four rengas endlessnightfall.com
These are Western rengas, that
have a time and place and tell
a story. They are made up of
haiku that can stand alone.
 |
|
HIKING IN NEW JERSEY
"the crime of love" -WBY
"weaving silver laughter
round skyscraper spires" - AG
"the fine centrifugal spokes of light round
the shape of my head in the sunlit water" -WW
"by the harp-string ropes / at the stars' own feet
here stood Mayakovsky / on this same bridge" - VM
whose are they, this Spring morning?
my shoes, waiting by the door
through the choiring
strings
of the Brooklyn
Bridge
New Jersey and
America
the waves sparkling in
the Spring sunlight
where is that tugboat
going?
gulls squeal in
the air
and I smell
fish
trawling boats from
Nantucket
"These people must know
nothing!"
the banker says, with
a little scream
while I gaze
up at them
high over
Wall Street
skyscrapers sway
in the blue
the American
flag is flapping
on the white-washed
Coast Guard docks
the sparkling wind
in my face
and points of
spray
the Ferry vibrates
beneath me
sunlight twinkling
on the roofs
salt air and
Staten Island
the daytime
moon
among the apple
blossoms
not a bee
in sight
and I ride the
bus across
the Bayonne Bridge,
"World's Longest"
the school bell
ringing
I stand beside the
white-washed picket fence
like the
petunias
who loves the
lilac flowers
dripping
by the picket fence?
through the lace-
curtained window
a frilly white
dress
on the kitchen
chair
a blister on
my little toe
must I give up
my pilgrimage?
"Write a poem
on them,"
Betty smiles at me
and points
the cherry
blossoms
while we embrace
on the porch
the geese honking
overhead
by the fragrant
blossoms
my dick
bumping her
we forget
ourselves
the canoe paddle,
dripping
with petals
sticking on it
bitten by a
mosquitoe
under the
blossoms
of the cherry
tree
with a black babushka,
kneeling
in blossom-shadow
sunbeams
among the green
waterplants
the clear bright
water
black tadpoles
wiggling
the empty asphault
road
is shimmering in
the hot sunlight
water clear as
glass
Monarch
butterfly
pebbles on
the bottom
a huge truck
lashes past me
the ground shakes
under my feet
no nodding please
says the sign
blueberry pie
and coffee
Jersey
City
a gas station
in the heat
it smells like
America
by a car scrapped
to the rims
glass
underfoot
naked dirty
children
catching a
glimpse
of a slimy
rat
orange flame on
the chimney pipe
highway overpass
zips by
evening
moon
the cop tells me
it was
an older man
and I can go
the bees are
stoned
deep in the
trembling blossoms
under the evening
moon
cars now and then
are twinkling
across the George
Washington Bridge
on the wooden
pier
I too am
a mystery
like the sparkling
waves
on a Spring night
when it rains
I can hear the
sirens far away
across the windy
Hudson
skyscrapers
lighted-up
in a night
of stars
whose are they,
this Spring morning
my shoes, waiting
by the door
NEW YORK CITY ELEGY RENGA
"...As Ferris taxi'd uptown, he glimpsed at
intersections the lingering sunset." -Carson McCullers
Leise flehen meine Lieder, durch die Nacht zu dir.
"...My own Manhattan with spires."
"...Unreal city."
"...O harp and altar of the fury fused."
"...Moloch in whom I sit lonely."
1.
-Then from the
depths
of the darkness,
I whisper to her,
"What
now?"
2.
...kitchen
-the hot afternoon, I
lie in the sunny glow
on the linoleum floor,
lost in a moment ago.
3.
...Upper West Side
- under the streetlamps in
the falling snow
the empty
cars
seem
lonlier
...6th Ave.
- "Do you want this
pussy?" points
the
innocent
young
harlot
...hospital
-"Goodbye...Daddy." Joel gives him
an aching kiss.
The elevator drops
through emptiness.
...later,the dark
-night
perfume
envelops
me
cherry
blossoms
...a man's life
-a flash
of light
splits the
dark
in
two
...Riverside Park
-innocent
tulip's
little
cup of
this morning's
rain
...the Plaza
-on the streets of
midtown
not a
soul
Memorial
Day
...8th Ave - Irish bar
-on the luminescent
TV screen
a large
rat
is telling me
lies
...Madison Avenue
dog walkers
-in such a
universe
the ugly
pug's
pink
tongue
-as I pass by
they glance at me
and I
think
forgive me
for existing
4.
-Henry Epstein
shakes out the cold
"I could see
your books
from the
street."
-is it sweet?
this coffee,
or
bitter?
-my father
waves his arms -
smoke rising
from
the broken green
ashtray
-how pleased
she is
to make him
laugh
-we're all
talking -
Peter uncrosses
his legs,
"My penis fell
asleep."
5.
-this dingy
room
unearthly
too
with Bach's
eternal sorrow
-a streak of
light -
"I saw a
shooting-star,"
she
whispers
-and now we
lie together
as if a
part
of one another's
dreams
-her clear
grey eyes
how she looks
at me
as if
forever
...later
-aching with
sorrow
ready to
open
apple
blossoms
6.
-Grand Central
Station
the opera
jukebox
crowds passing
it by
...7th Ave. IRT
-alone on the subway, at night,
exhausted, I muse
on the photos of a
wind-blown Daily News
...Washington Heights
-as I pass on
the El train
a young girl
looks out
a third floor
window
-from the platform
of the El
the rooftops
of Brooklyn
and the
stars
-vast night of
twinkling stars
Plato, brilliant
Plotinus
think
of
7.
