#2492 -- in a bamboo grove

 

2492

7.300

29.x.26

in a bamboo grove

Fushimi Inari

 

day declining

damp cedar

 

a gate creeps up on a gate

there are ten thousand

 

this is light the colour of a last sun

still keeps a sky up

 

there are at least ten thousand feet

 

it’s only on foot one presses beyond  

it’s only in mud past the dust

 

in a bamboo grove

 

gate upon gate

door beyond door

into the still, the swaying

by its own breeze

eyes up

 

down here

the not quite silence of a stream

 

it’s always into another world

vanish, remember, return

 

dim already under

 

so many stone foxes

prepare for their hunt

 

shoot an arrow

into a rice cake

 

rice shoots up where the bird will land

 

through each gate, more sacred

slip back in time

 

we shed the day

as we go on

 

there must be merit

in that 

#2491 -- art of the almost

 

2491

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art of the almost

Butoh

 

here is the nakedness of a storm

loin stretch shoulder to facing away

 

shivering skinshake all over severe

 

and so as if to say

backs to it

itch and slap

till you’re mosquito

 

then take the sun

crawl forward

 

all of us casting a red eyed drool

 

to act

and so forgive

 

a frog hop exorcism reversing then

 

tear and bite

 

cheer on the demons, bow, out

 

cast red, stretch, curl

 

gone where we go and when

 

gathering light by the while

and letting it

as if a word in the air

 

I implore

it touches

 

little shiver in the works

 

shape of a washed up sea

 

so solemn succumb

 

it’s if you’re the face

can’t be seen

 

if it’s your

 

something is always being meant

 

a defence

and here we think past it

 

it was not I, who

 

wishing touch but none

 

draw a line no one sees

 

the only rhythm here’s a heart

you can’t hear it though

 

if there’s a face

it’s mine

 

I am writing this in the dark

 

#2490 -- life in the quilt

 

2490

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life in the quilt

ekphrastic for Hayashi Sayoko’s ‘Machiya Quilt’

 

life in the quilt is a forest

there is a house of all seasons shone

 

rooftops and rainbright

in leftover sleep

 

the flower and the leaf put out

 

a house is cut from this memory

 

life is as dreaming from the day gone

 

is it for us to know?

 

there is a whimsy of hills

 

are we here?

 

the house is a piano

clouds sewn over

 

what bird will sing past this stillness?

 

crowd in a wild dance these woods are

 

life is a leaf in the forest

it’s turning

 

later some stars

stay in bed

 

and some fall

 

roof is a quilt of cloud, of star

 

ways of a dream are as a garden

all turns, never the same

 

as if it were cut from lost cloth

… here are the other lives

 

there’s a moon

there are many

we’ve known them all

to dream this far

 

dream this house past, dream another

 

some days in the rain road’s nearly gone

 

in some sleeps least ships slip by

 

with how have we come

and where may we go?

 

that’s how people may dream on

 

there’s life in the quilt and under

 

nothing here but the hands to touch

she is making the cloth from leftover sleep

 

building the house from the dream

 

through gate after gate

each step more sacred

 

can you see?

 

it’s through merely a lattice so

 

someone is looking out from a window

 

no clock will tick through

no news will touch

 

winter’s away

 

this quilt will keep me warm 

#2489 -- the figure fades

 

2489

7.297

26.x.26

the figure fades

ekphrastic for Kojima Yuji’s ‘the mundane sphere’

 

here in a well of the sky, the eyes

 

and every animal sacred

 

lost script, a way wept

 

something erupts

 

there’s golden

 

a wall inside

 

flat beard king

the chequerboard falling

 

there’s a face where you won’t look

 

a figure fades into the wall

 

there is no place for us above

we must not fall below 

#2488 -- Ten Heian Jingu Haiku

 

2488

7.296

25.x.26

Ten Heian Jingu Haiku

one more arrangement of nature

 

the just dug pond

two ducks take off

it’s not what they had imagined

 

shadows of branches

fill my blank canvas

and now a cloud re-primes

 

stones step across

a dragon’s back

ghosts of trees lament

 

gingerly, arms out for balance

at the photo op stone

fall in

 

traffic roar

just over the fence

little fish and slightly bigger

 

it’s so many ways

your every tree goes

without ever giving a thought

 

a breeze of turned leaves

a tortoise headsup

beyond the frond, frog lands

 

the shallow world and the swimming

garden as good as a picture

all these eyes to follow you round

 

it’s just me here

trying to keep invisible

forbidding myself from the poem

 

ripple of wings, grooming antics

the stillness below and the stillness above

ducks duck under now

#2487 -- in Kyoto, as always, longing for Kyoto

 

2487

7.295

24.x.26

in Kyoto, as always, longing for Kyoto

 

now sight first and last of all bridges

    tucked in a garden few are to see

now you’re back – at journey’s end and beginning

 

the wilding hedges and the grasses rank

little bridges out of time, cattails and sedges

this waiting the leaves to turn

 

syllabic footwork for a shout

where figures of the past pour forth

and will tomorrow too

 

a twist and a toss – pompoms on poles

scattered applause, call that matsuri

to every side a bow

 

children in bright caps at the palace

and all other ages pass by

a room of tigers and a room of cranes

 

the cherry blossom room, the gold chrysanthemum lintel

a courtier’s gravel crunch, palanquin on call

the name of a tree for which one weeps

 

doors behind gates behind

a sky processional shows through

but just now open, here at heaven’s whim  

 

the emperor is dreaming

as will a cloud we must not wake

clouds waiting permission to rain

#2486 -- between paper walls

 

2486

7.294

23.x.26

between paper walls

my strange house in Arashiyama

 

gentle with this dark of hard angles

 

you can get lost in here

 

little submarine house

with the haunted bath

that drains, refills itself

 

that’s all there is of the dream now

 

stairs are somewhere else

but only if you look

 

a little imp moves the teacups round

 

it’s always when you’re not looking

there’s a rational explanation

 

old bells are ringing out there

 

the walls are far mountains

 

they like a little offering of crumb

 

you take all of the necessary steps

to remind yourself you’re not here

 

and sleep!

I can remember it

sleep is where we were