My poem “Limping Uphill through the Mist, I Consult My Dead Dog and Dream of Indianapolis and the Woman Who is Not Yet There” is live at Compass Rose.. I am grateful to editor Kelly Easton for publishing this piece, which appears in my latest chapbook, Buddha’s Not Talking, available from Slipstream Press. Signed copies are also available via Loud Bug Books.
My poem “Memorial Day” is live at Verse Daily.. I am grateful to editor J.P. Dancing Bear for publishing this piece, which appears in my latest chapbook, Buddha’s Not Talking, available from Slipstream Press. Signed copies are also available via Loud Bug Books.
This is quite the honor for me. I never dared dream about having a poem on Verse Daily, as such things don’t happen to random old guys off the street. Until they do!
Lament for Five White Cat (after Mei Yao-ch’en)
Five White cat always made sure
no rats gnawed my books,
but this morning Five White died.
On the river I offered up rice and fish,
and buried you in its lazy currents,
chanting my lament. I could never neglect you.
One time you caught a rat
and carried it squealing around the yard
to frighten all the other rats
and keep my cottage clear of them.
We’ve shared space aboard this boat,
and although the food is meager
it’s free of rat piss and droppings
because you were so diligent,
more so than any chicken or pig.
Some people speak highly of horses,
saying nothing compares to them or donkeys.
But we’re done with that discussion!
My tears prove it so.
* * *
The transliteration from Chinese-poems.com:
Self have 5 white cat
Rat not invade my books
Today morning 5 white die
Sacrifice with rice and fish
See off it at middle river
Incantation you not you neglect
Before you bite one rat
Hold in mouth cry around yard remove
Want cause crowd rat frightened
Thought will clear my cottage
From board boat come
Boat in together room live
Dry grain although its thin
Evade eat drip steal from
This real you have industriousness
Have industriousness surpass chicken pig
Ordinary person stress spur horse drive
Say not like horse donkey
Already finish not again discuss
For you somewhat cry
A Song Dynasty poet, Mei Yao-ch’en (or Mei Yaochen) died in 1060. His great poems live on.
Calm (after H.D.)
I flow over the ground,
healing its hidden scar–
the scar is black,
the bedrock risen,
not one stone is misplaced.
I relieve the ground’s
burden with white froth,
I fill and comply—
I have thrown a pebble
into the night,
it returns to me,
settles and rises,
a white dove.
* * *
“Calm” is included in my micro-chapbook Only This, which is available via free download from Origami Poems Project. It made its first appearance here on the blog in March 2015, and was written as an exercise, using a poem, “Storm,” by H.D. as the launching point. I’ve tried to emulate her diction and rhythm, with mixed success. Still, it’s fun to try these on occasion.
Interiors Continue reading
Japanese Gardens
how natural the
lines falling so
purely as if
with a single
stroke we walk
through the opening
and see space
the white center
composed of sand
and gravel later
a gate opens
to another garden
its lantern and
stone so carelessly
arranged so deliberate
“Japanese Gardens” first appeared here in January 2015.
Giving Time
The supplicant’s desire:
mornings sliced into perfect pieces, afternoons
dipped in honey, evenings freed.
A gift of absence.
To gather and bear, shaping
the resultant minutes,
she takes yeast from the air, adds
flour, water and salt.
Matched with the ripening
hour and the sweetened bitter taste,
I recall how blood
seeped through the towel, and
observe on the table the
cheese, plums, the harvested day.
* * *
This originally appeared on Bonnie Mcclellan’s International Poetry Month website. A recording is also available there: https://bonniemcclellan.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/giving-time-by-robert-okaji/
The Loneliness of the Last
Always exposed, never sharing the comfort
of between, you see only the departed
diminishing with each second’s passage, blurring,
shrinking, and finally blinking out, all points
erased in the null, an eye closing in the tunnel.
Or, inhaling the fragrance of an unseen orange
grove filtered through coal and thick, black
coils, you accept the limits of possibility,
known only by edges flowing past, lost
to touch and forever beyond reach in the draft
of the inadmissible. Departure defines
you. What lies ahead is not yours to embrace.
* * *
“The Loneliness of the Last” was published as a mini-broadside by ELJ Editions in February 2017.
“Trem Abandonado” by Rafael Vianna Croffi
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/rvc/29472173566)
Osso Buco
The reconciled, the residue of one’s
virtues displayed or absorbed
that within become the basis for
talk: furtive movements, the knife’s
gentle persuasion, wine
afforded the quality of enhancement.
We must preserve the truth, and other
disingenuous phrases, as if we may
admit our tastes only at great cost
to our politics and sense of being.
And fruitful loss – the reduction
sauce, or stock evaporated – which
attaches in dissipation
the grace of subtlety. To be more
with less. To be apparent yet
concealed. To be, in turn, aware.
“Osso Buco” first appeared here in March 2015.
Knots
Who you are not seldom rises
beyond midnight’s
sum: one strand thrown over
another, looped through
and pulled taut, achieving
tension and a sour taste
at the back of your throat.
Everyone believes this
doesn’t bleed. I lock the
windows, draw the shades,
twist the cord. Even distracted,
nothing comes undone.
“Knots” first appeared here in June 2016.
O at the Edges 