Japanese
Editor's Comments
Welcome to Issue 6 on the theme "Japanese". Below you will find a wide range of poems about things Japanese or using one of the Japanese forms. It was a joy to read so many strong submissions and to welcome both familiar names and newcomers. I hope you enjoy reading the issue.
Sally Long
Poems
accordion man plays
in the cobble-stoned doorway
old Buddha in the
shadows
Karen Hubbard
The Buddhist Master Instructs Me on Life and Death
After meditating
with him
for a month I ask
what
happens when we die
and
he tells me he
doesn’t know
and I say but you
are
a great master of
the dharma
yes he replies but
not
a dead one
Jeff Coomer
There! In the dead leaves,
one slowly stirs and flutters!
...moth awakening
one slowly stirs and flutters!
...moth awakening
Art Gatti
Married
She wears a gold ring
To show that she is married
It shines in the light
As she taps on her mobile
The time she’ll be home tonight.
David
Subacchi
A lamp hung atop
perennial sadness. The
moon in the willow
perennial sadness. The
moon in the willow
Art Gatti
Night
Dark skies roam the
city
chasing shadows
back to the light
E Wen Wong
Now he is just ash
for fluttering through the flame
Poor foolish young moth
for fluttering through the flame
Poor foolish young moth
Art Gatti
Family Photos
Buster
It doesn’t take a
dog’s nose for my nose to know
my dog’s nose now knows
where the rabbit knows to go
when the rabbit has to go.
Ethan
That lone mocking bird
whose call splits the weight of night
outside your window
every day at 4:00 a.m. –
when you leave, you’ll miss him too.
Lisa
If I knew fewer
words and could strand them taut like
pearls, I’d speak so the
most radiant stone would
fall
at the cleavage near your heart.
Rodd Whelpley
pelicans
the pelicans hover
like claws
above the surf
I watch them drop
then disappear
into the ocean
I imagine kelp groves
with sea creatures
trolling below the
surface
always I’m trying to
enter
the dark light of
mystery
I’m like my
grandfather
the family crabber
sinking his one and
only trap
from the wooden edge
of introspection
the pelicans emerge
filled with fish
a numinous pageant
visceral with a sky
pregnant
with more skies
Michael Spring
To
my dog, in all his disguises
There were always
dogs for company.
In the absence of
siblings a dog is a poor second
or a vast
improvement,
depending on your
point of view.
Now, they seem like
one animal, one spirit of a dog,
whose body
constantly metamorphosed:
from a Dachshund to
a Labrador
to a sleek
Alsatian,
then a matted black
Spaniel that pilfered canapés,
now a Bullmastiff
that could be ridden like a horse.
It bit a school
friend on the hand.
It jumped out of a first-floor
window.
Bolted the
neighbor’s chickens.
And would not budge
from that spot
by the chair where
its previous owner had sat
and commanded it to
stay.
I expect if we had
not called her back
it would still be
there, a discovered pile of loyal bones,
mutt-spirit pawing
for the outdoors,
pining for fresh
earth and blissful adventures.
Lee Nash
Hurricane by Moonlight
That afternoon
before the worst storm
to ever hit Florida
was all blue sky.
I was ten and had
spent the day
watching white
light dapple down through the avocado trees
while a tropical
wave off the coast of Africa drifted West,
its ridge a shark
fin gaining speed.
A shift in
pressure:
the mockingbirds
had gone
sometime after
sunset.
9 pm and the
pattering of rain fingers moved to punches
and the windows
shattered in shards.
My mother, brother
and I moved to the closet in the center of the house.
Water started
rising across our toes; mine shoeless
standing on a bag
of white rice.
My mother’s clear
rosary hung in her clenched hands.
The eye of the
storm: pelagic birds fly overhead
in that cone of
silence,
like angels trying
to get back to heaven
stunned by the
moonlight.
The roof started to
fall like it was on fire.
None of us are sure
that we are going to make it.
We don’t breathe
air, only water.
The storm abates.
Just before
sunrise, we stumble outside.
Palms littered the
road in soggy sadness.
Traffic lights are
simply gone.
There are sailboats
in the street.
