Rotting remnants of well crafted verse,
Scattered among the new,
The era of relevance
Leaped into

Vapid dexterity.

Longing for that age,
When summers were to cherish
Animals to admire.
Thrown into, instead, myopic cycles.

Natural deterioration has no patience for
Contemporary dementia -
Wasting life.

Loquacious and lackadaisical,
Your heart in a thumbnail.

When I opened the red curtains to the bright morning sky,
All that I could see were the birds so ready to fly

And then I stepped back in awe,
Where to little raven?

She circled my head in my dreams
And then pounced on a squirrel,

But only to share some tea.

Lifting strangeness with fingertips,
Etched manicured perfection.

Seeking some hollow church
To fill with substance,

Concrete and metal,
A delicious meal.

Finding manual affection
In the blackness.

Left with blind feelings,
Unsure of dimensional weaknesses:

Confusion is
The highest of mental states.

Ubuyama-mura

Corrugated metal roofs, springtime flowers,
Miniature cars in old short sheds.

Cars slide past village and industrial trucks,
Kids play the street: matching yellow hats, school packs.

Butterflies, birds venture tirelessly,
The farmer looks on.

Heat of summer in the air, stillness,
Mamushi snake nipping at your heels.

Birth Mountain village.

The winter of frozen toes,
Seeking kotatsu.

Begging for her warmth,
Suffering for her warmth.

Loudspeakers calling,
Meetings, then speeches.

Desolate branches and the evergreen bamboo
Sprouting.

Patches of life, bleeding oil,
Stations of gas, shochu.

Hours of numbness, yearning,
The lonely soul.

Eugene

Old stained wood scent
Flying down stairs, orange lit corridors, redwood walls.

Crying, hair follicles strained:
Brown with hint of blond.

Rose splattered face, wet with tears,
Then respite – stained light tan carpeting, black Labrador.

Quiet Douglas firs stand
Next to steep driveway:
Capital Drive.

Once was tire swing, swinging, falling.

Sunny summers, hay fevers.

Tree forts, bird watchers.

Golf balls resting among tired graves.

Prefontaine’s last run.

Quiet now.

Her face still like mountains
Then tumbling down the sides
Moving like avalanche.

Her tears invisible as drops in the ocean.

Each conversation drifting carelessly,
Into inanity, a kind of insanity.

Cat-like confusion drifting on the horizon
Of a dog’s life, the slower, less confused,
Hand-to-mouth life. The canine.

The feline adjusts, calls the name, quells the name.

Her voice shrill into the silence;
Left empty, dial tone.

Aching, smiling, beckoning, joking, twirling, playing
Like a cat with a dead mouse.

How many lives...

can one live in a single lifetime? That is my question.

I remain alive, albeit in a different location in the bay area.

Every now and then my mind reaches back to past times, mostly yearning for them.

I look around at the present place and time... I see broken communities, people so individualized (or individuated) that they no longer exist in any form of group.... And then I also see wonderful individuals all around me that seem to keep the entire universe inside themselves.

I see an ecosystem that suffers from various diseases.

But mostly I just am, like everyone else.

I remember my friend, who, seeing this display of insectual love, wondered "are they kissing?"

Life is real, at least. Life remains real despite the modernizations and technologifications. I thank life for that.