Bob Orr
Close an eye…
& with a Frangipani leaf
in
your fingertips…
hold it up to the sun.
Low Tide
It all tastes stark…
& when it passes I
will be here…
staring at the veins crawling up my wrists
toward my brain…
devising interpretations from the reflections
in the windows…
walking my fingers over the alphabet,
in hope of finding a map…
curling my toes under the table, like a cat
ready to sleep…
listening attentively for a slip in the algorithm,
like dammed water…
or an odd thought …
a missing button…
or an obscure note from the guitar…
that remembers you.
Oto
As the cherry blossom falls like acid rain,
my eye bursts into sketches of
red ink and
bamboo,
for it’s white washed pages and
delicate spine,
like a leaf in the fingertips under a
sun,
….
My knuckles R white! Oka-a-san…1945,
lest we forget the H-bomb,
8 letters in from the alphabet,
whole generation…
of stark, craggy branches…
….
For only after 8am and before 3pm,will I pray,
like buckled bridges of metal…
silent… for now,
feathers tickling their swirling lips,
with a twist of sea eggs and
pure holiness…
my love.
NOTES : ‘Meiji-Jingu’ is the big shrine in Harajuku, Japan.
‘Oto’ means ‘Sound’
‘Oka-a-san’ means grandmother in Japanese.
I used a myriad of Japanese images to capture ‘the Zen’ ‘the sadness’ and ‘the forgotten trauma of the H-bomb’ that still lingers in dirty pockets.
Kara : Lily
In this yellow light & upon this table…
is a SONG…
of no key or CHORD,
strings or ivory…
only a tongue…
like the corners of the mouth
turned upward…
…
2. Of the light shaped over
my hands…
In arcs and rectangles…
like the white and black in the eyes, child…
feeling your heart,
like it were scoped out,
like the seeds of
a melon…
…
3. The LILY is fragrant…
Like a garden of saints,
with scrolls, nibbled at the edges by
moths…
flitting WINGS in a pocket…
…
4. A lily & tendrils of SALT
water, is you…
Swelling under your lip and breaking
On your TONGUE,
rushing to the back of
your throat…
hearing the syllables of your name…
in
nakedness… & PURITY
I have felt this once,
But ONLY moments after it had past…
In the still,
& the sunlight
With the LILY resting on your nape.
…
* NOTES : ‘Kara’ means ‘Lily’ in Japanese
Masami-san no Uta
1.
Over the rocks and washed away,
in the minds eye,
a prayer is silent,
2.
When the day comes to pass,
so his feet braze…
& wail a hymn,
3.
In sleep this saint is frail,
turning his eyes
back to Nagasaki 1946
4.
So under the nail of dusk,
the lotus in a pond,
covers his lip with heaven’s port,
5.
Over the arid cheek of a widow
their bones merge,
& his Adam’s apple forms a soul,
6.
Talk of death as a wasteland, Woman,
burn holes through the
palms of your hands if you wish,
7.
In the graveyard lies an ocean,
Of souls and spawning fish,
a rainbow clothe for the journey,
8.
Over his limbs are shrouds of salt,
so a saint carries his soul
in the essence of the eye,
9.
& his wife, a monument,
like an arc to hold his
unborn children, still waiting to exhale,
10.
A cleft of stone, smoothed by frost
& river flow,
turns tussock into white silk,
11.
When a saint’s hair turns gray,
interwoven with sunlight,
he inhales an estuary,
12.
In the sway of my sea-dream,
I carry bread,
for like you, I have a soul to feed,
13.
So he wearied at journeys end,
flinted a flame,
muffled in the arcane shrine,
Oh my friend,
For like a child, his smile is still young to me.
NOTES : ‘Masami-san no Uta’ translates as ‘Masami’s Song’
The poem is dedicated to my friend’s partner who died of cancer. She mourned his death deeply and bitterly regretted not bearing children from him.
He was afraid to die, but he weathered his fear with dignity,
Ju-ni Gatsu
Japan is delicate,
& in December when snow settles
upon the branches,
it feels like a Buddhist prayer…
<Pause>
Walking to work,
a stonewall shoulders my path…
it was built 700 years ago
by monks who tendered the gardens with
tiny scissors & a clear mind…
Walking to work,
my fingertips hang out from under the
sleeves of my jacket…
tickled by a morning sun &
a frost,
fragile, like the ribs of a leaf…
<Interlude>a policeman tips his hat,
with iron in his holster & a hand
smaller than a child’s…
Walking to work,
the peddlers in steaming noodle
carts have faces like nourished hide…
If you get close,
their foreheads are old photos,
with grandfathers, mothers,
brothers & uncles,resting over their brow.
Walking to work,
from Yoyogi-Uehera, where I live…
it’s saintly…
for when the sun hits…
the orange tile roofs
knelt down through the night…
they rise to their feet.
& in Shinjuku, where I work…
the People have
the temperament of porcelain,
with cheek bones
like ZEN…
& Kurosawa
& in the canal,
the carp bask under muddy glass…
sometimes twelve or thirteen at a time,
trading their safety for
the sun,
& over the bridge,
with wide hips & feet resting in a puddle…
I enter the arteries of Tokyo…
With ears open…
listening for you
& the sound of oranges growing.
* NOTES : A Christmas postcard from Japan to my family back home in New Zealand. As a child I grew up on an orchard in Manutuke, Gisborne and the Te Arai river ran aside our little farm, where my brother and I spent hours and hours eeling on her sandy banks.
Te Purapura
(29 February 2002)
The Painter (Karaka)
Under the arms of a Pohutakawa
the sea swells,
like a flute to the ear,
quenching the thirst in his eye,
lifting his brush & wrapping his knees to the trunk,
the roots descend from his feet,
opening his mouth & straightening his back,
he raises his hands with fantails shooting from
his fingertips.
Kua tii tana moemoea e toona whanaungatanga ki a Tangaroa
The Sculptor (Pouriuri)
A child between her palms,
is like Kumura swelling in the belly
of the land,
& aroha knead like sweet bread,
a woman is a mother to the seed in her
hand Te Purapura
and the shape-shifter with clay bones is a
burnt sun,
like the flax woven into your tongue,
Ka moe te wahine i te kopu o papatuanuku
