After Days of Rain and other poems - 1. Part I: After Days of Rain

.

Poem No. 1 ^[1]

 

. . . The Stench of Words . . .

 

The future stretches ahead of me

in vast array

speaking of the wonder of a million things

there are yet to say

 

 

Poem No. 2

 

Which is the real America,

in which section can it be found?

 

Which song is her native sound?

 

Which is the land of Liberty,

which color are her native sons?

 

Are they the victims or cause?

Rich face, poor face, in bus, in beemer?

Think them victim; feel them the cause

 

 

Poem No. 3 ^[2]

 

The war began on the evening news

5:30 in the center of the country

and Baghdad burns.

 

Mitchell of the Senate could not be found –

in Brooks Brothers it seems he was

looking at new shirts

and Baghdad burns.

 

Dinner all across the land

a time to relax and watch TV

but the world came home suddenly –

Dan Rather had a lump in his throat

and Baghdad burns.

 

 

Poem No. 4

 

Lyric Sonnet:

 

Where is the real America?

In which section can it be found?

There, in mass-made suburbia,

Which is proud to lack the profound.

What color are Her native sons?

Be they the victims; be they the cause;

Rich face; poor face – need they the guns?

Crime be the reason; death be the cause?

Which is the Land of Liberty?

Are you free to live on the street,

To cut your taxes through charity,

Destroy all opposition you meet?

 

Yes and no; the answer alarms

they who think about it.

This land where no one group harms

the rights of all those born to it?

 

 

Poem No. 5

 

It flows

through the hills

to the sea

 

It sweeps

nearby me

endlessly

 

It knows

what to find

inside of me

 

It creeps

and I can see

endlessly.

 

 

Poem No. 6

 

Prelude:

 

Optimism wanes, reality finds

I am alone

Help distains, sorrow binds

I am alone

Memories pain, worry reminds

I am alone.

 

Poem:

 

Boy on the train

give me your love before your name

tell me if you know how I feel

Let me know if it is the same

that look which I pray can be real

 

An idiot I must be

a romantic drowning rat

to pin myself to his soul

An idiot I must be

what use has he for me

a romantic drowning rat

who wants to be in love.

 

Boy on the train

please look at me again that way

Let me find the courage to reply

fortify me with words to say

please look at me that way

That look for the half-second it lives

free from giver to my passing eyes

shouts its accusation, flaunts its invitation

and tries to comfort the fact it knows;

I look away because first it accuses

what I want no one to know

that I want no one to see me reply.

 

That look which I pray can be real

Let me know if it is the same

tell me if you know how I feel

give me your love before your name

Boy on the train.

 

 

Poem No. 7

 

俳句:

 

悲哀勝つ万事

日常の顔

朝電車で

 

[Haiku:

 

Hiai katsu banji

nichijoh no kao

asa densha de]

 

[Sorrow pervades all;

routine faces, routine lives

on the morning train

 

----

 

Sorrow wins it all

on the everyday faces

of the morning train

 

----

 

Total mis’ry plays

o’er the accustomed faces

‘pon the morning’s train]

 

 

Poem No. 8

 

Prelude:

 

The morning asks me

of my restless sleep

why do I want to need.

 

I want not a thing

every need taken care of

except the need to be wanted

 

Will the evening find me

in this same old sleep

asking why do I want to be needed

 

Will the morning find me

where it left me before

too old to be lonely

too young not to try.

 

Poem:

 

I don’t want to be

twenty-three

too much of the world

I failed to see

through the eyes

of twenty-two

and it scares me

to be twenty-three.

 

Postlude:

 

Lovely lonely presence,

lifted from my heart.

 

I don’t want to be

twenty-three.

Too much of the world

I failed to see

through the eyes

of twenty-two

and it scare me

to see twenty-three.

 

Lovely lonely presence,

lifted from my heart,

faces the frightening pretense

as there from the start.

Say goodbye to my love.

All of it was yours.

for time immortal,

I offered my love

 

Bid farewell to my love.

It no more rests on yours.

Resignation’s portal,

you wanted from the start

 

Lovely lonely presence,

lifted from my heart.

 

Seeming; seeming freedom,

clamped onto my mind,

no longer feels them,

as something left behind.

 

 

Poem No. 9

 

Step back,

Take the perspective of the fates:

In fact, take it from them.

After all, it is yours.