Scattered about are
red roof tiles.
I throw up
pineapple.
Marie Kilroy
despite the stink
the carcass
still attracts
flies
Nikhil Nath
It is the white hour
between deep night and soft dawn.
Even the wren stares.
Joan McNerney
Sleeping with Magnum
As
an eight year old, she rode through Oklahoma into Kansas. A train ride without
parents—shipped from aunt to aunt, mother searching for work, father taken by
pneumonia. She danced the aisle of the Pullman. She hummed and twirled for the
other passengers, laughing as she imagined a princess riding a cloud of
dust.
one bright dress
in the passing train
moonless prairie
The
windows at the nursing home are locked. Her son sits with her. Each night they
watch reruns of Magnum P.I. until the Xanax settles and she begins to doze.
Then he tells her good night and kisses her on the forehead. Yesterday, she
didn’t recognize his kiss, fought to fly from her wheel chair. As he held her,
she kicked, flailed her boney hands in the television’s Hawaiian face.
cardinal beating
the
window
glass
sunset
Al Ortolani
Brainchild
Carried on a cat’s
paws,
royal and yet
somewhat humbly,
inspiration came to me.
It embraced me from
behind,
stripped me down
letter by letter
to the place of
untouched words.
It bestowed renown
upon the irreclaimable space of thoughts
and their circular time.
I could sense the coming rhyme
when suddenly a wrong phrase cut
the bliss of the unspoken.
Inspiration left,
and all that remained
was this poem.
Eleni Cay
Wabi-Sabi
(Japanese; A way of existing that focuses on finding beauty within the
flaws of life and accepting peacefully the organic cycle of evolution, growth
and decay.)
The secret of cancer
is that it will
kill you anyway, no matter
the treatment: chemo, radiation,
the scalpel tugging at your skin.
The secret of babies is that they are alive –
a few soft tufts of hair, tiny hands
and that infectious smell belonging
solely to newborns. The secret
is something I might not be
able to give you. It is made from
giggles and sticky fingers and
silky skin. I could not take
that treasured onesie, could not
kill you anyway, no matter
the treatment: chemo, radiation,
the scalpel tugging at your skin.
The secret of babies is that they are alive –
a few soft tufts of hair, tiny hands
and that infectious smell belonging
solely to newborns. The secret
is something I might not be
able to give you. It is made from
giggles and sticky fingers and
silky skin. I could not take
that treasured onesie, could not
keep the
footie-pajamas in our
attic forever. So I
held my hands to
the scarred planes of
my stomach,
traced my ribs all
the way to the
twice sliced port
incision, and let
them rest there. Let
them drift to
the steady thumping.
I wanted to
be filled with more – heartbeats –
not Cytoxan flushed
with saline. I
can still taste it,
the metallic salt,
the way it cools your
veins.
Lillian Brown
Note: Inspiration for the structure of this poem came from Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s “The Secret of Soil”.
Note: Inspiration for the structure of this poem came from Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s “The Secret of Soil”.
Conversations With My Father
there’s a moment of
silence and the questions
push their way into
my head, was I loved as a child, was I
the mistake I
always felt like, why did I
always feel so
alone. it’s a familiar plug
in the lull, and I
rush to fill the gaping hole
with more talk
about the weather, my job
my own children and
the bright things they’re doing.
I don’t talk about
what it was like
stumbling across
his neatly-typed suicide notes
coming home to an
empty house after school
the nights I spent
alone, wondering where my parents were
wondering if it was
all my fault.
Holly Day
Little
drifting soul
Little drifting soul,
you cannot understand your meaning
any more than the bee understands
its place among the flowers.
Naomi Saffron
A Name We Don’t Know Yet
My mother is mixing a
half-dozen muffins
this March
evening. Tall in her high heels,
she creams the butter
and sugar, then slowly adds
the
eggs. She smells of Shalimar and vanilla
in the oven-warm
kitchen. Intent, she doesn’t speak
except about her own
mother’s cakes. I am
waiting as patiently
as nine can for a heaping tablespoon
of batter for my
jar-lid pan for a tiny cake of my own.
