Turn the corner and close the door.
Find a quieter place to listen to your heart beat, beat.
But feel the undulating floor: The pulse of the dancing,
Dancing.
Watch the lights in a reverie,
Sit and picture yourself dancing,
Meeting her,
Not meeting her.
Your life hangs by a thread
Now unbreakable.
But in the imagined past, intimately delicate,
Pluck the heartstring and be carried to a darker place.
To pain born of happiness,
To fear born of hope,
To a death that exists because it is what you live for.
2009/02/19
The guitar hides sounds of waves below
As I pull her to her feet
To dance
2009/02/05
Dancing madly, stirred
By otherwise undetectable winds,
My touch is combustion, and the
Glow
Is unimaginably beautiful,
Turning to ash. I seek
More fuel.
Moving quickly
To escape the heat
Simply ignites my soul
Like kindling.
Like gunpowder.
2009/01/19
I fell.
The same fire I had flown towards incinerated my wings.
Screaming in pain and understanding,
I achieved a phenomenal velocity.
She shot.
Pushed taut until the wire snapped.
Launched with the force of a hateful ballista,
The ground moving so fast beneath her feet she could not place them to slow herself.
Our trajectories coincided.
The impact resounded.
Our carapaces shattered,
Littering our surroundings with shell fragments.
For a moment we beheld each other,
Held each other,
Directly,
Impossibly.
Our combined radiance was so stunning that we were blinded into unconsciousness.
We slept so deeply that when we awoke
A new layer of chitin had already begun to coat our vulnerable bodies.
Only our hands remained free, and
We joined them,
Gripping fervently,
Against the time when even that
Joy would recede.
Afterwards, we each walked numbly away from the scene of the crash.
I was trying not to forget, but not to remember.
She was mending the cord, stronger than before,
To restring the weapon which launched her into the night.
What force without suffering could have propelled us
Together forcefully
Enough to so fully annihilate the armor we rely on for survival?
But I feel unfamiliar gaps in my regrown shell.
Near each shoulder blade, the buds of small wings protrude slightly.
Their shape is different than before: They will be unfamiliar.
But perhaps it is time to try flying once more.
2009/01/05
Listen!
There is a whisper gliding
Under your half-open window.
No! Do not rouse
Your Self but carefully, stealthily,
Attentively
Listen!
Between entangled eyelashes will slip
Into your dream
A singular mote of pollen
Drifting silently past watchmen,
Transparently through fortifications
Inciting germination of the seed
Of hope you guard,
Even from yourself.
2008/11/10
The light to lead me home nears extinction
But I cannot leave
Alone on the summit
Sunset
2008/10/12
Is this music?
Does it create this alternate reality where I can cry?
Where I must cry, as water must flow downhill.
Where I can feel my mind curling around its hardened core,
Simultaneously blooming in radiant tendrils to join
Something larger than myself.
2008/10/01
In darkness, you chirp, and hear your best friend chirp in reply.
From miles away, you connect.
Not with the artificiality of the telephone,
but with the natural aesthetic limitation to messages consisting of
A name, A word, An unarticulated cry.
One day, you cannot hear the familiar beacon.
In denial, you wonder:
Am I too far?
Has she changed her call?
No. She is gone.
2008/10/1
In anticipation of leaving, I step out,
Adjusting my coat and bag for the rain.
Saying goodbye with my eyes
To a now-familiar fragment
Of the visual opportunity
Unexercised.
2008/09/25
Finally stepping outside
My nostrils fill
With the scent of abated rain
2008/09/24
Standing near a railing near the sea
Freezing in the wind, under the sun
I don a coat, it flaps with my hair
The rhythm of the waves; my earth
Sailing past the bay.
Sitting to recover heat
A wave of goosebumps distributes
Warmth.
2008/09/22
Hearing seagulls in the predawn
Non-embrace
The light, sound, waking
Open internal eyes
Looking at one another
Unfamiliar
Once more, drawn, inescapably
To learn
2008/09/21
Piercing the soft layer of clouds:
Above, more clouds, harder
2008/09/20
the tops of autumn clouds
retreating around the curve
of the earth
2008/09/19
How does a stalagmite form?
Within subterranean waters, small crystals of marble are dissolved
into invisible uniformity by stifling gases mixed with the prevailing
flow.
When the stream inadvertently, but inevitably, leaves its
burrow, falling through open air, the freshness immediately relieves
the liquid of its solvent, freeing tiny, pure white particles.
Rarely is the airborne flow great. It drips slowly, leaving some
larger unmodified torrent to make its way down, down to deeper stones
through unlit caves.
The drops hit, and hit, and hit, leaving behind
their crystal impurities; eventually the point of departure constructs
a monument to itself.
Through the gradual piling of discards, it
attains a height which cannot be ignored.
2008/09/14
Two writers walk
A path irregularly obstructed
By monstrous roots.
Arguing over the meaning of story,
Not a word is written.
At a junction, they hastily
Choose. Divergence.
Leaving trails of unread pages
Dripping with ink.
