Jane Joritz-Nakagawa
from SELF_PORTRAITS
Self Portrait 1
my heart  —   in exasperated tones
my heart, prologue
a heart, murmur risen
any heart     harms the cycle form
turn round to unacceptable
urgency   —    surfeit of lineage (chorus/coinage)
enter the immense feather of mood
— to prison with the sky!
spheres of swirling bildungsroman
lie slinking with the moon
— always lying
to commit treason against
the fluttering lawn  filtered
with 007 mobilized  under my
announced covers is
high damage — present tense
high moon, future
Self Portrait 2
Self Portrait 3
(in which I am conflated with other people then trapped in summery haiku and tanka)
the day the bomb fell flash of sunlight my hair gleams in buckets
the day the police stop me
my arms flail upward
body warmed by sunlight on dead concrete
Self Portrait 4
in unscented traces of habits
a successful operation
pockmarked audience
inscribed on sound
incredulous drama
for display on mantlepieces
incomplete booty acquisition
stolen by mimics
insistent cemetery
provides fanfare for adjacent century
here is where my voice (trails off)
.        .        .        .        .        (ドット).        .        .
intolerable outskirt
interior stain
stalking me on fake-book and insult-a-gram
please use a secure line
bludgeons the ancient
barefoot rescue team
Self Portrait 5
bony thoughts
mouth of famine
scar of sun
crust of bone
rhapsody at midnight
your legal passport
splinters of tourist
nervous hissing
deep lines
sighted, chilled
scarce currents
claim the dense mountains
walking through shadows
mere fragments
foul arrival
upon bent stones
pungent passage
its hind legs
Self Portrait 6
gently the streets darken
please cave in the day
eyes like wild birds
a deceased place follows me like
deep silence under the weight
of thousands of abandoned wrinkled
leaves fountains of decay
permeate would be paradisal fault
lines of painful absence
for houses built on flimsy
excuses during fires
in detainment centers
Self Portrait 7
scattered shudders in
mystical puddles become
bygone gardens leaking
from branches where
no one is talking amidst
bid rigging bed wetting and
acute organ failure
nonspecific threats
emanate from targeted
buildings where
no one is
listening or
inhabiting the space between
yet more objects
and there's crime
between my eyes
how to
continue
Self Portrait 8
cold dew cries
because it's morning
cities are only
beautiful at night
in the daytime
i long for uninterrupted
rows of trees not
concrete buildings
with their laundry flapping
and grandpa smoking on
greying balconies
with metal railings
their wives sing insanely
afraid to go near the water
afraid of the weather
an artist is always being interviewed
i exit the back door unseen
a room full of poems
pinned to walls
poems emit from a wary
mouth
stiff immobile poems
fish tossed back into the sea
embraced by trees
i'm sitting there listening
but realizing i have little interest
in what is being said
this makes me feel
inadequate
i notice i cannot touch another human being today
so i put a pagoda next to a tea cup
to produce chaos out of order
a mask of divided dwellings
for future allotted thoughts
and youthful piles of insides
my impulse on the clock
lined in haze
a powder flame
around a glacial spirit
running to the moon
emitting oceans of script
mock vapor
of canine birth
in chalky fields
shrill signals loom across slopes
Jane Joritz-Nakagawa’s recent books of poetry include Distant landscapes (Theenk Books, 2015) and the chapbook diurnal forthcoming in 2016 with Grey Book Press. She lives in Japan and can be reached via janejoritznakagawa(at)gmail(dot)com.
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from SELF_PORTRAITS
Self Portrait 1
my heart  —   in exasperated tones
my heart, prologue
a heart, murmur risen
any heart     harms the cycle form
turn round to unacceptable
urgency   —    surfeit of lineage (chorus/coinage)
enter the immense feather of mood
— to prison with the sky!
spheres of swirling bildungsroman
lie slinking with the moon
— always lying
to commit treason against
the fluttering lawn  filtered
with 007 mobilized  under my
announced covers is
high damage — present tense
high moon, future
Self Portrait 2
Self Portrait 3
(in which I am conflated with other people then trapped in summery haiku and tanka)
the day the bomb fell flash of sunlight my hair gleams in buckets
the day the police stop me
my arms flail upward
body warmed by sunlight on dead concrete
Self Portrait 4
in unscented traces of habits
a successful operation
pockmarked audience
inscribed on sound
incredulous drama
for display on mantlepieces
incomplete booty acquisition
stolen by mimics
insistent cemetery
provides fanfare for adjacent century
here is where my voice (trails off)
.        .        .        .        .        (ドット).        .        .
intolerable outskirt
interior stain
stalking me on fake-book and insult-a-gram
please use a secure line
bludgeons the ancient
barefoot rescue team
Self Portrait 5
bony thoughts
mouth of famine
scar of sun
crust of bone
rhapsody at midnight
your legal passport
splinters of tourist
nervous hissing
deep lines
sighted, chilled
scarce currents
claim the dense mountains
walking through shadows
mere fragments
foul arrival
upon bent stones
pungent passage
its hind legs
Self Portrait 6
gently the streets darken
please cave in the day
eyes like wild birds
a deceased place follows me like
deep silence under the weight
of thousands of abandoned wrinkled
leaves fountains of decay
permeate would be paradisal fault
lines of painful absence
for houses built on flimsy
excuses during fires
in detainment centers
Self Portrait 7
scattered shudders in
mystical puddles become
bygone gardens leaking
from branches where
no one is talking amidst
bid rigging bed wetting and
acute organ failure
nonspecific threats
emanate from targeted
buildings where
no one is
listening or
inhabiting the space between
yet more objects
and there's crime
between my eyes
how to
continue
Self Portrait 8
cold dew cries
because it's morning
cities are only
beautiful at night
in the daytime
i long for uninterrupted
rows of trees not
concrete buildings
with their laundry flapping
and grandpa smoking on
greying balconies
with metal railings
their wives sing insanely
afraid to go near the water
afraid of the weather
an artist is always being interviewed
i exit the back door unseen
a room full of poems
pinned to walls
poems emit from a wary
mouth
stiff immobile poems
fish tossed back into the sea
embraced by trees
i'm sitting there listening
but realizing i have little interest
in what is being said
this makes me feel
inadequate
i notice i cannot touch another human being today
so i put a pagoda next to a tea cup
to produce chaos out of order
a mask of divided dwellings
for future allotted thoughts
and youthful piles of insides
my impulse on the clock
lined in haze
a powder flame
around a glacial spirit
running to the moon
emitting oceans of script
mock vapor
of canine birth
in chalky fields
shrill signals loom across slopes
Jane Joritz-Nakagawa’s recent books of poetry include Distant landscapes (Theenk Books, 2015) and the chapbook diurnal forthcoming in 2016 with Grey Book Press. She lives in Japan and can be reached via janejoritznakagawa(at)gmail(dot)com.
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