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
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.
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.
My poems “Unwinding the Snake (after Linda Gregg)” and “Water Strider” are live at ONE ART: a journal of poetry. Many thanks to editors Mark Danowsky and Louisa Schnaithmann for taking these pieces.
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.
While Trespassing I Note the Sadness of Old Fences
I write poems when I can,
in late morning or during
the afternoon, between chores
but before dinner. And sometimes
I duck through spaces
void of wire barbs, and consider
how to fill the incomplete, which words,
what materials could repair
those particular holes. I cut my own
fence once, to access our house
when the creek flooded the road,
lugging uphill through the snake
grass a jug of scotch, my mandolin
and a watermelon, essentials for a weekend’s
respite. To be truthful I cut only the lowest
strand, to help the dog get through — I
was able to climb over, but he couldn’t dig
through the limestone rubble to wriggle
under, and we’d come too far
to simply turn around.
* * *
This appeared in riverSedge, Volume 29, Issue 1, released in October 2016. I first encountered riverSedge in 1983, and vowed that one day my poetry would be published in this journal. It took a while…
Mother’s Day
The dog is my shadow and I fear his loss. My loss.
I cook for him daily, in hope of retaining him.
Each regret is a thread woven around the oak’s branches.
Each day lived is one less to live.
Soon the rabbits will be safe, and the squirrels.
As if they were not. One morning
I’ll greet an empty space and walk alone,
toss the ball into the yard, where it will remain.
It is Mother’s Day.
Why did I not weep at my mother’s grave?
I unravel the threads and place them around the dog.
The wind carries them aloft.
“Mother’s Day” was published in The Lake in July 2016, and last appeared here in May 2020. It is included in my recently published chapbook, My Mother’s Ghost Scrubs the Floor at 2 a.m., available now from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.
Cantilever
1
Night skitters over the mounds,
avoiding the blue flowers
She bears the horizon’s gold.
2
No one stands alone.
Our sky is of earth, dark
soil packed with the living.
3
I do not seek mercy.
The cliff frog chirps its song
and the fog closes in.
4
Suspended, hope
wraps around her,
one foot on the ground.
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.
Setting Fire to the Rose Garden
Each flower is a gift, a testament to
another morning’s arrival.
I watch you tend the firestar, its
mango-colored petals flirting with
the fire ’n’ ice’s elegant
red, accepting the pink indictment
of the flaming peace, and the
scarlet fireglow’s blush. You are like
a new sunlight crossing the day,
yet when I wave, a cloud passes over
you. Flames differ in this regard,
knowing they exist only as the product
of heat, oxidation and combustible
material, yet sharing their brief lives
with all who care to notice. I inhale
your dark thoughts, holding them
within, but later assemble my own
bouquet — wood chips and diesel
fuel, ground spinners, snakes,
strobes, rockets, candles, shells,
repeaters and a spark timer — and
plant it fondly in the garden. Oh,
how they’ll blossom before dawn’s
first touch. How they will shine.
“Setting Fire to the Rose Garden” was drafted during the August 2015 Tupelo Press 30/30 Challenge, and was subsequently published in The Paragon Journal’s [Insert Yourself Here]: an Anthology of Contemporary Poetry.
O at the Edges 