 

 

Poem No. 10

 

In the air

all the past, future and probables

are in the air

 

I don’t like to be

twenty-three

the only thing it means

is there were twenty-three years

I failed to see

 

Twenty-three years

I failed to be

the anniversary

for what it means

of what I failed to be

 

and so I am in the air

all the past, future, and probables

keep me there, in the air.

 

 

Poem No. 11

 

The world wakes

and yawns it colors

anew.

 

From its frigid slumber

a miracle becomes its dream

that everything can be as it

was before.

 

Finding its will

to live and give

anew.

 

Spring Song

 

 

Poem No. 12

 

Prelude:

 

There’s a place I pass,

where hope has a price

 

Mystery swarms with its silent patrons

who for fear of ill-luck, make not a noise

 

No one would dare shout a word

in this holy shrine of the might-be

 

I walk more softly as I began to approach

this silent place where hope has a price

 

I think why play the lottery,

but such serious faces tell me otherwise.

 

They say it is a chance to live

the chance to make life what it should be

 

Mystery swarms with its silent patrons

who for fear of ill-luck make not a sound

 

Time is running away from this place,

too soon they’ll be too old to live

 

That is their worst fear,

the one that brings them back

 

To the place I pass

where hope has a price.

 

Poem:

 

Perhaps in my sleep, I can chance to dream

that I am as great as death itself.

 

In my slumber, I can make myself anew

a Don Juan of love and all life.

 

There can I be safe, mater of it all

No dues or debts to pay or lend.

 

In my dreams can I find what I am not

there in my sleep, away from life, can I live.

 

There in the world of my self-liberty

can I be as great as death its very self.

 

For Death is the true measure of all

the counterbalance on the scale of meaning

only in my dreams can I be its equal.

 

Postlude:

 

In the land of the gray-haired youth,

I have a chance to spy myself.

Amongst these people of smoke,

I can see the smoke of my heart.

I can see the gray of my youth,

I can find the same beginnings.

 

If life is only the chance to live,

then it is chance I’ve yet to take.

Silently I step to the window,

and pay my price for hope.

And play my chance to live.

And prey I’m not too old.

 

 

Poem No. 13

 

The progress of the Heart

can be one the Mind envies,

but never is it so in reverse.

 

 

Poem No. 14

 

With every day, with every Line,

new adventure can be seen.

For those who look, they will find –

Tales of the heart, the hapless, the obscene

 

That look, for the half-second it lives,

free from giver, to my passing eyes,

shouts its accusation, flaunts it incantation

and tries to comfort, the fact it knows.

I look away because first it accuses

what I want no one to know.

That I want no one to see me reply.

 

 

Poem No. 15

 

Regrets are the easiest thing in the world to avoid,

and the hardest to live with.

 

 

Poem No. 16

 

Deep in the settled night,

They lean against the wall

Waiting for the person right

For whom to make their call.

They needn’t say a word,

For eyes can hold a tongue

From making words absurd,

From getting the action done.

These boys of the station,

Looking for nightly work,

By the walls of every nation

Eyes look for their evening work

 

 

Poem No. 17

 

Why is loneliness so lovely;

what endearment can it offer.

To be young and lonely;

beauty suggests mutual suffering.

 

 

Poem No. 18

 

How to say in words, what Webster never found;

Is there no help from all the lives that have been?

A whisper from the past, or only a sound;

I look for their words this poem to begin.

 

 

Poem No. 19

 

The night finds itself mature

when its bicycle Romeos

find their rentable Juliets

 

A seat too small for one

becomes quite cozy for two –

anticipation makes it so –

as they ride home to the night

though two different ambitions it finds

 

Boys with two wheels

and girls with short skirts

need only one seat

for they have only one night

 

Rentable love

no one pretends it is such

only fools on the sidelines

can look and still be that blind,

to make pretentions of so little,

after all, they know it’s only

rentable love

 

 

Poem No. 20

 

Prelude:

 

When the bicycle Romeos

Find their mini-skirted loves;

When the windows fling open

So sleeping men may find

The solitude of a drunken room

 

When the taximen refuse

The stumbling hands of those

Who from pit and penthouse

Now glide onto the street

In search of elusive home

 

When the last trains make it in

And the lonely riders,

Who rode for the finding,

May take their pick of those

Gentlemen waiting to be found

 

The price for the evening, I’m not sure what it is

One heart for the borrowing, to give one night of relief

A pint of new whiskey, to make numb a few hours

While the fact of seeking, empowers they to be found.

