Gogyohka 8.18.09

My copies of Enta Kusakabe's magazine Gogyohka came in the mail today. He carried 9 of mine.

I open the magazine
in a fever
flipping through pages of Japanese
to find two in English
A grasshopper in a field of daisies.

The alarm sting of chiles
The pepper tongue of basil
The skunked out eggplant
The tastes
of summer's spiky spice

amid the buzz buzzing
in the Shakespeare garden
a single honeybee hangs dead
still clutching the nectar stem
that nourished her

Sometimes in Summer
when mischief sneaks up my spine
I want to grab a camera
and take pictures
of all the tourists

The question is not
whether to kill nature
But
how we might die
with dignity

a carpet
of dried pine needles
isn't a fan of passion
until you throw a handful
on a campfire