Tanka

Even I can see:
nothing in the world changes;
nothing stays unchanged.
But to change or not to change--
already I cannot care.

Tanka

Because each morning
may be the last of summer,
all my happiness
is underscored by sadness--
water in a cloth bucket.

Tanka

The summer moon hangs
above the forested hill,
made red by the heat
of ten thousand live bodies,
still rising from the long day.

Animus

Sometimes, in a face I see you--
young men hurried away by their tasks
or striding through the crowd in pairs,
so tall, so straight,
too fresh and vivid for me to catch their eyes.
You flit across those eyes,
through the muscles of their cheeks,
caught a moment too long in the pools of their dimples;
you echo in their laughs
too fast, too fast for me to catch.
How many of us are left behind you,
unable, unworthy to touch?
How many of us will never know
what it is like to possess perfection?
For even the young men do not know you:
we have no knowledge of our beauty
until it has left us far, far behind.

Unsuitable things - Snow falling on the houses of the common people. Moonlight shining into such houses is also a great shame.

Judging the world, discerning butterfly,
what is your aim?  How helpful can this be?
Making no move, you watch and sing and lie.
How can you wield those eyes that conquer me,
sharper than swords, and still refuse to see?
Would you forbid this river, when it floods,
even to touch the thirsty and the dry?
This is too much, but still you kiss the buds,
blind to the rot that's poisoning the tree.

Sei

Lovely, graceful vine
casually choking the tree--
to preserve the fruit,
we tear it up by the roots.
Which one deserves more to live?

Train from Chicago to St. Louis

Barren browns and grays
focus and blur and focus,
smeared on my window,
lifting the yellow grasses.
The sky is heavy
with pregnant bottoms of clouds;
the lingering snow's
ragged edges become mud.
I can never see--
I can never see it all--
there is far too much,
even in just one still shot,
and the world changes.
Still, I look out, panicking,
desperate to see,
hungry to take it all in
before it passes--
so I am suddenly stricken,
my face cut open,
overwhelmed by piercing joy,
when I realize
that it will all continue
every day that I have life.

Flute

Imprints of the holes
dug deep in my fingertips--
my hands shake too much
to write even my own name--
my mouth still open,
tongue ready to catch a taste
of that which lingered
a second too long aloft
and gave its secret away.

To the King

As you worshiped with Wagner,
I am on my knees, trembling,
silently singing with Goethe and Schubert,
"Hinauf! strebt's hinauf!"
with all the strength in my body.

If I had divine power,
I would not be alone,
unattended by all but these shades,
men who died long ago and who take no notice of me.

Still, I speak to you;
I listen to your replies;
I hear in your words
as they filter to me through other voices
the echoing cries that burst from me each morning,
on the mountaintop and in the desert.

You are beautiful,
and I am like you--
am I then also beautiful?
Or am I not like you?
Is there no one like me in the world?

I know what you mean when you say
that what is truly worthwhile is found only in dreams.
You dream, my eagle, of Lohengrin,
and I dream of Lohengrin and of you,
and the memory of me will not remain
to commune with those who follow.

To the Queen

Take in your hands my head and guide me; bind
roughly, impatiently, without reserve,
me to your side as you want me aligned.

If you will teach the shape of every curve,
I will emblazon on my hands and feet
each of your boundaries so I may serve.

Hack off my heels with slices sharp and neat.
Cut off my toes: fix anything you fix
so that the slipper fits; let me compete.

Malleable am I, a mass that kicks,
realizing its birth with shapeless cries,
trowels and mortar and a pile of bricks.

Tell me and show me, teach me to read your eyes,
give me your rules and others of their kind:
give them to me, and I will memorize.

Though it's my fault, forgive me: I am blind,
and I can never learn to read your mind.

Duet

There was no sight but the intent in your eyes,
no feeling but the instinctive compulsion of breaths in tandem,
no sound but all the sound--
your voice and mine,
blended and balanced.