 

The evening grows old

And gives up a sigh

When the two wheeled Romeos

Rent their short-skirted prize;

When all for sale, is sold.

 

Poem:

 

Then the evening reclined

Into the arms of the night –

Her lover undefined –

Of both what was and what might.

 

Of her all she must give;

Her surrender complete,

Even her will to live

And her chance to compete.

 

For without the evening

Showing her underside

As food for the feeding,

Could the night be alive?

 

Every heart knows it must

Search for that which it seeks;

The trouble is for most,

A want unnamed it speaks.

 

 

Poem No. 21

 

The will to live

and the will to express

are the same to me.

 

 

Poem No. 22

 

And so the evening slips into night

with no marking this one from another,

but tantalizing the chance of insight

from a world I’ve yet to discover.

Here, where dark places are but places dark,

for your fellow man you need waste no fears

of horror to perceive the place most stark

which works nocturnally twixt your two ears.

 

 

Poem No. 23

 

And so the night creeps up on April’s spring

Luscious it grows in its own vitality

Sinks under the weight of its newness.

 

Nightness descends on April’s newborn green

The songs of the evening quiet to murmurs

A rowdy stillness defines the scene.

 

And so the evening slips into the night

With no marking this one from another

But tantalizing a chance of insight

Of a world yet to be discovered

Here where dark places are but places dark

For your fellow men – you need waste no fears –

With horror to preserve the place most stark

Works nocturnally between your two ears.

 

And so the night creeps up on April’s spring,

Nightness descends on April’s new born green,

Luscious it grows in its own vitality,

The songs of the evening quiet to murmurs,

Sinks under the weight of its newness,

A rowdy stillness defines the scene.

 

 

Poem No. 24

 

The crows’ breakfast

Was a spectacular affair.

Eight hundred feathers,

And not a beak to spare.

Ripping plastic,

And a flurry of proboscis-poked holes

Launched this feathered feast

Which every sleeping heart knows.

 

So the night is split

By a wedge of sun

And the noisy morning

Of a noisy night

Has begun.

 

The crows’ breakfast,

Was a spectacular affair.

Each one vying

For what little was there.

 

 

Poem No. 25

 

In lovely sorrow I find myself again

Asking what should I have done

His eyes were kind, but what would

He have me do for the kindness given

Is it the brand of stuff I look for

In every pair of passing doors

Would he be horrified at the question asked

Is it the brand of stuff he looks for

The answer could be so simple

Just a present of passing talk

Or a kind of thanks from, one so kind

But for the rest of sleep

I will wonder if that were all

So in lovely sorrow I find myself again

What should I have given him

The passing kindness of passing talk

Is it enough, even asking was it all?

Did I miss the mirror of my own heart

The kindest want I did not return

Was it the brand that we both look for?

 

Be it the look of my dreams?

I will ever be haunted thus.

 

 

Poem No. 26

 

May I tender a compliment

to Lee of Melbourne;

a bartender

and a gentleman

who sees a lot

but says a little.

From me, no small praise, indeed.

 

 

Poem No. 27

 

That which can express

the inexpressible longing

shall live as long as man shall long

 

Cursed are they from the rest

who, for a measure are trying,

the length of their desire’s song

 

For to long inexpressibly

is better than not to try,

though the measure of desire falls short

 

 

Poem No. 28 ^[3]

 

Moosh Pan, Moosh Pan,

you wonderful thing,

the qualities you demand,

drive bakers mad with skill,

and poetasters fat with glee.

 

 

Poem No. 29

 

To those who can tell

the length of their desire

in more than increments of sighs,

to them will living be beyond

scheming life’s conspire.

 

 

Poem No. 30

 

Live while you can,

For Time’s only plan

Fertilizers demand.

 

 

Poem No. 31

 

In lovely sorrow I sink again,

to the depths of a familiar deep,

while around my ears, the wells reveal then

new-sprung sources of emotions that creep.

Watch them gather, the white-shirted boys,

using notions of the usual kind,

words to hearten what hope destroys;

courage to replace that left behind.

 

 

Poem No. 32

 

God save me from the love

I could feel for that face

From the reckless longing

of his never-coming embrace

 

Why have the stars above

deemed a torment for me

In my heart alone feeling

the heartlessness of his glance

 

For the benefit of those lips

a thousand thoughts could pour

Enough for the world’s admire

but enough for yours?

