SSJ7: Quintanka 39: April Poem

Early April Heights

The new moon is occurring
and the spring-melt river rises
with the morning tide—
as last night’s rain creates new freshets
falling through the fresh hillside.

~Kokoro Sonzai translated by Son Rivers 2008

SSJ4 Cool Spring PoemQuintanka 38 Meet the New Conformity

The Spirit of Spring Journal 4
3/22/08 Birth of Seasonal Cool

The sun is high in the sky but still the wind from the northwest makes things cool. The usual March cool. Speaking of which, we went to the Addison Gallery and saw the Stoller (a fantastic photo from the early sixties of the TWA terminal displayed on the exhibit website is indicative of the black and white flavor of the photos depicting modern architecture with all its curves and lines), Homer (an amazing watercolor featuring a predominately yellow rooster large in the foreground with cornfield, mountains, and farm house receding small into the background kept me coming back to look), and Birth of the Cool (think of the Roadrunner in a plastic chair meets Chet Baker resting on a rectangular chaise longe inside a steel and glass house overlooking sun-washed LA) Exhibits today. The first two were excellent as expected, but the latter was a pleasant surprise. A cultural look at Southern California Cool of the fifties from architecture to furniture to painting to music to movies to television.

Hence the spring poem:

March Spring Cool Quintanka

Cool is more than California
pastel architecture all
that plastic jazz. Conformity,
that king of winter cold is dead.
Long live this fresh conformity.

Kokoro Sonzai 2008

Quintanka 38: Civil Tanka

Autumn in Gettysburg

Corn stalks have withered in the fields.
Standing high, they've faded—lifeblood dry.
But fifty-thousand spent and fallen
confederate and union souls still tell
the blood-soaked story when all summer fell.

~Kokoro Sonzai; translation by Son Rivers 2007

Quintanka 37 (tall): Just Another Merrimack Poem

Flowing Old

This tidal river, low,
still lessens as the tide flows further out,
much as this mid-September
day is cooler than the one before.
I shiver from the shock of recognition.

~Kokoro Sonzai; translation by Son Rivers 2007

Quintanka (lite) 33,34,35,36 Labor Day Lights

Stops

The summer stops because
the merchandise is turning
over in its grave
but cheerful allergy
to one reality.


Comes

All the leaves are still
an energetic green
despite the early setting
sun—September comes
prematurely.


Peck

I watch the woodpecker peck
one thousand summers after
pecking more than one
gazillion seasons one
sweet peck upon another.


Cherry

Despite the fact I know
it’s all a passing dream
I still believe the cherry
coke I didn’t drink
is blossoming for someone.


~Kokoro Sonzai; translation by Son Rivers 2007

Quintanka 32: Basho, Saigyo, and Soon, Me

Before Hiraizumi

The dream of Hiraizumi
Saigyo revealed through light of day
to be a darker field
than nothing during Basho’s stay.
My own is something still in play.

~Kokoro Sonzai; translation by Son Rivers 2007

Quintanka 31: Basho, Matsushima, and Soon, Me

Ya Matsushima

I realize concrete lines—
despoils—the shores of Matsushima,
a power station too.
Two weeks suspense before I see
if Basho’s silence will agree.

~Kokoro Sonzai; translation by Son Rivers 2007

Quintanka 27, 28, 29, 30: Tanka Baseball Poem

Four-Bagger Tanka
Quintanka Quartet; From Section 17: 7/22/2007


We Shall Be Released

There’s something captivating
about a baseball park, its green
reality of walls
surrounded by ten thousand dreamers—
waiting for their side to hit one out.


Pega Luna

Manny stands where no
one stands, then strolling to the plate
he looks for no one in
the grandstands in particular—
where everyone will soon be standing.


Like a Roush Fenway Crash

The ball was rising like
some turbo-charged Messiah heading
speedily for the Finish
Line of blue horizon while
the faithful left on earth exploded.


Divinations; a Registered Trademark

Later, they would sight
a single hawk traversing thermals
rising from the spirits
released, and knew its point right fine—
before it pierced the Citgo Sign.


~Kokoro Sonzai; translation by Son Rivers 2007

Quintanka 26: Toltec Tanka

Recovery Harbor

In the fog and on
the river, boats appear to be
living on the edge
of consciousness and just existent,
before they fall into their dream.

~Kokoro Sonzai; translation by Son Rivers 2007

Quintanka 25: What Makes a Haibun

Haibun for What

The river oozes fog
about the atmosphere like god
knows what. Or like my own
uncertain personality
is rising from some certain spot.

~Kokoro Sonzai; translation by Son Rivers 2007

Quintanka 24: What's Not There Poem

The Tree that Grew Along the River

The old tree isn’t there
but just a flattened swath of reeds
where winds had fell its fullness.
I understand my father now
regarding nothing out the window.

~Kokoro Sonzai; translation by Son Rivers 2007

Quintanka 23: Mid-Summer Poem

The Eternal Dream of Summer

You can almost see
the summer in the air and why
the world seems smaller in
humidity of mid-July—
it’s not even clear it all will die.

~Kokoro Sonzai; translation by Son Rivers 2007

Quintanka 22: Kotoba One

Voice Vice

The voice of Canada
instills these whiskey waves with spirit
while Miami vice
creates that versa sparkling water.
Boats keep turning on the river.

~Kokoro Sonzai; translation by Son Rivers 2007

Quintanka 21: Animus Poem Anima

Belief is Like the Cherry Blossom…

This morning, believing myself
to be a conscientious man,
I drove my way to work.
Tonight, I know I’m just a girl
writing a poem about Japan.

~Kokoro Sonzai; translation by Son Rivers 2007