Join us every Monday evening for drinks at the new Kos community political poetry club. Drop by and speak your mind in rhyme or blank verse. Let’s use language to scream our passion to the world. Bongos, berets and turtle neck sweaters are optional. The keypad is mightier than the sword.
This weekly community diary is a poetry reading, a jam, a workshop and a classroom.
Formats
• Individual hosts presenting their own politically-themed poetry
• Theme diaries; for when we have collected enough original poetry on a particular theme
• Poetry worshops, including tips on how to make poetry work, how to choose words, how to decide whether to put it in form or use free verse, how to pump the brain when there is nothing there but writer’s block, and so on
• Presentations of a favorite conscientious poet’s work in the public domain
• Other ideas for diary formats are welcome
Comments
• Poetry and verse are always welcome in the comments
In this week’s edition of Indigo Kalliope five Daily Kos poets respond to the events in Japan by contributing poetry about, or inspired by, the country, the culture and/or what has been happening these past ten days. Our thoughts and good wishes are with the people and the land of Japan, so that they may persevere through this difficult time.
—
justiceputnam
In 1986, I taught ESL in Japan and was in the country for almost eight months. My step-father is a Nisei, whose ancestors came from the island of Hokkaiddo; and that is where I first went and where I taught for only six months; the remaining two are briefly documented in the following.
As I was looking over notes and incomplete writings from my time there; I was struck by how sublimated a sense of impending disaster permeated the culture and psyche of Japan. When the national icon is a supposed dormant volcano that has not erupted since the 1700’s, the islands sit on a ring of fire and shifting tectonic plates; well, that might have something to do with Japan’s historic sublimation of inevitable doom; but also, a true reverence for life and beauty.
The second of the poems is a series of haikus from a six day hike around and to the crater of Mount Fuji. The first is from a month long hike around Hokkaiddo, in which I learned the importance of...
Life and Impermanence
I want to love
And write
And be.
I want to touch
The Heart and the
Earth
And embrace
Our souls
Which is the whisper
Of God.
I want to see
And be
The light
Falling through
Tear-drops
Of sky
Fragment into
Distinct colors
Held in a shimmer
But for a moment
And then disappear.
I want to be a warm kiss
On red lips
Under a rice-paper
Moon
Then touch in laughter
And embrace in tears
I want to be the
Song
And the
Dance.
I am a strong heart
My chest is hard
And brown.
I lay in the tent
Of wonder
Sing the
Prayer of her
Name
And her name is
The World.
I arise every
Morning.
Gather berries
For children of
The next
Village
Gather flowers for
Shrines along the
Road.
(Sapporo Prefecture, Hokkaiddo, Japan — 1986)
© 1990 and 2005 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen
Six Day Haiku
I
Invisible sits
The pheasant in red maple
Two solitudes dance
II
Cold nippon spring day
Hydrogen nuclear air
A ram at birth breathes
III
Red Columbine sways
Snow-plant not easily seen
Rock-fringe White Heather
IV
Blue meadow wind wave
Stream collapses hard down stone
Clouds shadow white rock
V
Still time of bare oak
Ancient destiny blossoms
Sky-tear pilgrimage
VI
No thing is solid
Clouds reflect upon the lake
Granite cliffs shatter
(Mount Fuji, Shizuoka, Japan — 1986)
© 1987 and 2007 by Justice Putnam and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen
—
ulookarmless
Ring of Fire (3/16/11)
The preacher called the demons up from down below
To chastise all the sinners sitting in the pews
Unaware that raging all around the building
Built with stone and wood and glass and superstition
Was a greater force than even he
The steward of all truth
As mankind perceived truth to be
Waiting to spring
Stone began to groan and crack
Wood burst into devouring flame
Cacophonous glass shards shattered
Only superstition fed on that monstrous thing
As it raced across the southern half of the planet
Sweeping all before it in its gargantuan appetite
For death and destruction. No unifier here
A separator only, bent on tearing apart the world
Headed north on an island hopping tramp steamer
Chose not to make land fall at other destinations
Until it reached some northern isles where preparations
Are made in advance for the advent of these monsters
The beast this time had a more urgent message
For those with ears to hear
A more important and timely message
One with dire consequence for tomorrow
“Remember who you are” it said
“Remember to take care of me” it said
“If you continue to behave
as though the planet was put here
for your benefit,
I will remind you
of how wrong you are
more,
and more frequently.
You are part of nature.
You do not control me.”
-
My heart bleeds for the victims and their families in Japan and New Zealand.
Today we are all very small in the face of the infinite.
I am reminded of Shelley’s Ozymandias: “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair”
Ozymandias
Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away”.
