from The End Zone
enmeshed and ruthlessly entangled
reduced to a thought inside a thought
the mind in its own place
from the middlings and meddlings
the era of explaining gets you what you want
if words don’t line up properly
you are you just the same as yesterday
flowers bloom next to the cabin where I’m not
but you are still there
miserly thicket
out of which you came
a stupid bouquet
for disintegrating ash
a soggy lifestyle produces a silvery sonnet
a gust of graphs and grabs
easy to be heavy when stuck in the city
network other
the last remaining decision is doldrum
continuous sunshine in memories
obscured by contamination in need of intervention
joining the era of broken sound and lost remedies
that grace the statues
the remorse and regret
my long ears don’t hear a word
nomadic words by you heave heavy
diagnosed as terror and conflict
just a game
to write furiously till your wrist breaks
uninterrupted text
a pin in its bed
slow ornament, decentered, detached,
defaulted
psychological money
conversing by accident
gums up our existence
between the next thought and
the planned ones
asymmetry of accidents
observed niches
cling to maps of lost continents
the punitive idea of Eden
a vain lack anticipated
before meaning arrives
thoughts fade, try again
the arrival of more sound and indifferent luck
my heart would pack a wallop
if the myth of denial was less real
one delicate moment
dies on the vine
a reinterpretation of repeating phrases
to speak the imposed infancy
in the dark soup of society
*
Born in the USA Jane Joritz-Nakagawa has lived inJapan since 1989. Her tenth poetry book, Plan B Audio (Isobar Press)was published in 2020. She is the editor of an anthology of poetry by women living outside their birth countries and the author of numerous essays and works of fiction. Email is welcome at janejoritznakagawa(at)gmail(dot)com.
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