Dango

Posture

Terrorists are the new Bogeymen, dealing in germs
and chemicals, blasts and scars, other hallmarks
of connectivity, cells are our only choice, small
regions within smaller countries, highways abandoned
and given to the meander of a private lane, Japanese
streets are well designed in that respect, a mixed up maze
a jumble, yet--

any enemy will pass a hundred
watchful houses on the way to wherever his aim,
there are so many walls here (hence the ninja)
if ever our wide-armed embrace of anything and anyone
could be questioned it is now,
arms folded, defensive--
in snaring others we also snare ourselves.

a slight chuckle from the hay feverish poet

It would have been less amusing
if I had been able to breathe the past week,
an immense hazy cloud in the satellite imagery
mistaken for wildfire by lookouts
in the low mountains of Gunma

A team of fire fighters sent in with all dispatch,
a cedar pollen thick as mustard gas--
they could not stop sneezing, eyes watering and burning,
pollen burrowing its way into every pore and crevace

Brave indeed those who,
taking a vast cloud of pollen for smoke
ventured into that microscopic morass--
Better the lick of fire, walls of flame,
great billowing black-plume infernos
than this slow death by itching powder,
wheeze and laughing gas.

(2005, the year levels of pollen in Japan were 30 times higher than normal)

an earth-mad tide

the streets were dirt, shuffled and aromatic, though
conjested with tourists a couple turns would take you
to some trees and a small relaxed table and chairs
an old thai woman, big steel fry pan in hand, noodles
or beef and chiles, any dish, dogs lazing in the heat
the palm studded sway of the tropics,
just a short walk from one of two bays, as if
this island had been doubly blessed by the gods
two hilly rocky mountains joined by this
paradisical spit, everything relaxed as nowhere else
in Thai, no cars, hence the sense of timelessness
and old Thai despite the crowding, here you could
almost forget the downside of third world asia
forgetting the words of the old fishermen
who through generations prized their hillside
houses, wedlocked to solid rock
no flimsy no-code stalls or bungalows
to be swept in a sickening shuffle
by an earth-mad tide.

(for Koh Phi-Phi, in memorium)