—
rubyr — On the Japanese poet, Basho
When I was very young, I read the words:
“Winter downpour
Even the monkey
Needs a raincoat”
I was struck by the absolute clarity and wisdom in these words. I not only could “hear” the words, but I could “see” them as well. A beautiful image of nurturing and of the alienation that occurs in the absence of nurturing formed in my mind’s eye. Because I am a visual artist, I felt these little word paintings as a miracle. I began to read a lot of Basho’s haiku and experienced the same quality in each of them. Basho was a warrior before he studied zen and became a poet. His haiku seem a perfectly balanced mix of the gentle and the strong, the beautiful and the ugly, the yin and the yang and this balance is deeply appealing to me. When life becomes an overwhelming ball of confusion, I turn to Basho and always find solace. I hope you enjoy these poems.
You will notice an inconsistency in punctuation and capitalization with these haiku. This is probably because many of Basho’s haiku were the hokku (initial verse) of a renga (linked verse) and because different translators adopted varying styles. The Encyclopedia Britannica and other sources state that Basho wrote 17-”syllable” haiku. This is inaccurate because a “syllable” in English is a “mora” or “on” in the Japanese language. Basho’s poems are written in mora, which are not the same as English syllables.
I like to wash,
the dust of this world
In the droplets of dew
-
The first snow
the leaves of the daffodil
bending together
-
My eyes following
until the bird was lost at sea
found a small island
-
occasional clouds
one gets a rest
from moon-viewing
-
A wild sea —
In the distance over Sado
The Milky Way.
-
a clear waterfall —
into the ripples
fall green pine needles
—
Whimsical Rapscallion
Return to Silence.
It was just silence
In the long ago, before
we were given life.
Peace, serenity,
And harmony ruled the land.
Until we broke it.
Gradually, not
All at once. It took some time.
We’re only human.
Mistakes were made.
Some big, some small, composites
Of catastrophe.
A really big one
Was made just last century.
It seemed a good plan.
“Let’s bottle the sun!”
said a well intentioned fool,
and set about it.
By Jove, he did it,
And excitement rose about
Ending the world’s woes.
So much raw power!
We’ve harnessed the very stars!
Dangers were downplayed.
Most believed in it,
Although a few raised a fuss.
Yes. They told us so.
A Microcosm,
the decay was gradual.
The half-life was long.
All the big risks were
too far in the future to
be worried over.
The ones who knew then
and saw it all happening
remember it well.
First, a dream come true.
Then, doubts begin to surface.
They thought it was safe.
They found otherwise.
But intelligence outpaced
Wisdom once again.
The data told them
it would go wrong in the end.
They were just waiting.
Certainty falters.
When it starts to go awry,
it is very subtle.
It’s not widely noticed;
it still looks all right but it’s not
exactly what you thought.
It seems just a bit off,
as though something were out of place.
You almost don’t notice.
A rogue isotope here,
a fleeting cooling failure there...
Don’t pay close attention.
If you do you’ll realize
The danger is more than it should be.
Did you figure it out yet?
But then it becomes even worse.
Even the layperson knows something’s up.
The stalwarts pretend otherwise.
It spirals faster out of control
and waits patiently for that final trigger
that pulls it utterly and completely out of form in the form of complete and utter disaster, faster and faster, we gave mother cancer, now she’s giving us the shakes. She’s shaking us off, making us cough, sending our chemo aloft to fight the parasites that pick might over right night after night after luminous night. Radiation over every nation is the medication taken in exasperation of the conflagration of innovation over
Common.
Fucking.
Sense.
Breathe, relax, come back
to a form that’s supportive
of rational life.
The knife has been thrust
The die has been rolled. All told,
We’re a little late.
But the earth will heal.
In our extended absence,
There is just silence.
—
asterkitty
Cascade
A snow covered rescue dog
stares into the camera
as if to say
I’ve got work to do
such sad work to do
This unusually late snow
falling softly, yet determined
as if to cover, lay a blanket
as if nature is so very sorry
but it’s only doing what it’s meant to
the heave of the earth
the rush of cold waters
matchsticks from lumber
like splinters cut to bleed
Pools of water evaporating
leading to a deadly exposure
sea water dropped from helicopters
from the previously ravenous ocean
still spitting up
Snow coming down
on the devastated background
on the television news screen
a deceptively gentle fallout
red trucks urgent in the opposite direction
store shelves emptied out to nothing
windows sealed tight
Was it seventeen autumns ago
when we were touching blue pottery
in the lovely town of Mashiko
flecked with golden sunlight
persimmons hung low and heavy in the garden
you could breathe them in
with air so innocent and sweet
(©Alexandria Levin, March 2011)
-
This painting is called The Tree Of Life. I painted it soon after visiting Japan in the fall of 1993.
(artwork ©Alexandria Levin, 1994)
All poetry above is copyright their respective authors.