Friday, October 30, 2009

October 28, 2009





                                          October 30, 2009





This afternoon a close friend of mine. Sanford Goldstein, asked me the following question:

Dear Robert--

"I READ OCTOBER 28--SOME VERY GOOD HAIKU AND TANKU, BUT WHAT IS MAKING YOU DO THIS?  YOU WILL HAVE TO LET US KNOW EACH DAY."

Sanford made good sense, being that what I am doing online is different, personal, revealing, and different from any English Language Japanese short form poetry blog or journal.  So Sanford, here it goes, as you suggested:











Says reknown Japanese poet and translator, Eiko Yachimoto about her visit to the Wonderland Amusement Park:

"I felt as if you were fishing with the line going down into your mind and heart. thank you for sharing." 








I just feel like doing it.  More people will read this than my book, I won't live forever, and I want my poetic voice validated and appreciated.  I have a style that is completely different than others and who knows, maybe more will be inspired to write and reveal real life, (from the inside out) just as you, I, and a few others do.  I'm not the average bear, don't fit into a mold, people think I'm eccentric, and I am. but then again, true artists (which includes poets) are thought of as strange ducks anyways because we more often than not march to different drummers, couldn't be macho if our lives depended on it, and hell, what can I say, I've yet to hang out or be part of a group of poets who are not sensitive, emotional, could never be a model Fuller Brush Salesperson, have egos.  Most people, at least in America, like to hang out with like types, people who mirror what they want to see and here, and when one deviates from the accepted norm, there is a price to pay.  AND if you deviate from the poets you associate with, you run the risk of considered an enigma, anathema, avoided and talked about behind your back.  I've tried a good part of my life to fit in and I never could.  Whatever I've done, wherever I've gone, I manage to stand out.  And NO, I don't intentionally cultivate this image. " I am."  "Who are you?" "I am." "You are what?" "I AM."


This blog is my daily diary.  Common to what some have asserted, none of what I write is made up.  Each day or so, I publish poetry that shares with readers my feelings, memories, emotions, the highs and lows, questions and emanating from the conscious and subconscious "Am."  Want to know me; the AM?  Read and try to understand my poetry from the state of mind you sense in each blog and not from your own state of mind.  Visit the Wonderland Amusement Park: a place where anything is possible.  I have been to hell and back more than once, seeing and experiencing what I hope few have.  Not all of the rides are fun.  Some are complicated, Some are wild toad rides speeding through a universe made of paper and tin. Others will scare the hell out of you.  I wouldn't let my child enter the Wonderland Amusement Park.  Enter and listen . . .













i allow
myself to be fooled
by pretty
young girls selling phones
to confused kanos


you acted
differently today,
wore make-up,
acted as if i were
the only rooster


i thought of
you today as i
always do . . .
an enigma
without a past


i can't pretend
you don't exist, a
bubble I'm
supposed to pop
when you enter the room



hurry, close
the closet door, explore
with me the
songs darkness sings
between the lines


nightfall . . .
the blossom i took
for granted


some day
you'll wake up from
the cartoon
you drew when reality
dealt you a bad hand


my mentor
the stars; the breath
of ma


let us
swallow the AM of
who we are . ..
side show barkers
with too many pockets


cooler nights . . .
the dance of a
thousand thoughts


it's when you
close your eyes like
blossoms
after dusk, that i feel
your words in my bowels


to be a
haiku painting's thoughts . . .
new rice


you said you
couldn't draw, made
excuses
you laugh at now . . .
a thicket of briars


keep painting
your brush has much
to tell you!



questions
as if i were on
trial
a name tag saying:
yes, i did it

   

the drone of
fans on a crowded
jeepney
                                                       

it turns me
on to watch you at
the mall dressed
like a bar girl with
a christmas light smile


the moon's arms
dangled on the edge
of the pier


your make-up
calls to mind chagall
the stretched girl
reaching for something
she has to have


the nervous
dance of trees waiting . . .
the typhoon!


if only i
could give you the
baby you want . . .
no long winter nights
waiting up for you


nearby stream . . .
the ova of my dreams
sleep in sand


yesterday
at the chinese herb
store, a girl
said:  i like your cologne . . .
my naivete


a young girl
spreads rice by the road . . .
christmas lights?


at night you
send messages only
a scholar
could decipher, with
more than one meaning



robert d. wilson

©2009