Still wearing his
jacket and tie my father’s reading
the
newspaper. Through the glass door, we can see him
sitting in the big
side-winged horsehair chair
in the bay
window. We know he’s waiting too
to read the war news
to us as the house fills with the odor
of rising
dough. Hiroshima is a name we don’t know
yet. Outside
the gloom sits on the porch settee
and whines like a dog
to be left in.
Finally, it is
time. My mother’s muffins have billowed
high out of their
cups, golden as the kitchen ceiling
and edged with a
perfect complement of brown.
But my tiny cake,
left in too long, is flat, rock-hard
and charred black.
Oh, how I weep like a lost child
now for my childhood
and that little ruined cake.
Sarah Brown Weitzman
Sensei
Dedicated to my
Sumi-E Teacher, Sensei Koho Yamamoto
In breath, stroke
out breath, resting brush.
out breath, resting brush.
This is ingress, you say
push: delve deeper
push: delve deeper
press & release bamboo’s
clustered crush
clustered crush
wing across the vein
of winter’s eye
of winter’s eye
wrest the furious
persimmon’s blush
persimmon’s blush
Outside, the blizzard kissed
Manhattan to a fleeting
Manhattan to a fleeting
hush, pock marked
pigeon grey, as if time
pigeon grey, as if time
feathering on a tangent
had flown & homed in
had flown & homed in
to you, nearly ninety
but still hanging out
but still hanging out
Sensei, at the corner
of then and now, you
of then and now, you
just inked and winking
koan, lush, lunar sun
koan, lush, lunar sun
Sophia Pandeya
Woodblock Eyes
The eyes stare
out
from the narrow woodblock print
hung in the narrow gallery
filled with Japanese ghosts
and demons.
The eyes of Shoki
the Demon Queller
stab out so fiercely
from the narrow woodblock print
hung in the narrow gallery
filled with Japanese ghosts
and demons.
The eyes of Shoki
the Demon Queller
stab out so fiercely
that even an
all-purpose agnostic
knows who he will call if he is ever
spooked and scared and needs
knows who he will call if he is ever
spooked and scared and needs
a demon quelled.
Kim Peter Kovac
Issa
It means “cup of
tea,”
which, for most, he
is not. Oh,
unfortunately.
J.R. Solonche
Silk Trees After Storms
A week of western
storms
peeled off roofs,
smacked down signs
and bent these silk
trees into prayer.
Backs now curved
into half-moons,
the roots barely
hold while their fern-like
crowns sweep the
ground.
Everything that
lives to see another day
pays a price.
Colors fade, foundations crack,
all things ravished
by choice or chance.
And whatever can’t
bear the loss of what
once was, must fly
with the wind.
Other storms will
come, these trees
may not survive.
Perhaps they’ll die
to see a better
day. Beautiful as they were,
beautiful as they
are.
Peter Serchuk
A Certain Slant of Rain
Daybreak, but still dark with rain, a Thursday,
but my mind’s saying today’s Saturday.
Mammalian instincts respond to rain
and darkness, the steady sound of dripping,
patter of droplets on windows tells me
to stay home, stay in, drop back into bed.
Retired, alone with my cats and old dog,
we hibernate, listen to the ancient call
to sleep, restore the store of energy.
But something stirs this morning, ordinary
Thursday, nowhere I need to go but inward,
face myself, writing words in a notebook,
listening to my inner voice and rain,
searching for something I can’t find or name.
Daybreak, but still dark with rain, a Thursday,
but my mind’s saying today’s Saturday.
Mammalian instincts respond to rain
and darkness, the steady sound of dripping,
patter of droplets on windows tells me
to stay home, stay in, drop back into bed.
Retired, alone with my cats and old dog,
we hibernate, listen to the ancient call
to sleep, restore the store of energy.
But something stirs this morning, ordinary
Thursday, nowhere I need to go but inward,
face myself, writing words in a notebook,
listening to my inner voice and rain,
searching for something I can’t find or name.
