my dreams have been quite vivid lately. i wish i didn't have to wake up, but i do & have to deal with my subconsciousness fucking with me in my sleep.
as i've mentioned, my friend martin & i have been writing poetic correspondence between here & japan. this is the seventeenth installment. mine are the odd numbers, his are the even. let me know what you think.
ja ne,
daedalea
A Series of Tankas
1.
Moths fly to streetlamps
In droves to meet their bright loves--
Flame's a moth's graveyard.
No one knows sorrow more than
The lamp lighter, torch ablaze.
2.
On the horizon,
A flock of disowned salesmen
Forms a hoary sail.
Omens always come at night
In the raven's hollow bones.
3.
Wind holds up his hands:
In his palms, albatrosses
Like small pocketknives.
Flight is a winged tree ( feathers
Its leaves ) bending in the wind.
4.
To be born again;
Blind, without these hellish limbs
(Folding, unfolding).
Flying too close to the sun--
A school of Spanish Mackeral.
5.
All fish are derived
From Daedalus, that swallow
That swam in the sea.
It is commanded: swallow
The bird, you fish; fish, you bird.
6.
An old man found gills
in the sand, and tried them on.
By dawn he had drowned.
Now the children try to catch
That sunfish with silver hair.
7.
The waves beach themselves
To build their nests in tidepools
On the windswept dunes.
The waves break each night onshore,
& mourning, they return home.
8.
How all the trees bark
Like papyrus; have black eyes,
Write their years in rings.
Look now- a beech in the sky
bleeds red. The aspen whispers.
9.
Lumberjacks cut down
The oldest trees first to quell
Their long-restless souls.
Axes are reapers for trees;
Death is a man who starts fires.
10.
And yet, without flame
Pinecones remain unopened;
The forest grows stale.
Death is a man who cleans house,
A woman heavy with child.
11.
The moon is a bone
Boiled to make soup, bone & stock
Joined at the socket.
Death is cornbread that by the
Hand of God sops night skies up.
12.
The stars, her bridesmaids,
Choke with fear each time she smiles
(From her mouth, the sky).
When she has finished cooking,
They feed in shifts, and slowly.
13.
Set alarms for the
End, when tick becomes talk for
The great clockmaker.
The second his minute hand
Points up, he'll cover his face.
14.
When the mountains speak
Of time, they speak in whispers;
Like greiving widows.
I kill just one mosquito
In the rain, and my watch stops.
15.
There is a cloud that
Drives around town killing bugs.
Our bikes were the swarm.
The small flies chug what is ours.
We scratch to get back at them.
16.
There is a hole in
The side of the world and we
Are leaking from it.
Peeling the skin from an egg,
Its white eye stares back at me.
17.
If we were birthed from
The earth, surely there would be
Stretch marks to prove it.
When they'd cut my mom open,
Her heart walked out, unafraid.
as i've mentioned, my friend martin & i have been writing poetic correspondence between here & japan. this is the seventeenth installment. mine are the odd numbers, his are the even. let me know what you think.
ja ne,
daedalea
A Series of Tankas
1.
Moths fly to streetlamps
In droves to meet their bright loves--
Flame's a moth's graveyard.
No one knows sorrow more than
The lamp lighter, torch ablaze.
2.
On the horizon,
A flock of disowned salesmen
Forms a hoary sail.
Omens always come at night
In the raven's hollow bones.
3.
Wind holds up his hands:
In his palms, albatrosses
Like small pocketknives.
Flight is a winged tree ( feathers
Its leaves ) bending in the wind.
4.
To be born again;
Blind, without these hellish limbs
(Folding, unfolding).
Flying too close to the sun--
A school of Spanish Mackeral.
5.
All fish are derived
From Daedalus, that swallow
That swam in the sea.
It is commanded: swallow
The bird, you fish; fish, you bird.
6.
An old man found gills
in the sand, and tried them on.
By dawn he had drowned.
Now the children try to catch
That sunfish with silver hair.
7.
The waves beach themselves
To build their nests in tidepools
On the windswept dunes.
The waves break each night onshore,
& mourning, they return home.
8.
How all the trees bark
Like papyrus; have black eyes,
Write their years in rings.
Look now- a beech in the sky
bleeds red. The aspen whispers.
9.
Lumberjacks cut down
The oldest trees first to quell
Their long-restless souls.
Axes are reapers for trees;
Death is a man who starts fires.
10.
And yet, without flame
Pinecones remain unopened;
The forest grows stale.
Death is a man who cleans house,
A woman heavy with child.
11.
The moon is a bone
Boiled to make soup, bone & stock
Joined at the socket.
Death is cornbread that by the
Hand of God sops night skies up.
12.
The stars, her bridesmaids,
Choke with fear each time she smiles
(From her mouth, the sky).
When she has finished cooking,
They feed in shifts, and slowly.
13.
Set alarms for the
End, when tick becomes talk for
The great clockmaker.
The second his minute hand
Points up, he'll cover his face.
14.
When the mountains speak
Of time, they speak in whispers;
Like greiving widows.
I kill just one mosquito
In the rain, and my watch stops.
15.
There is a cloud that
Drives around town killing bugs.
Our bikes were the swarm.
The small flies chug what is ours.
We scratch to get back at them.
16.
There is a hole in
The side of the world and we
Are leaking from it.
Peeling the skin from an egg,
Its white eye stares back at me.
17.
If we were birthed from
The earth, surely there would be
Stretch marks to prove it.
When they'd cut my mom open,
Her heart walked out, unafraid.