Day 8 - Zuihitsu Day 2

I keep on keeping on. I think I'm a day behind now. I will post two poems tomorrow. Make up. Because I want to post during the day. But I've been getting home late. Because I'm so popular. Among poplars. I hang out with trees. I'm tired. I have weird jokes this late.

Here's another part of my zuihitsu. It's a journal essentially. Which is a thing i don't really keep. But then I fill up tons of moleskines with writing so what I am doing? I was thinking about this as I was writing this.


No World But This – Zuihitsu Day 2

If I never feared mortality,
if I never feared man or war
I could be a mountain, moving alive
time would spin away from me
all persons becoming cut flowers

~*~

I could sleep a century
I could keep a century alive
I could keep a country life
I could sleep a country’s life

~*~
I remember being young
saying things I thought were new,
as if I had peered into the world
and found a new vein of silver
thought that no one else had plumbed
I told a girlfriend that “Hate was not the opposite of Love,
but Indifference is.”
I was so impressed with myself
I told this to her Mom as well
and she nodded, a mother’s nod
to a toddler holding up an object
and saying, “red”, “ball”, “play”

later, I learned I was not new
I was walking in deep ruts of thought
I have not said anything original
yet

~*~
this mash? this bog of pulp and ink?
in Sunday School they told us to journal
but I chronicle nothing here, no day, no significance
I only write poetry and half poetry and bad awfulness
I will not ever call poetry
and sometimes dialogue between a fictional person or three
maybe a comedy bit I’m working out,
but a journal? can’t be

who would read this?
progeny? (I haven’t made any)
peers? I’d be mortified to show them

~*~
I’ve forgotten how to edit
my poems emerge as big as my life
1:1 scale
as I walk, sometimes I write I walk
uglier words hang on
like love handles, plantar’s warts, eczema
things I should treat, freeze off
but I get too caught up in sunsets
stare off and forget the form
between my hands
Or I’m busy digging for winter signs,
a raw November, where I will not rake again
this white page will snow over my mistakes
the rustling clauses beneath, of thoughts
broke off but wrote
but rote
but written
but rid of
I am sorry there is so much
for you to get through
sometimes I just keep castling
on top of this swamp
as deep as the walls are tall

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.