whale song

we might be whales
in the underworld

the rabbit's ghost
pressed flat
to the midnight earth
had a message
for you

where were you?

oh, maybe in the garden of eels
oh, maybe in the garden
where the blue light fell
like chain-link in the grass
made you trip
didn't it

we might be whales
in the next life

what you see isn't
what you see
isn't what
is

it's so hard to train for the olympics
when you don't know
if it's winter or summer

orca or beluga
humpback or sperm
minke
oh, don't be a minke
Japanese people eat the minke

the mystic dixie cup
missed you in the
misty witches crux

waiting in the underworld
think you'll be
a humpback

they sing the nicest songs

dance in the morning

just shake your head loose
of all the night inside
jiggle, make that pajama thing work
wake and break through

dance in the morning!
dance in the morning!

he moved to hiroshima

what a wicked wonderful way to start the day
keyboardplastic cigarette smoke wafting over
partitions here but I am thinking about
you

oh farwaynear friend, newfound lover

I am smashed to pieces at your very words
mismanaged twofingered language burrrrred out from a bar
called Memories in Hiroshima City

you found me I found you
and the squealing gears and workings of my interiorthink
on the brink of a shift and grind
mechanicimagination

we can find other people
maybe we will

but

you can say things about slaves building pyramids and fujigrand
and punchinggodintheface and vinegaroos,
coconut candy, giant purple squid
the wasteland of dreams and the nicknames bestowed in a frathouse

and I gather you

every other bursting fragment of your being comesglittering
sharp and precious and I
(like a crow)
without thinking
pick it up to keep

Cloudy Mirror

looking for mirrors
we fall in love with that which reflects us
back to ourselves most beautifully

enraptured with our uniqueness
we become entangled

Japan is like that

in the exoticism & sweetness
of loving a mystery
we play at magic
we see ourselves as honored outsiders in the floating world
glorious intruders, glimmering explorers

so of course it's a tedious thing
to remove the webbing, a filament at a time
place the shining fibres aside
look into the mirror

squint hard to see ourselves
from another angle
in another light

maru kaite

cycling through
the turnabout and
back up the path
I took when I first
arrived

bizan
beautiful mountain

to the shrine I built
on the wooded corner
to the wooded god

the green sounds
crinkling overhead
the sky warped and blue
a jet-lag day

I built the shrine
where a shrine once stood
I built the shrine
from rocks I found

on the path
on my way up

maru kaite
draw a circle

warped and wrapped
back to the past
to the ground where I began
the ground where I decide on the ending

green tender shoots
of some Japanese wonder
pushing up and through

an early spring
an early ending
an early beginning