Yet Again: A Gogyohka Sequence

moonlight
creeps in the door ajar
her heart
has been closed since
azaleas blanketed the mountain

misty morning
I open The Art of Loving
her letter
falls out
Dear John...

that starlit night
full of her promises...
a column of smoke
burning returned letters
I open our album

raining outside
I sit at a window
drinking coffee --
the youthful self walks into
the summer of 1967

Atlas Poetica, #8.

Note: The concluding tanka is anthologized in Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka Vol. 3 (2010).

Beats of Eros and Death: A Gogyohka Sequence

For Yosano Akiko and Martin Heidegger

mesmerized
by Akiko's Tangled Hair
I encounter
eros as infatuation
blooms into love

dumbfounded
with Heidegger's Being and Time
I view
death, shadowy confessor
as a kindred spirit

eros'
tangled hair's breadth
separates
me from poetry
the mind wanders on the page

I am
in a stew over death's
bad breath
my poems suck up all
of its decay ordor

roaming
the lanes of my mind
I can't find eros
back in the hut of my poem
I smell death

death sighs
there is no room for my misery
in this hut
you and eros have left no space!
I cry in silence

my mind
is empty while something dangles
between the legs
where is eros
my muse of poetry?

death lurks
about the room
taunting
how can I stop him
from reading my poems?

the moon spills
her light upon eros’ face
I see
the red shades of her longing
expressed in a poetic form

placing himself
beyond the pale of humanity
death casts
his frosty gaze at me
while I write poetry

eros sways
her body before my eye
I want to talk
men here watch or talk me
into something else... Poetry?

death sits
on my shoulders with feet crossed
pushing me
six feet under
I'm writing my jisei

eros winks at me
licking her lips
I can't wait
and lunge at her on paper
moaning poems in the making

death smiles
flashing big yellow teeth
and asks, how are you?
I ignore him
and keep writing poetry

moonrays
reveal our coupled body
eros and I
pulsate to the rhythms
of our gogyohka

Augustine claimed
there is a hole in the soul
I decide
to fill it with poetry
death gives me a cold look

into the depths
of the long dark night
eros and I
make love on the page
the birth of a poet

under
the burning gaze of death
I am nothing
for I’ve been living
through paper

moonstruck
eros snoops through my drawers
trying
to find poem-scented lingerie
worn by my "other women"

I can't believe
I still see you
death!
You've reached your expiration date
I dumped you one poem ago

at the end
of Are You Lonesome Tonight
I kneel
and propose to eros with poems
poor thing! she laughs

I stare
into somewhere for hours
death clears his throat
bringing me down to reality
I am just a silverfish

eros sighs
no use in figuring me out
everything
I say to you is poetry
I lament, what kind?

death answers
you can't hide from me
in poetry
for I am your reader
I cry, the only reader!

when kicking
at the embers of my life
I see
the sparks in eros' eyes…
my poetry title

Lynx, XXVI:1

Nostalgia vs. Chen-ou Liu: A Gogyohka Sequence

in memory of John Lennon (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980)

nostalgia
whispers Yesterday
into my ear
seeing her moon face
I raise my hand...

there are a few
minor scuffles between me
and nostalgia
no arrest warrant
by the Thought Police

nostalgia
shows me her Colgate
smile
Let It Be
sung loud on the radio

Imagine...
the threads of a thousand poems
dangle
on the tip of a crescent moon
over my attic

Bed-ins for Peace:
nostalgia and I face to face
mouth on mouth
later legs tangled with legs
only then are we a single dream

anthologized in Many Windows (Magnapoets Anthology, #4)

Note: This poem sequence was written after I watched The U.S. vs John Lennon

Death of a Poet: A Gogyohka Sequence

he leaps away
from the gaze of silence
over the edge of a cliff
and into a place
that less fleshy

lonely, I
turn on the TV and see
a depressed poet
jump off a cliff
I start writing poetry

Death lurks
about the room
taunting
how can I stop him
from editing my poem

days slip by
minute by minute
hour after hour
a poem is born
time withers

measuring
the weight and length
of death
I count my poems
written and read

anthologized in The Journey and short-listed in 2010 National Poetry Contest held by Polar Expressions Publishing

Dream Gogyohka

awake
I dream of being a butterfly
does he dream of me…
who cares
in the world of red dust?

(Note: Red dust is a Buddhist set-phrase for the world and its passions)

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

A Gogyohka about Writing

I scoop
the moon from a river
of words
that runs through
the bottom of my heart

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Solitude Gogyohka

I gaze
from the height
of my study
gauging the world
by the size of solitude

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

A Gogyohka about Writing

a poem (mourning)

the silent death of a poet:
the old self
is nailed down on paper
and read at least by one

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Love Gogyohka

lying
on the white sand
I feel
its moisture
my first love angst

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

A Gogyohka about Longing

the sea
inside my heart
surges every night
churning up the waves
only to recede at daybreak

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Sadness Gogyohka

a white carpet
of sand
drinks my tears
as I walk back and forth
along the shore

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Sea Gogyohka

sea birds
grace
sky and sea
that boundless expanse of blue
into which I dive

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Moon Gogyohka

I pawn
Drink Alone by Moonlight
at a river tavern
gazing at the moon
pondering if Li Po is mad at me

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Nature Gogyohka

as always
the river rapids
lure away
both blossoms and leaves
yet cobbles lay still

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Autumn Gogyohka

the gusts
of the autumn wind
chill
the teardrops of dew
that are mine

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Morning Dewdrops and Autumn Wind Tanka

morning dewdrops
scatter
on the autumn wind
as do my tears
unlike causes yet the same fate

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Relationship Gogyohka

spring blossoms
with rainbow colors
now frost-withered
to one hue
your flower heart

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Snow Gogyohka

December’s snow
smothers the earth
you bury me
under drifts
of cold looks

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

A Four Act Passion Play: A Gogyohka Sequence

devotedly
I pray
yet He listens
absently
a four-decade old story

my heart
is a sponge
sopping up the tears
with which I wash
my prayers

I cleanse my heart
in prayers
before Him
whom my mind has doubted
seventy-seven times

no more waiting
for Him who is hidden
I hang
on the cross within me...
a faint echo, it’s finished

September/October 2010 issue of Sketchbook

Being-Toward-Death: A Gogyohka Sequence

for Martin Heidegger

like a child
shoved
down the playground slide
scared
I reach this age

forty six
a long strip
of white sand
washed by waves
no footprints left

separated
by a thin wall
I've never
greeted my neighbour
Death

Death
(whom I just befriended)
and I
chat about our dreams
through the vent in the wall

Death lurks
about the room
taunting
how can I stop her
from editing my poems?

Death and I
face to face
minds apart
staring in silence
who will blink first

July/August 2010 issue of Sketchbook