2008/09/04
I cannot say that music fills me, because I cannot believe in my ability to
receive without distorting. Music casts a beam on the crystalline structure of
introspection, scattering in colors. Through internal reflection, the energy
saturates my cavity beneath the flesh. I am a vessel into which is poured a
concentrate uncontainable. As my skin is finally perforated, through goosebumps
undulating down spine and arms, I dissolve into radiance, blending into light that
was all around, but unnoticed, until now.
2008/08/25
Sleeping is the hardest time.
It isn't the vacancy beside me -
that emptiness is tempered by the refreshing honesty of solitude.
But in the confines of a borrowed room, I am cut off, by modern privacy,
from the umbilical threads of companionship that, unbeknownst
to their sources, are keeping me alive.
2008/08/23
With back turned stubbornly to the light I see you, honesty,
retreating before me. Why do I feel
such envy, hardening into a throbbing ember of hatred, towards
you, featureless doppelganger? Your unfailing darkness is
free. You do not suffer the love of friends
to lift you to unsustainable heights. Staring
hard at the cavity which should contain your gaze
of malice to match my own, I find that even my
greatest emotional exertion is easily contained, absorbed,
and forgotten.
2008/08/17
Fleeing the sun's glare for the shade of the pines
and the comfortable glow of friendship.
2008/08/16
Light filtered through pine needles
Lifting her sunglasses
And squinting upwards
2008/08/15
Love is a word
A word is an impulse
Passing from my lips to your mind
Through smooth perturbations
And reflecting
Speak it! Speak it!
Free it! Free it!
But don't forget to protect
To capture, sequester
The touch you'll remember
Is all that lasts forever
2008/08/13
If, of the turbulence,
Of currents competing,
You tire,
Seeking relief,
You grasp
But are denied purchase.
Trade your jealousies
For abiding meloncholy.
Rather than fight, wait.
Pass your fingertips
Over mildewed walls in the gloom
As you slip free of the winds.
But with an open hand
Let go.
2008/08/12
Stepping in one another's footprints
Sledding on one another's trails
2008/01/19
changing seats on the bus
to sit next to a stranger
I strike up a conversation
2008/01/10
straight, cutting
dragonfly wing-glow
I blink
2007/07/02
My beard retains water.
How queer! How discomfiting
That a part of me
Could be so compromised
Unexpectedly.
Yet moving on,
My idle fingers
Brush my lips and nose and eyes.
I find a surface alien
To my recollection.
Should I explore further
The extent of familiarity
Of the parts constituating me?
Considering the possibilities,
I hesitate indefinitely.
2008/07/18
morning mist
settles atop pine trees
in spiders' webs
2007/11/05
手に涙 桜気付かなく 顧みる
てになみだ さくらきづかなく かえりみる
tear-soaked hands
cherry blossoms unnoticed
looking back
2007/04/10
steel
fibers woven thickly
about flesh
2007/03/08
温かい 研究室で 冬はない
あたたかい けんきゅうしつで ふゆはない
In the warm
Laboratory
There is no winter
2007/01/25
島国や 集団の和は大事 繰り返し
2007/01/22
青海や 岩棚に座り 遠く見る
あおうみや いわだなにすわり とおくみる
Ah, the blue sea!
Sitting on a rocky shelf
looking far away.
2007/01/19
窓の外 松葉が交ぜた 細雪
まどのそと まつばがまぜた ささめゆき
Outside the window
lies finely powdered snow
with intermingled pine needles.
2007/01/14
（あす）
明日の朝 落ちる松葉は まだ緑
あすのあさ おちるまつばは まだみどり
Tomorrow morning...
the falling pine needles
will still be green
薄暗い 目を閉じたまま 寒い明日
うすぐらい めをとじたまま さむいあす
The twilight
before opening your eyes...
Cold Tomorrow.
2007/01/08
冬の道 その潰された 洗い熊
ふゆのみち そのつぶされた あらいぐま
A winter road...
That crushed
raccoon...
2007/01/09
せせらぎの 氷の割れ目 践み越える
せせらぎの こおりのわれめ ふみこえる
Stepping over
a crack in the ice
of a frozen stream.
2007/01/13
hand on sword-hilt
frightened and trembling with readiness
just one soldier
2007/01/18
松の影 林に入り 生き別れ
まつのかげ はやしにはいり いきわかれ
The shade of the pines...
Entering the grove,
never to meet again.
2007/01/17
In the pool, freezing cold,
The seal swims.
He is surrounded by a wall
Made of ice.
His fur covers his body, he is safe
From the freezing water around him
And the bitter cold snow.
It does not touch him.
Predators perish crossing the glacier,
Others do not make the attempt.
He is content to bathe.
In time, a seal's corpse in a small pool
Is frozen solid and buried with snow.
It is integrated
Into an uncrossable plain of ice.
1999
Time, the boy Siddhartha peers about, traverses, looks for
A map, a tower, an exit, One Thought.
Think of peril. Think of blessing. Before the clouded pit
A man among men pleads for status infinite.
1999