...Broadway at 112 St.
-winter
sunset
a few
fluttering
snow
flakes
8.
...East Side Highway
-winter
moon
super-
highway's
fleeting
dreams
...Central Park West
-cigarette butt
still smoking
in the snow
of early dawn
-"Tis the season
to be jelly,"
Christmas card
from Paul
Santa's dick
pops out
-the Christmas tree's
silent bulbs
are holy as the
starry night
-a winter
day's
dream of
snow
the endless
nightfall
...homage John Wills
-old man on
a park bench
the tick of snow
upon the newspapers
-Central Park
at night
the snow
falling
my footprints
in the snow
9.
-drifting,
drifting
nowhere
drifting
dark to
dark
10.
...midtown, the heat
-the luminous
city night
lost in the infinite
flashing lights
alone in
it
-I hug my arm
around her
the weight of
her body
-in this night
of nights
infinite glittering
spires
the Diamond
City
-the flash of
utter loss
in her luminous
eyes
-"Never again,"
she whispers
without
hope
-for there is
no hope
WAKING FROM A NAMELESS DREAM
I don't walk as much as I did; I stay in the house reading and
thinking; and I love to lie on the floor in the darkness listening
to the cricket chirping outside my window.
waking from a nameless dream cicadas in the heat of day
If only I could live silent in the forest like the deer; because
nothing matters at all. (And yet I am ashamed of sneakery.)
Things are as fragile as rain. And I am a dream.
Sitting in the woods: the deer:
nobody knows I am here
quietly thinking
raindrops pattering from the leaves
Melody appears out of nothing too...from silence and deep
feeling...like a dream, or a bird-song.
The toad:
silent on a log I dream on all the Universe
The "hymn of spirituality":
on the wooden pier I too am a mystery like the sparkling waves
Drifting in the river:
slipping through my fingers the river flowing around me
Like the wind in the leaves...like Schubert's sweet death-melodies
and the Agamemnon's tragic song of life - or Tosca's -even in the house
I hear them, "mournful melodies":
my desk with books and papers: thinking, "this too..."
And memories - peering into the dark:
"This place is such a mess," my mother her eyes are full of sorrow
Dominace and riches are the crimes of the reptile. But cruelty
is for us all. And the oracles and the ecstatic poets have warned us
that love itself is tragic.
The cricket in the darkness:
when I wake up crickets all night singing
Because I love the cricket's singing, I did over Emily Dickinson's
poem number 1775.
Nature has many keys - I know - for melody -
The cricket - though - her utmost is - of elegy -
All I see is darkness. It grows darker and darker, like Kafka's
cup of coffee. But I can listen all night to the singing of the cricket
that lives in the weeds outside my window.
I composed a poem almost in the form of question and answer.
the darkness
my warmly-lighted
empty room
at midnight
the cricket singing
metallic chirping
in the dark
from the weeds
by the black screendoor
The poetry of life is everywhere: an empty dream.
porch's fat spider repairing its web Harvest moon
Fixing-up the house Zen: the fly:
quietly folding my hands moon in the endless night
How many murders?
This concentration camp.
How many slaves?
"Come see the blood in the streets."
...on the living-room floor, in the
silence of night (the cricket chirping
in the darkness), peering into her eyes
that looked at me...
...in the dark...with the TV flickering...
"Is it just a cruel joke?", she says her clear eyes seeing me
...glancing up at the screen, I saw,
in a Mesopotamian village, the many
tumbled victims strewn, their
mouths open and their eyes staring...
...the dark...and the TV flickering...
roars the November wind driving the cold tears into my naked eyes
When I look down the railroad tracks,
it stretches out to infinity
under the endless autumn skies,
the dried-up weeds and slender
sumacs beside the banks and
thickets in the mist.
At dusk:
autumn-railroad's wild geese honking disappear night-falling rain
A cold rain:
autumn rain last petunia's lonliness
I wrote a poem called Christmas
Death, with the refrain, "The room
electric-lighted in the dark." But
the silence of Christmas was always
there in the lights of the Christmas tree.
And the darkness is holy.
on this Christmas Eve only a candle burning and a silent man
And for several years I watched each
month - until the springtime of the year -
the speechless round moon rising in the
branches of the maple tree above the
pointed roofs of the mysterious house
next door.
has there ever been a moon so bright?
April trilliums in the forest:
rain-wet, pure-white trilliums hermit thrush, so lonely dark, empty forest
Transparent leaves unfolding from
tiny twigs by looming trunks;
secret, aching silences. Is it Spring?
A warm drizzle:
in the gentle rain wetting my eyes cherry blossoms
In the evening:
dusk tiny blossoms tryst drifting bumblebee
in the darkness apple blossoms trembling with my breathing
The dark:
night perfume envelops me cherry blossom
I can't resist the urge to follow
along the river banks and the deer
trails on the ridge. And when I
wander in the woods I hear the
voices of ghosts.
this Spring I hear again more deeply anguishing the song of the hermit
thrush
In the Spring of this year, my beautiful,
joyful nextdoor neighbor, Nicki, who
was only thirty-two years old - and
she was deaf - began to have trouble
breathing, and after a week she died,
on the twenty-sixth of May, in the most
unbearable time of the year, with the
moon just coming to the full and
lilacs in the air.
For sweet Nicki.
lighting a candle in Spring the full moon rising and the lilacs
OHIO RENGA
So sang they in eternity,
looking down into Beulah.
2018 June working again
this poem will be typed in soon and will include
this haiku:
starry nights, crickets -
stalking the dark town -
the terrible mystery -