Wednesday, October 7, 2009

10.07.09 Gogyohka and Gusty Haiku

I bet
I'm so hard
on my country
because I've never lived
anywhere else

Walking
under the puckered gingko berries
I catch the smell
of vomit
Autumn's rot

when his wife
points it out
it's, "Oh, yeah--the moon."
then the two of us walking:
"Look--at that fucking moon!"

Had a reading
Hardly anyone showed
But it was worth it
to step out the Libary's doors
and smell leaves on the concrete

My fingernails
will keep growing
after I'm dead
and decompose last
Initials in bark

Out on the sidewalks
sometimes I wonder
if this city
disapproves my joy with life
not tough enough

who will love
the man
with warts
all over
his face?

It ain't
over!
It ain't
over!
No!

Crossing 14th Street
Hair blown in my face
Grinning stupidly

3 comments:

Lorri Lambert-Smith said...

I'm so happy you are capable of feeling joy over simple and natural things there in a city that is anything but simple and natural. It kills lesser spirits. When we were visiting you/Liz in Brooklyn, we were riding the subway, and I was hot and, odds are, bitchy at being crammed in a tube beneath asphalt. Across from me, there was a lovely young woman in a sundress reading a book. She was perfectly sweat-free and serene, and I marveled at the calm air of her. You have that centeredness too, I bet. Yet, and probably because of it, you can still get fired up about the fucking moon.

Lauryn said...

Re: the first one.

Dead on. If you end up in Japan or anywhere, I guarantee you will come back more with a changed view of the US than anything else. Case in point: American competitiveness in school, jobs, life in general. I used to see this as a negative attribute of the US, until I went to Denmark and realized that they have this creepy atmosphere where everyone is completely OK just being mediocre, because they're all going to be taken care of by the social government and end up being middle class anyways. That /striving/ for something, that just wasn't in them, and I think it really propagated into all areas of their lives. It was weird, and ever since then I've been really thankful that in the US, excellence is encouraged, prized.

fauxbois said...

Gogyohka #1 of this post, line 2.

This is the end of my juvenile comment.