You are the name
I whisper
to clouds.
Excerpt from “To the Light Entering the Shack One December Evening,” in From Every Moment a Second, available for prepublication order via Finishing Line Press. The poem first appeared in Shantih, in December 2016.
Two Cranes on a Snowy Pine (after Hokusai)
Who knows where bird
begins and tree
ends,
which branch shifts
snow, which bears
eternity. This, too, will share
joy,
elusive green
and breath,
with no thought
of flight
and night’s
fall.
This first appeared in Panoply in summer, 2016, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Many thanks to editors Ryn Holmes, Jeff Santosuosso and Andrea Walker for this honor, my first such nomination.
It also appears in my forthcoming chapbook, From Every Moment a Second.
See the woodblock print that sparked this poem: Hokusai
Political Haibun
The wind knows impermanence but does not trust it.
Dependent upon atmospheric pressure, absorption
and rotation, who can blame the wind? We, too,
lend ourselves illusions, only to barter them away.
Three miles for a beer. Seven seconds for a fresh look.
A dollar extended for every five stolen. Empathy,
but only for the wealthy. Electing liars to office,
we justify our actions with more untruths. Nothing
improves. Even the quality of lies diminishes.
yellowed grass bending
under the sun’s weight
god’s will, they say
…Red, like your favorite sky,
the in-between, the misplaced one.
From “I Have Answers,” in From Every Moment a Second, available for prepublication order via Finishing Line Press.
“Mayflies” is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. FLP is taking prepublication orders here.
Please note: prepublication sales determine the print run, which means this stage is crucial in terms of how many copies will be printed and the number of copies I’ll receive as payment. So if you feel inclined to help, and are able, please purchase your copy during this period. Thank you!
My poem, “The Theory and Practice of Rebellion,” is live at Outcast Poetry.
Many thanks to editor Sean Lynch for taking this piece.
This first appeared in 1988, in Aileron. At the time I was experimenting with movement and breath and line, and wrote quite a few of these meditations in this form, some more successful than others.
* * *
where breath begins
it ends consider
light its secret
structure the sense
of limit defined
if a hand
recalls what the
eye cannot which
is the source
of remembrance one
touches more deeply
or allows itself
to be touched
a difference only
in the approach
This was first published in 1988, in Aileron. At the time I was experimenting with movement and breath and line, and wrote quite a few of these meditations in this form, some more successful than others.
where breath begins
it ends consider
light its secret
structure the sense
of limit defined
if a hand
recalls what the
eye cannot which
is the source
of remembrance one
touches more deeply
or allows itself
to be touched
a difference only
in the approach
Mirror
The attraction is not
unexpected. We see
what is placed
before us, not
what may be.
The mirror is empty
until approached.
One of six short poems included in my micro-chapbook, You Break What Falls. Available for download here: http://www.origamipoems.com/poets/236-robert-okaji
“Mirror” first appeared here in May 2015.
Threes
Difficulties arrive in waves,
lending weight to the theory of threes,
the plunging fund, a failed engagement, the self’s
doubt, all combined to inflict the particular
misery of the ongoing, the continued, inelegant fate
that declares us human. Look,
she says, the hummingbird flits from leaf to
flower, its wings beating 58 times a second,
a fact not to be trifled with, for what may we duplicate,
contemplate, even, at that pace?
Say the hedge gets clipped, the ring whirs off the finger
and back to the jeweler, and all you know for certain
is that you don’t know. There is no why, no how. No
way. Or life’s reel unwinds and plays only in
reverse. Where do you stop and splice it, forming new,
uncharted worries? And what about that damned
bird, buzzing around your head in territorial fury? Yes,
yes, I know. These things are not my concern. Not really.
But they arrive in unending repetition, one after
the other, in clumps of three – lovely, lonely,
triple-threaded lines of vicissitude lapping at our ankles,
saying nothing, saying everything, saying it used to be so easy.
* * *
Originally published in Eclectica in July 2014, and first appeared on this blog in July 2015.
O at the Edges 