a poem I had been meaning to write

I wrote them over a year
ago, five haiku's, in a small collection
for my teacher Maruki

At that time I was reading
many hiakus and beggining to understand the form.

The form became a good fit. Or I became the form,
whose objective is to record an event
without recording oneself.
To look but not touch, or to leave no stone unturned and
likewise no footprints behind.

The sheet I gave to Maruki contained
six haikus. One was about highschool, and it begain
"three balck stones in a stream of white." Another
was about Autum, and
its lines were something like
"a prism ascends, a
caravan of strangers
pierces the night with its song." Autumn may
very well had been the title.
Another recalled a particularly
picturesque sky...
"confidently coreographed with gold
storm approaching"

Like a watchmaker, I
set up each part of each haiku
so that it would work without me.

I remember including one that didn't quite
pull its own weight.

I was clumsy and hard to move in
like barn boots or a fitted skirt.

But it did have a rightful place in the
collection. Whatever it was I tried to capture
I could not.Not in writing.
Zani once said to me,
If I can put a feeling into words,
and express it, then why
can't I stop feeling it.
A feeling is not words.

She had been contemplating her
sadness when she
spoke those words and I
call it her sadness in order to honor
her experience.

So why is it that I think back
upon these hiaku's ragments, which
are now only mismatched garments,and
wonder when I will find my size.

murakami writes good endings.
"UFO in Kushiro" has an intersting ending-it is almost like the narrator took a breath and decided that he/she was not going to tell the story anymore. Part of me likes that element a lot, but I think that it is a technique that could really harm a poem-make it too post modern-too self contained, which counters the japanese aestethic of lonliness which is best described as a poem that is written so well without mention of the narrator that one completely forgets about the narrator until they consider the fact that someone needed to record the information. with my first poem I wanted an omniscient narrator that could record perhaps a dream state. Actually I envisioned a beach I had once been to being invaded by aliens. the narrators wife disappears in "Ufo..." after spending most of her time watching the news about such things.
anyway, I wanted there to be a connection to the unknown expressed, and I need to seek better ways of doing so when I take another look at the poem. I wanted it to seem other worldly, or maybe like a world that has skipped a beat. I need to get this poem together still.

Better than Baseball:

sumptuous sun
curt cloud overcomes submissive sun
duffel bag cloud
clown cloud becomes angry and
flower gets wet
cloud fights sun
flower wilts
contented sun
contented flower
tornado rain rather suddenly
flower gasps
exclaims with petals
cross is the flower
between fighting friends.

Dreams are God's oragami after a bottle of sour wine
man in the moon looks on. An angry cloud dictates when
sailboat masts ride past on triangular ocean grooves.

Morning moments of awareness: a soft pink cramp in the lower breast, heat at the brow. Before that, this dream: prunie pale palm touches tanned thigh flexes and sand falls back with other sand, tiny iridescent mermaid scales; like abandoned pennies left for lightening or flickering satellites.

Triangle patterns.
bright light


does the man in the moon exist.
A sailboat rides past on the ocean’s groove. Triangle patterns.

take steps in unison left and then right when they startle they look like wind up dolls on their last crank.


------------

there would be no dreams:
the grit of sand betwixt a palm and thigh,
set within the sand; tiny iridescent mermaid scales like pennies left for lightning or flickering satellites to braid beach to sky.

Twilight bid him down so that this vision may precede moments of morning awareness: a soft pink cramp in the lower breast, heat at the brow...

“It's money and adventure and fame. It's the thrill of a lifetime and a long sea voyage that starts at six o'clock tomorrow morning

Course Description

Rachel and Fran will read which ever Haruki Murakami books that they fancy for pure enjoyment. Some of these books include "A Wild Sheep Chase," "The Wind Up Bird Chronicles," "Sputkin Sweetheart," "After the Quake," and perhaps another look at "Norwegian Wood," and others. Then they will share and discuss parts of the books that really captivated them, such as the Ferris Wheel Scene in "Sputkin Sweatheart" or Reiko Playing for Watanabe at the Flat after Naoko's Death Scene in "Norwegian Wood." Then Rachel, and Fran if she chooses, will write 8-10 poems based on their experiences within the vastness of Murakami's fiction. After revisions, these poems will be finished by the end of the semester. Rachel and Fran will meet either at 3:00pm on Thursdays in the Java Joint, or at their leisure online at poetonpause.blogger.com, which is Rachel's online reading journal webpage. Rachel's first two poems are due to fran by the 20th of February, and her first blog meeting will be on the 15th of February. Otherwise, Fran and Rachel will come to a consensus weekly about due dates based on progress of revisions, etc. The student will be evaluted via a PASS or FAIL grade and a written evaluation from Fran, the instructor.