Poetry

[Kokuu]

Hello all

As most of you know, I write haiku, but have recently been spurred to write longer works. These are very much early incarnations but I thought I would share here anyway.

You may notice where a line in this one is shamelessly drawn from!

Falling

The leaves are always falling
I try to catch them in my gloved hands
To push them back onto the branches.
It only seems like last year
when everything turned yellow
and a single bed became my home.
How many autumns make a life?
I would settle for two more Hallowe’ens
Or one Bonfire Night.

Driving to school
I see the woodpile stacked up high,
already larger than last year.
Firewood turns to ash
and does not become
firewood again.

“You don’t want to go down there
This is crow country.”
My hands still smell
of wormwood and my arms hurt.
Maybe we could start a fire
just until the sun sets?

Setting up camp
at the head of the valley,
the clouds gather all the orange
from the sky, and we share
the last pieces of bread.

[Kokuu]

Untitled

“He doesn’t look like a child!”†
The words are as haunting
as his own face.

As the temperature drops
so, it seems, does our
sense of compassion.
Arms shrivel backwards,
and are sucked inside,
instead of reaching out.
Kind words freeze
on the breath.

In another world, a woman
gathers knitted hats,
pressing each one to her face,
to test its softness,
running the fibres along the ridge
of an elegant Grecian nose.

Why are we so keen
to be trapped by certainty?
“Maman, Maman, est-ce qu’un chien?”
Old photographs cannot
stop a river from running.
We can see ourselves
in the background of the picture
wrapped in long woollen coats,
hands held up in celebration.
On the Pont Royal we stand
and wait for the flood.

I love you is the most unoriginal
thing you can say to anybody‡
yet the words carry us aloft
on their shoulders
even as the ground turns to mud
under our own feet.

† This line, or something similar, was spoken by many commentators on the refugee crisis as Britain prepared to take a small number of unaccompanied child migrants from the Jungle camp in Calais.

‡These lines are paraphrased from Jeanette Winterson ‘Written on the Body’:
“You said, 'I love you.' Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear? 'I love you' is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them.”

[Enjaku]

Thanks Kokuu,
I really enjoyed reading these. I also like to write. I particularly like the rhythm of the first poem.
Please keep posting.
Gassho,
Alex
Sat

[Jakuden]

These are amazing Kokuu. I see Dogen's influence in both (and anyway he can't come after you for using his line in the first one) Like truly great art (not that I am a qualified judge) but for me, anyway, they evoke all the senses and the Emptiness beyond.
Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday

[Tai Shi]

Kokuu

Excellent, gentle touch with image and words--thank you

Tai Shi
st/lah
Gassho

[Kokuu]

Thank you, Tai shi!

[gassholook]

[Seishin]

Both lovely Kokuu.

STMIZ