One more in time for the second anniversary of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. There’s not much more to say.
Aftermath
This is my 10th Shakespearean sonnet. The other poem written on this subject a couple of weeks ago was “Stirrings”, also a sonnet.
The first four lines came to me in a flash the same day I learned of the terrible destruction and loss of life wrought in Japan on March 11, 2011 by one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded and its subsequent tsunami. Then nothing. Perhaps I was just stunned by the magnitude of it all, even from the relative comfort of 5000 plus miles away. But I’m trying to wrap up old ideas right now, so I figured it was time to do something with those four lines, for better or worse.
And so here we are, my 9th Shakespearean sonnet.
Stirrings
Nai No Kami is the name of the Japanese god (kami) of the earthquake, or at least one of them. Watatsumi, respectfully referred to as Ōwatatsumi, is one of the great kami of the sea.
There are actually four more seed lines inspired by this same tragic event. I was later able to flush them out into another sonnet form poem, which I titled “Aftermath”.
This somewhat tells the story of a poem I started in December of 2010, which may now be close to completion. I was only able to get moving forward with it when I finally accepted that I am not currently able to manifest its full potential, so I’m settling for the best I can manage instead. The idea is that hopefully, one day, I will be able to come back and revise it to its full potential. But, it is also possible also that the words simply don’t exist for what I wish to accomplish, hence this simple “understanding”.
Understanding
After learning about the mass killings in Newtown, CT, we are keeping vigil tonight. I think we all are.
One for Each
About a month ago, my wife asked me if I would write a poem for her friend, Jerome, titled “Rose of Reno”. She has a very close friend in the Philippines whose name is Rose, and she has come to think of Jerome as being her American counterpart. The reasons for this are of course many and personal, so I’ll leave them unsaid.
I agreed to write it, but changed the title to “Desert Rose” because I’m thinking I might write a sonnet for the “Tropic Rose” as well at some point—For balance. Actually I think Rose and Jerome would really like one another. They are both remarkable individuals who have endured much and found meaning and purpose under difficult circumstances.
Desert Rose
I used the rosa floribunda cultivar called “ebb tide” as the model for this expanded metaphor. This is my 5th Shakespearean sonnet.
My second Shakespearean sonnet. I often think about the effects of overpopulation, which is of course disastrous. Somehow it seemed a suitable subject of focus.
Inheritance
This began as a pregnant note, jotted down in one of my composition books as I sat in a fast food joint reflecting on the pangs of a friend’s recent betrayal of my loyalty and trust. This note eventually became the second couplet. My friend of many years turned on me quite unexpectedly and I was left stunned, numb, and pensive. I didn’t know at the time that the two lines I jotted down would later expand out into a ghazal that explored a broader spectrum of circumstances involving trust and betrayal.
Default
A field of dreams was sown by the hand of a spoken promise,
but they withered, for your words were merely a token promise.
The light outside is the veil of my great uncertainty;
inside, alone in the dark, I dream of your broken promise.
Your words were fuel for a blaze that warded off the darkness,
but soon the night fell back on embers of smoking promise.
Conviction was a spring that vanished as I neared it;
I was a fool, allured by hints of unspoken promise.
A single hope became the wellspring of all deception,
seeping a saccharine poison, its scent evoking promise.
For years the dreamer wandered through realms of loss and fortune;
adrift on phasing currents, he never woke in promise.
Delusion is a bright-eyed mistress assuring passion,
but time reveals her treacherous ways, revoking promise.
Potential rises like a fog, illumed by a half-moon,
and leaves the unsteady path before us cloaked in promise.
This is my 133rd ghazal.
Lately I have been pondering the nature of death, what it really is. Is it closing your eyes one last time never to wake up? Or is it something more subtle, more unnerving—something much closer to home? When I look back through time to the teenager I once was, that person is not here. He is dead, and he has been dead for a very long time. But because I am still strong and somewhat clear of mind, I can forget that death and focus on the present life as if it now unfolds. But the reality is, there are moments, days, circumstances that I would hold onto for eons if it were possible—but they have long since passed and are dead.
The Distant Self
Perhaps the movement between carnal death and birth is much the same. Even after that point of presence jumps from our last breath to some unfathomable new context, there is a recognition somewhere in our newly manifest being that something has been lost—a past and fully developed identity. Perhaps this death occurs on a lesser scale over and over throughout the experience of living. And those who see this most clearly are those who still live after everything else has been lost, and all they have left is to struggle for moments of clarity while wasting away in a nursing home.
Maybe Time is more of a companion than she is—as many people feel—a tyrant. She is always with us, never leaves our side for a moment, and forever offers at least one consolation—that whatever our woes, these too will pass, one way or the other. This consolation has been perhaps the prime influence on my will to survive long, hard, bitter years in the face of an ever uncertain future.
Companion
Huffaker Hills is 251 acres of treeless, desert public land in south Reno set aside for pedestrian use. From there, Huffaker Lookout—a pair of lower hills—spurs out into Washoe Valley, separating an industrial park from the residential area in which I live. On its way south, Hwy 395, a six lane freeway, bends out and around the westernmost hill, just scraping its base.
Midwinter on Huffaker Lookout
Desert hills have always had a way of luring me up to their stony crests.
To begin anew, one must leave behind the old. This is at least the theory.
Without a Title
Perhaps I’ll start again
This time without a title
This time without the candle wax
the matted hair the long thin wire
all twisted and tangled into shapes
of desire and expectation
dangled from twine like a shrunken head
gouged full of pins and chanted words
until imago jerks and dances wincing
tortured steps of belonging
Maybe it’s time to forget all I dreamed
to tear free from voodoo strings
tendrils of blood wisped through the air
until the tired old spells are broken
to let go and plummet back through long
deep breaths and crushing gasps for air
through years of fear and foreboding back
to half-remembered moments of joy