You filled up my mind,
and all I did was to support and to burden you,
an ebbing interplay,
trust, knowledge,
because we are both strong enough.

Focus

I lock onto you,
and you become the Only.
All your words are heard.
I condense on you;
you condense into yourself,
a pulsing light-sphere.
I am everywhere to you,
above and below
and around you on all sides.
How could I decide
to tear my eyes from your face,
to turn my focus
to the next point in the line?
Because I know you,
know the pleasure it gives you
to feel that you are adored.

To My Teacher

I heard you broke,

snapped like a candy cane.

When I last saw you,

I wanted to put you behind me

and protect you from the onslaught.

But I hear that your weak shell has chipped away,

that you're left raw and strong and raging,

and it only makes me want to fight

for you even more.

Intoxication

With the sunshine warm on my face through the window
and my heart throb-throbbing in my neck,
the slight ache in my head
conspires with the sun
to dazzle my eyes,
make me shut them,
and all is finally warm.

The clouds wisp across like dragons,
and everything I see is tinged red,
and my pulse matches whatever music,
and I put my hands up to cup the sun,
turn my blind face toward it,
and I'm surrounded.

Blind me, cook me, permeate and surround me.

I could sleep now,
safe at last,
but I would not choose to miss a moment
of feeling loved.

Snow

If I remove my socks and my shoes,
my gloves, my hat
and lie down upon the snow,
let it curl up around me and fall straight down onto my face,
I can feel the heat of my life wicking out

It's not numbness, not something masking the pain like a drug;
it's just dissipation,
it's just osmosis,
as it spreads out from me into the snow
until my portion is so very little

Oh, snow, always empty,
always room for more--
take from me.  Take, take, I give it.

November 14

Today, for a few moments,
it snowed

and then the snowflakes melted into rain.

I want to open a window
so I can hear it,
feel the change in the air on my tongue

but the heat is on, so I don't.
I only watch.

Everything outside is gray.
It's cold:  it's relaxing.
In the dim light, my eyes are safe.

I desire the rain;
I want to pass through the glass and become one with it,
to lie on the earth,
to sink into the wet earth while the rain beats down on me from above--
to melt like a block of salt.

I want to spread out,
become one with everything,

until I am nothing.

Sonnet LXXX

Every day your words repeated:
you said that I'm the only one
whom I love, that I'm conceited,
that I had poisoned all I'd done.
And so my thoughts were always on
myself and on the sketch I'd drawn--
if I'd acted narcissistic,
if they think I'm egoistic--
and I've never loved somebody,
for if our hearts grew close at all,
they'd see me, weak, conflicted, small;
and with only casual study,
they'd learn how I am just replete
with selfishness and vain conceit.

Anteros

Now I know your name,
and I will call upon it;
I will whisper it
and look for your golden face,
for your red, full mouth,
for your iridescent wings.
Come and comfort me,
come to me, come and be filled;
let me pour on you
everything that is in me.
Love as I have loved;
balance with your heart the scales
that Venus holds in her hand.

Chōka

You smile and you smile,
you laugh and speak cheerfully,
but my eyes can see,
my ears can hear, my heart feels:
I know you have cooled;
I no longer bring you joy.
I want to ask why,
but you are smiling, smiling;
you laugh and speak cheerfully.

Hope

I thought
that, for me, Love was poison,
that it was an overwhelming force made to suck me into evil,
that anyone I loved would insinuate sin into me,
even if he was a good man,
because of how I am—

I’m too easy, too open;
I invite abuse.

I thought that, for me,
there was no such thing as a deep, clean love,
the desire to know and be known,
a force of acceptance, of welcome, even,
in the light of which all sin becomes irrelevant.

I never thought I could feel safe,
that I could trust someone not to try to bend me to his will,
that another person would actually want to know me.

And then, all at once, I knew in a day
what I had learned in a year—
that these things are possible, even for me.

Hope is terrible, terrible—

it’s too late,

it’s too late,
and you said you don’t want me.