Joan Mazza
Performance Poetry
In the back of some
dimly lit hipster bar,
Where they only serve
homebrewed beer,
Where the food is the
antithesis of Michelin star,
A group of men, all
bow tie and beard,
Stand with Doc
Martined girls with pierced septums -
Who clutch sheaves of
feminist manifestos
That rave against
everything from contraception,
To the misogynistic
values of the local Tesco -
Who are all waiting
for the readings to start.
The lights dip, and
on stage stands a girl
Who talks about the
banality of modern art,
About the need for
conservation in the natural world.
She is followed by a
man who writes verse
From takeaway menus
and pages from Wikipedia.
He is followed by a
woman who curses
God and men and
cricket and the media.
We get up to leave;
realising this isn’t our scene,
Threading our way
through the tables and chairs,
To the door. On stage
a man screams
Obscenities to a
lover who no longer cares
And the crowd lap it
up, cheering, clapping.
Yet, for all the
performances, rants, sound bites -
The actual poetry was
missed by most; the wrapping
Of your hands in
mine, as we stepped out into the night.
Colin Bancroft
5.5.15.
May morning; in silence
you slipped your moorings
and set sail. Fare well.
Rod
Hacking
Contributors
Colin Bancroft works as an English Lecturer at a College
in the North-East. Originally from Manchester, he completed an MA in English at
MMU, under the tutelage of Jean Sprackland. He has previously had poems
published in Acumen, Agenda, Ariadne’s Thread, Black Light Engine Room, Broken
Wine, Cannon’s Mouth, The Copperfield Review, Elbow Room, LondonGrip, Message
in a Bottle, Neon and ScreechOwl. He has also been shortlisted for the
Manchester Bridgewater Prize, Corinium and the New Holland Press
competition.
Lillian Brown is seventeen years old and currently
finishing high school at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. She plans to
attend Sarah Lawrence College in the fall.
Sarah Brown Weitzman, a Pushcart Prize nominee, has been
widely published in hundreds of journals and anthologies including The North American Review, Rattle,
Mid-American Review, Ekphrasis, Poet Lore, Potomac Review, Poem,
etc. Sarah received a
Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She was twice a
Finalist for The Academy of American Poets first poetry book award. A departure from poetry, her fourth
book, Herman and the Ice Witch, is a
children’s novel published by Main Street Rag.
Eleni Cay’s first collection ''A butterfly's
shivering in the digital age' was published after she won a national poetry
competition in her native country Slovakia. With her English language poems,
Eleni won the MK Calling Prize 2013 & 2015. She is currently Poet in
Residence at the Westbury Arts Centre.
Jeff Coomer is a recovering
overachiever who once had a career as a technology executive for a global
Fortune 500 company. He now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he
writes poetry and serves on the board of nonprofit organizations.
Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Centerin Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has
recently appeared in Oyez
Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle, while her recently published books
include Music Theory for
Dummies (3rd edition), Piano All-in-One for Dummies, The
Book Of, and Nordeast Minneapolis: A
History.
Art Gatti was the recipient of The Dwight Durling
Award for a Manuscript of Poetry while at Queens College, has been published in
small magazines and cyber pubs, ran a poetry and short fiction workshop at
WestBeth artists’ housing for two years, and had a column in The WestView News. He studied under and
consorted with accomplished poets, corresponded with Robert Bly for two years
and currently writes for a local small magazine called And Then. Art has recently become involved with several local
poetry groups and has read at the Cornelia Street Café.
Rod Hacking was an Anglican priest for more than 35
years but ‘no longer can be doing with that sort of thing’. He lives in
Salisbury UK where he spends his time writing and reading poetry, and never
goes to church.
Karen Hubbard currently lives in West Orange, New
Jersey. She has published poetry in Amelia, A Stone Unturned (Anthology),
Austin Downtown Arts Magazine, Maultrommel, Open Doors (Anthology),
Promethean, Shot Glass Journal and in her ChapbooksRain (2006) and The Day is Quieter than Night (2012).
Marie Kilroy has recently been published in the Silver Birch Press, The
Red Wolf Journal and the Lummox Press. She graduated
from the University of Mary Washington with a B.A. in English and lives in New
York City.
