on the blog in July 2017.
* * *
My poem “Letter to Schwaner from the Toad-Swallowed Moon” was first published at The Hamilton Stone Review in October 2017. Much gratitude to editor Roger Mitchell for taking this piece.
Life among the Prickly Pear
Rain’s twofold curse: not enough
too much. Still, I take comfort
even among the thorns.
There is much to like here.
Its moonlight flowers.
Paddles fried with minced garlic.
Wren’s jubilant shriek.
The fruit’s red nectar.
I wake to distant screech owls
purring their desires on separate
slopes. Late spring, storms looming.
I close my eyes and the creek rises.
* * *
A draft of this first appeared here in June 2015, and I posted this version in May 2016.
In the meantime, two of my guitar heroes:
And All Around, the Withered
I total the numbers printed
on passing boxcars,
multiply by seven, then add two,
subtracting every third odd number,
only to find, in the end, myself
tethered to this empty platform,
spelling hapless with integers,
acknowledging Zahlen and
the infinite. Sometimes gravel, too,
calls to me and I observe space
in the path’s patterns, constellation
stacked upon constellation,
multi-dimensional galaxies
expanding in one swooping arc,
heroic eagles and exploding stars
complicit in their deeds and forever
locked in sequence, yet when I explain
my vision, the words emerge
as convex polyhedrons or inverted,
drooled gasps, and people turn aside.
That boy’s two bricks shy a full load, they
say. The lights are on but nobody’s home.
“And All Around, the Withered” was published in Steel Toe Review in January 2017.
1 (reflection)
Six iterations, alike but lessened in sequence, and always in pairs:
front and back, oblique, the two mirrors becoming four, then six.
A perfect mirror reflects and neither transmits nor absorbs light.
Tilting my chin, I accept reflectance according to its distribution.
Retina as transducer, producing neural impulses.
The images consume no space but the effect is of distance.
Vision is not simply the retina’s translation
but counts inference and assumption among its influences.
The sum and product of its parts: 1 + 2 + 3, or, 1 x 2 x 3.
Angles achieve distinctions apparent at each adjustment.
Turning slightly, I detect movement in each replica.
A six-door cubic cage depicting the bondage of sense and elements.
It is possible to withdraw from this frame.
2 (answers)
Does the weaker eye perceive less.
Who conceals the shadow’s death.
Is a distal truth a lie or merely implication.
How do you rid the mirror of its ghosts.
What resonates in the echo’s decline.
Did the light switch subvert the blackened image.
Apparition, projection or visual representation.
When do waves not disturb.
At what point does belief transmute sight.
What fixes the mirror’s image.
Who closed his eyes and saw light.
3 (prosopagnosia)
I sip coffee and gaze out the second-floor window.
More light enters my neighbor’s office than mine.
Calculate the difference between illumination and glare.
Looking ahead, I claim no face and recognize no one.
The eye converts a signal from one form of energy to another.
Accepting light from external objects, I perceive reflection as the true arbiter.
The dissected path impairs transduction.
Face as identifier: to make, to do.
Translation: imperfection: diminishment.
Blink.
* * *
“At Work I Stand Observing My Diminished Self” was published in Posit in October 2017.
O at the Edges 