Day 7 - Zuihitsu

I got home too late for this one. I thought about cheating and changing the time zone but whatever.

So this form I'm going to attempt over the next few days is a zuihitsu. Now it's not really broken into days but I have not the time nor attention this week to sit down for the hours needed to accomplish this.

This is the definition a la wikipedia.

Zuihitsu (随筆^?) is a genre of Japanese literature consisting of loosely connected personal essays and fragmented ideas that typically respond to the author's surroundings. The name is derived from two Kanji meaning "to follow" and "brush", and thus works of the genre should be considered not as traditionally planned literary pieces but rather as casual or random jottings down of thought by their authors.

So it's an excuse to be a little random I suppose, but it's also a very exciting form that I learned from my teacher and friend Kimiko Hahn. The Narrow Road to the Interior is a breathtaking book.

No World But This – Zuihitsu Day 1

Dear Parallel You,
have we ever agreed again
when you split from me, or maybe I from you
did we leave like lovers cold
was there a moment when in your mirror
we perhaps, were both at a breakfast table
and a spoon held at the same time
felt like a tuning fork, felt strung to something
and if you looked over toward
a somewhere, a felt direction
because I was

~*~

I’m wearing a pair of jeans Valerie washed for me and in the left pocket is a mess of washed paper
that I’m trying to decipher, that seems to me like a memory I need. But the metaphor seems so easy, I chuck it all. Start over every day.

~*~
my boss told me he doesn’t feel himself
because he has no hat on today
and his hair is wild as a fire
he said his dog ate it
ripped all around the Yankee N and Y
had the bill in his teeth when he woke up
it started right when he came in
the dog just kept barking
he suspects it was the smell of his sickness
he has a cold, wasn’t feeling himself
he keeps saying that
as if you is a feeling
you can lose like sight

~*~
Sometimes I wake up sure I’ve drowned.
When I do, Valerie is there
to talk me into the air again.