Kim Peter Kovac works in theater for young audiences with
an emphasis on new play development and networking. He tells stories on stages as producer
of new plays, and tells stories in writing with lineated poems, prose poems,
creative non-fiction, flash fiction, haiku, haibun, and microfiction, with work
appearing or forthcoming in print and on-line in journals including The Journal
of Compressed Creative Arts, Red Paint Hill, Elsewhere, Frogpond, Mudlark, and
Counterexample Poetics. He is fond of avant-garde jazz, murder mysteries,
contemporary poetry, and travel, and lives in Alexandria, VA, with his bride,
two Maine Coon cats, and a Tibetan Terrier named Finn. www [dot]
kimpeterkovac [dot] tumblr [dot] com
Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous
literary magazines such as Seven
Circle Press, Dinner with
the Muse, Camel Saloon, Blueline, Poppy Road Review, Missing of the Birds, three Bright Hills Press
Anthologies and several Kind of A Hurricane Publications. She has
been nominated three times for Best
of the Net.
Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist,
psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart nominee. Author of six
books, including Dreaming Your
Real Self (Penguin/Putnam),
her poetry has appeared inRattle, Kestrel, Slipstream, American Journal of
Nursing, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, Buddhist
Poetry Review, and The
Nation. www.joanmazza.com
Nikhil Nath has been writing poetry for eighteen years. He has been
published in various magazine in India, the USA and the UK. He lives and works
from Kolkata, India. "Write rubbish, but write", said Virginia Woolf.
This is Nikhil's maxim for writing.
Lee Nash lives in France and freelances as an
editorial designer for a UK publishing house. She is previously published by
Biscuit Publishing, Subprimal Poetry Art Ezine, Bluethumbnail, and more of her
poems are soon to appear in Ink Sweat and Tears, The Dawntreader and Silver Birch
Press.
Al Ortolani’s poetry and reviews have appeared in
journals such as Prairie
Schooner, New Letters, and the New York Quarterly. He
has published six books of poetry. His newest collection, Francis Shoots Pool at Chubb’s Bar,
was released in February of 2015 by Spartan Press. He co-edits The Little Balkans Review, a
regional journal out of southeast Kansas. Currently, he is teaching English in
the Kansas City area and serves on the Board of Directors of the Kansas City
Writers Place. He performs his poems widely and is a member of the troupe White
Buffalo Poetry and Blues.
Sophia Pandeya
is an Asian-American poet. Publications include Cactus Heart, Askew Poetry, Bank Heavy Press and Spilled Ink as well as Poetry International, The Adirondack Review,
The Daily O, Lantern Journal, Convergence Journal AntiSerious and Full Of Crow. Her debut poetry
collection, Peripheries, is being
published by Cyberhex Press in July.
Naomi Saffron is a writer based in London. Aside from
poetry, she has written articles for The Girls Are, Holdfast and The East End
Film Festival. Naomi has a BA in English from Goldsmiths University.
Peter Serchuk's poems have
appeared in a wide variety of US literary journals including Hudson Review,
American Poetry Review, Poetry, North American Review and other journals. He is
the author of two collections: "Waiting for Poppa at the Smithtown
Diner" and "All That Remains", has just finished his third book
“Threads” and has begun a search for a publisher. Peter lives in Los
Angeles, California.
J.R. Solonche, four-time Pushcart and Best of the Net
nominee, has been publishing in magazines, journals, and anthologies since the
early 70s. He is co-author of Peach Girl:
Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books).
David Subacchi studed at the University of Liverpool. He was
born in Wales of Italian roots and writes in English, Welsh and Italian.
Cestrian Press has published two collections of his poems. ‘First Cut’ (2012)
and ‘Hiding in Shadows’ (2014).
E Wen Wong is a 12 year old student in New Zealand.
She likes poetry because it isn’t too restricted and allows the writer to be
free to express what they want to into words. Besides from poetry and writing,
E Wen likes running, biking and mathematics.
Rodd Whelpley lives just outside of Springfield,
Illinois. His novel, Capital
Murder, was published in 2002. His poetry has appeared in The
Minneapolis Review of Baseball, Elysian
Fields Quarterly, Elm City Blues and Illinois Times. He has poetry forthcoming in Aethlon.