Poetry
1 Photosynthesis Before there was anything To kiss or embrace, Before our bed was warm with You, me, soil, seed—or hunger. 2 Caress of plasma, Hydrogen and helium— Touching my face as My giddy hands …
(Translation by Ian Hideo Levy) (28) Spring has passed, and summer seems to have arrived: garments of white cloth hung to dry on heavenly Kagu Hill. (76) I can hear the bowstrings twang on the …
(Translation by Ian Hideo Levy) (40) On Ami Bay, the girls must now be riding in their boats. does the tide rise to touch the trains of their beautiful robes? (41) On Cape Tafushi, hung …
(Translation by Ian Hideo Levy) (7) I remember our temporary shelter by Uji’s Palace ground, when we cut the splendid grass on the autumn fields and sojourned under thatch. (8) Wanting to board ship in …
If you’ve thrown open the window in winter, stuck out your head to behold only whiteness... it still isn’t me He simmers, legs over arm of his chair and I took him first for a …
The Staying Up All Night The warm fire. The comfortable chairs. The merry companions. The stroke of twelve. The wild suggestion. The good sports. The man who hasn’t slept for weeks. The people who have …
Advice to a Son Never trust a white man, Never kill a Jew, Never sign a contract, Never rent a pew. Don’t enlist in armies; Nor marry many wives; Never write for magazines; Never scratch …
After Fifty Years Her house is empty and her heart is old, And filled with shades and echoes that deceive No one save her, for still she tries to weave With blind bent fingers, nets …
The Message of the March Wind (excerpt) Fair now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding With the eyes of a lover, the face of the sun; Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding …
Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey Scrambled eggs and whiskey in the false-dawn light. Chicago, a sweet town, bleak, God knows, but sweet. Sometimes. And weren’t we fine tonight? When Hank set up that limping treble roll …
Her Long Illness Daybreak until nightfall, he sat by his wife at the hospital while chemotherapy dripped through the catheter into her heart. He drank coffee and read the Globe. He paced; he worked on …
I From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou contracted to thine own …
February: Thinking of Flowers Now wind torments the field, turning the white surface back on itself, back and back on itself, like an animal licking a wound. Nothing but white—the air, the light; only one …
Basking Shark To stub an oar on a rock where none should be, To have it rise with a slounge out of the sea Is a thing that happened once (too often) to me. But …
A Man’s a Man for A’ That Is there for honesty poverty That hings his head, an’ a’ that; The coward slave — we pass him by, We dare be poor for a’ that! For …
Home Town Elegy (For Aberdeen in Spring) Glitter of mica at the windy corners, Tar in the nostrils, under blue lamps budding Like bubbles of glass the blue buds of a tree, Night-shining shopfronts, or …