Thursday, August 16, 2012

August 2012 1st and 2nd Selections



Hachinohe Port:
hah, hah, haaaah!
The umineko gulls that perch
on the gateways and walls of Kabushima Shrine
are said to number over forty thousand.
At sunset
children in an empty lot
tickle the evening air
with the sound
of flutes and drums.
In open garages and
out on driveways
the busy mystical clouds
of red and blue
spraypaint shroud
dragons and samurai
apparitions
rendered in larger than life
styrofoam.

On this full moon
the horses and tiger dancers
must charge down the streets.
Surely
the Sanchu Taisen fesitval
is in full force now.
On this full moon
I am far out at sea.
Even the umineko seagulls
of Hachinohe Port are
behind me.
Only now am I
an only tourist
to the gentle sway
of saltwater and the
open whisper
of the ten directions.

--Glen Snyder




clouds stirred into
the moonlit
miso soup
of madrugada.
each footstep
placed softly
steadily
on the warm
back of
dawn-hidden
penumbra.
both songbird
slumber and
the bowl of
vegetable scraps
dropped gingerly
into the bin
of returning to
this very
morning.

--Glen Snyder

3rd and 4th August Selections 2012



The Fractional Full Moon

I got the word to go out and look at the full moon,
And I thought: It’s not time yet.
I was out with the old dog under the fractional moon
And I noticed there was no time to fully round.
My dog delicately sniffed a single rusted barb
On a fence verging on collapse.

Sometimes the circle is completed in darkness.

--Chris Gaffney









Question to the Moon on the Way to a Funeral
 
When you go about grey,
do you mourn,
in the middle of the day,
that those who are born soon die?
 
 Or do you imply,
 walking through the night,
 that we who wane are soon again
 born, and filled with light?

--Birrell Walsh

Fifth Selection, August 2012


29

When the Buddha woke up
to his snoring harem
drooling over their
pretty mouths
the mystery was gone.
This sacred coyote ugly
started it all
The royal escape
to see
the ill
the old
the dead
and
the holy.
So sometimes we forget
in our rules based on
sin and suffering
that it was
this band of otherly fools
singing at death
shining at darkness
reaching toward
the truth
that woke up our sleeping prince.

--“Rachel”