 

God save me from the love,

for so easily could

I play your lovesick fool;

could I escape my age

In a love made for you.

 

 

Poem No. 33

 

Youth has its own beauty,

be it lovely or not.

 

 

Poem No. 34

 

The Moon’s face is full

but it looks on my empty heart.

Endless shades of sun descend

to light a lightless form.

 

 

Poem No. 35

 

And, lo! Heaven and earth shall tremble

and one become

When the wayward wants of Man

manage a way.

 

 

Poem No. 36

 

three studies

 

----------------------------

 

Is my heart’s affection my mind’s desire,

reduced all to the want, and want of the all?

 

----------------------------

 

The passion of Youth is in its inability –

The longing of Age is for belief again.

 

----------------------------

 

Which be the measure of all,

Love or Death? –

Which has power without the other.

 

 

Poem No. 37

 

Haiku:

 

Ocean grinds to sand

what river ground ever round,

where source meets its source.

 

 

Poem No. 38

 

. . . from Kyushu

to an eighteen-year-old . . .

 

Prelude:

 

Let me plow

the furrows of your brow

and then let me reap

their lovely sad burrows

for myself

 

Poem:

 

A butterfly’s tongue

at length, it made you smile

and every inch of your face came aglow

with the wonder, at the delight

that I could find from

a butterfly’s tongue

I wanted you so much;

to take you there

where the corners of your eyes

met smile and wonder,

the wrinkle of delighted brow;

God save me how I wanted you then

And how I want you now.

my love any better than these sighs?

 

 

Poem No. 39

 

prose fragment

 

Ben was Nathan’s first love. He couldn’t stand by without him wanting, without needing for them to be standing as one; his arms enwrapping Ben’s slender waist, lips unable to breeze over the folds of his deliciously soft neck. Nathan could not stand alone ever again. Whether in person or in thought, Benjamin stood within him.

 

 

Poem No. 40

 

To have a whole heart,

to keep it ever at command –

Is it a want too large

to cross over in a single span?

 

 

Poem No. 41

 

. . . a prayer . . .

 

Beauty make a place for me

where ‘try’ and ‘lie’ upsets raid –

where I, for the power of its form,

ever touch the mellow tenderness

granting my sorrow a chance to fade.

 

 

Poem No. 42

 

In confused splendor they stood,

two cans from twice

the other half of the world come,

but found no reception there even here,

in the hearts of enemies.

 

In confused splendor they stood,

two from twice the other half

of the world, my rejected homage

of the heart’s intent.

 

 

Poem No. 43

 

Haiku:

俳句:

 

After days of rain

布団を出た futon wo deta

the welkin sky is welcomed

長雨の後 naga-ame no ato

by flights of futons.

空飛翔 sora hishoh

 

 

Poem No. 44

 

In a box I’ll sit

With a rock on my head,

But no matter what the size

That box cannot hold my worth –

For that, dear reader, is in your eyes.

 

 

Poem No. 45

 

Winter seeps around me –

Finds me in my every pore –

Icy fingers and icy tongues

Slip in ears and between toes

With the flames of her passion.

 

 

Poem No. 46

 

A Jakarta Christmas

 

“ . . . and the trees did blink for all

in tropic shades of jitters,

while garlands tacked to the wall

the worst of the holidays embitters . . . ”

 

If all the world did want of me

something for it to say,

and write to it a story

of this unflinching day,

then I’d tell how the line of midnight

met the club still blinking away,

and a girl in lap was right

one moment slips the pay

to the nature of the night.

 

And Christmas is endured.

 

 

~

 

 

 

---

Endnotes:

[1] “Poems written from my twenty-third year” The poems are presented sequentially from the calendar year in which I turned twenty-four years old. That means several of the early ones (up to No. 10) were written before my birthday in February, and thus when I was still twenty-two.

[2] “The war began on the evening news” makes reference to George John Mitchell, Senate Majority Leader 1989-1995

[3] “Moosh Pan, Moosh, Pan” is a phonetic rendering of mushi-pan, or Japanese steamed cupcakes. As snack cakes, they are usually sweet; in Chinese restaurants, they’re usually neutral or savory. There was a commercial brand of cheese moosh pan that I was particularly fond of. See here:

http://www.heroine-love.com/japanese_mushipan.html

 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_44QpnGqjPEQ/Sp37MDRIHkI/AAAAAAAABDU/KEyyanDliZM/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/P1010175.jpg

 

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