Years ago, I worked in a library…
Incongruities
so little depends
upon
the half-Japanese
bookman
reading Italian
haiku
in the Texas
library.
Once again, my apologies to William Carlos Williams, whose poetry inspires and therefore often bears the brunt of my little diversions into whimsy. “Incongruities” first appeared here in October 2015. The original WCW poem can be found here.
Daniel Schnee considers my poem “The Resonance of No.”
Links to my publications, March – May 2017.
West Texas Literary Review
“Gulf”
Quiet Letter
“Memory and Closets”
“Strollermelon”
“Cutting Down the Anniversary Pine”
LCk Publishing
Sault St. Marie
Rat’s Ass Review
“Sensing My Dismay at the Election Results, My Wife’s Dog Presses against Me”
La Presa
“Even the Light”
Oxidant|Engine
“When to Say Goodbye“
GFT Presents: One in Four
“Scarecrow Believes”
“The Boy Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn”
Links to my publications for January – February 2017:
The Slag Review
“Scarecrow Pretends”
Sourland Mountain Review
“I Praise the Moon Even When She Laughs”
Silver Birch Press “Me at 17” Prose and Poetry Series
“Letter from Kansas”
Postcard Poems and Prose Magazine
“Runaway Bus”
Glass: A Journal of Poetry
“What We Say When We Say Nothing”
Calamus
“Palinode (sol, ischemia, night)”
Steel Toe Review
“How to Do Nothing”
“And All Around, the Withered”
B. McClellan’s Weblog (International Poetry Month)
“From Left to Right I Ponder Politics and Kanji”
“A Brief History of Babel”
Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art
“Henry Lee Remembers Grandmother’s Garden”
“What are You Going to Do (Cento)”
“Magic”
“The Draft”
“Diverting Silence”
Matt Larrimore, editor of Four Ties Lit Review, interviewed me in September 2014:
http://fourtieslitreview.com/home/interviews/interview-with-robert-okaji/
I thought it might be worthwhile to assemble these in one place, to make it easier for anyone interested in reading my recent publications.
MockingHeart Review
“This Island is a Stone”
Vox Populi
“Scarecrow Calls Out the Man”
The Icarus Anthology
“Shadow Charm”
“Forgetting Charm”
Blue Fifth Review
“Heroes”
The Mantle
“Overlooked”
The Lake
“Letter to Wright from Between Gusts”
Eclectica
“A Word Bathing in Moonlight”
“Scarecrow Dreams”
“Missing Loved Ones”
Birch Gang Review
“Landscape with Jar”
Blue Bonnet Review
“Buddha’s Not Talking”
Picaroon Poetry
“Memorial Day, 2015”
Bright Sleep
“The Sky Withholds”
Crannóg
“Scarecrow Sings the High Lonesome”
Outcast Poetry
“The Theory and Practice of Rebellion”
Links to my publications for January – February 2017:
The Slag Review
“Scarecrow Pretends”
Sourland Mountain Review
“I Praise the Moon Even When She Laughs”
Silver Birch Press “Me at 17” Prose and Poetry Series
“Letter from Kansas”
Postcard Poems and Prose Magazine
“Runaway Bus”
Glass: A Journal of Poetry
“What We Say When We Say Nothing”
Calamus
“Palinode (sol, ischemia, night)”
Steel Toe Review
“How to Do Nothing”
“And All Around, the Withered”
B. McClellan’s Weblog (International Poetry Month)
“From Left to Right I Ponder Politics and Kanji”
“A Brief History of Babel”
Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art
“Henry Lee Remembers Grandmother’s Garden”
“What are You Going to Do (Cento)”
“Magic”
“The Draft”
“Diverting Silence”
For those of you who might care, I’m featured in an interview in Middle Gray.
Originally posted in December 2013. Circumstances have changed a bit – I have more time to write these days, but somehow manage to constantly run behind…
Everything is nothing, but afterwards.
I rise and the moon disturbs the darkness,
revealing symbols, a few stolen words
on the bureau. Tomorrow I’ll express
my gratitude by disappearing be-
fore I’m found, which is to say goodbye
before hello, a paradigm for the
prepossessed. Compton tells us to imply
what’s missing, like Van Gogh or Bill Monroe,
but why listen to the dead before they’ve
stopped speaking? Unfortunately we throw
out the bad with the good, only to save
the worst. I return to bed, and the floor
spins. Nothing is everything, but before.
This first appeared in The Blue Hour Magazine in December 2014, and is also included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform. The line “Everything is nothing, but afterwards” comes from Antonio Porchia’s Voices, translated by W.S. Merwin. Porchia wrote one book in his lifetime, but what a book it was! Often described as a collection of aphorisms, Voices is so much more – each time I open the book, I find new meaning in old lines.
O at the Edges 