autumn tactics

faint linen petals
sunlight falls in spring
deftly rise and climbing
the hollows of my cheeks

below grey skies
and leafless trees
you spent your winter alone

walking down wet stone streets
to the sound of car tires in rain
half asleep you found your way home

but the bread was dry
and the long nights empty
a space full of things
but little warmth

you spent all that time
by yourself just searching
for what unsure, but nobly

through the months quietly on
an independent sort of dream
a barren winter of adagio

Full moon, tranquil night.

By pale lamp post I rest awhile in Maruyama Park. Water gurgles from a fountain to the west; occasionally a dog cries out in frustration. Lovers chat on a nearby bench, and far away in Gion an ambulance murmurs.

A puddle, the rock.
January second, the start of winter, yet thinking I do not grow cold. My mind is filled with a hundred deliberations, but the space around me just says, “Stop.”

Stop all this nonsense, stop the spinning of wheels. Stop fumbling through things only half aware of what’s going on. This time was given to heal, heal the mind, heal the body. This time is meant to be used for restitution. Yet for four years I’ve sought restitution, and only managed to leave a thousand doors half-opened.

What is the ideal? Can there be a paradigm? If there were an example, or a prophet, then quickly I could emulate that style. Why does growing older and knowing more mean having diminishing answers and multiplying questions? Is ignorance the true nirvana? Or is this a crossing in a forest, and the myriad paths will with time merge back into one? I’d like to think that at worst, through trial, I’ve found what the answer is not, so this narrowing of choices will one day reveal the way. But in prolonged emptiness I’ve lost confidence, and now looking back with doubt at each temrinated road I worry that one if not many were correct, and I only gave up too soon or applied too little perseverance. Now this lack of focus taints every endeavour I make, so the quality of everything suffers as a consequence, dragging me deeper and deeper into the quagmire of obscurity.

A thinker sits, his blog the stage, to an audience two billion ripe, all caught up in the act of one from a troupe two billion poets strong.

As the ambient light fades the ducks quack indifference, and the whistle crossing signal of Sanjobashi consumes the waning day.

Oh, but why? How a winter’s day by the Kamo can chill a man. No sun, no snow, just damp and stone. How else could the day be spent? But so much, so many things… how many do await in this old city for a traveller and a thinker? But money does not buy happiness, oh no. With money comes so much baggage, so much regret, like a city, not your own, but only belonging to someone else, now gone.

Gentle duck, fair fisher.

The heron finds meal for today. Waking water, tender sleeper; you will flow no matter how many lovers visit your shores. Silent reed, ragged grass; in your weathered arms the crane keeps her home.

Not skirts, not pavement, not dates made on a calendar; time walks by while I sit.

There is another force inside of me, it rests. It waits and sleeps, sleeps for the sunlight, sleeps for the cold, sleeps for the metallic verve to caress and stroke its latent kinetic.

Down into the ground, to a world of concerte and plastic, to a capillary of transit, a translucent valve into a pulsing network. The guards slide open and I step across to join the stream, and again I’m racing to a land of illusion.

Forests, mountains, and fields. Color blurs and the residual image of my footsteps melts across soil and brick. The noonday sun is enveloped like me, and both are made to move, cutting through nonlinear planes.

What need have I for a home? Why assign meaning to concepts best left vague? Already we’ve broken at so many junctions, two meters apart and gazing into different stars. The impermanence of everything is atmospheric, and the awareness of that humidity has already cast fates down in the sand. But freedom is movement in four dimensions, and from fifty miles above unchanged but here in the grass a number of paths can be cut.

So today I leave the hours and minutes behind, and only move; moving forward, moving up, moving still while the current runs circles in my mind. Snake, dart, jump, and devour. Tonight I’ll go looking for contrast in life once more.

life, reverbs, i am asleep, but here
no, floating nirvana
so lost in the crowds of a tunnel
notes casade, over and over, like the drops of a sweet waterfall
through heaven, into the ope and waiting eyes of the visionaries.

awake, dear children! this is the moment for your learning
so far, so far, you’ve come to recieve this, and now is the time when it will be given in generous helpings.

awash, awash, sweet lover.

I sat in the sand, huddled between the legs of smoking buddhas, while you drifted among the currents.

so fresh, so fresh, at last I was bathed in starlight

no, oh yes, reach into the places of me so often hidden, reach in and let them unlock all the doors I’ve shut around my self. you must have broguht me here for this purpose, for there really is no other.

then comes the echo, then comes the burning spirits to visit each tongue and mind with the fire of understanding. then we wait in waiting and stretch long unused muscles in eager anticipation of the union.

stretch, extend and release, deep in swirling fogs. there all things left hidden, will be found.

sweet life, saggy eyes. hello long road snaking through these hills.

somewhere beyond the stream of bleary incadescent lights a mind awaoke from an hour of fitful sleep and found its way into the passenger seat of my journey home.

talking about rent and picnics in the park, yawning with the grit of a night in a tent and gazing at the ocean, elbow deep in the sands left golden by mindful souls.

the rain broke and the fog burned off, but I was left nestled deep amidst a purple sea of experiences caught on the edge of my conscience.

an acoustic guitar and a soft voice, the middle seat and a cooler of spent bacchany; something tight was loosened to make me strong.

ears pop horn whines
old man across the aisle shouts into his phone
ramble, clack, and sway
on the central line slowly winding
through the heart of Kanto.

I have Miles Davis on over-sized Pioneers
and grit and salt in the creases by my wanderlust eyes.
this is my song: padded seats and old government trains
twelve stations through the mountains, Enzan to Takao.
conductor stops by, smiling, and checks my ticket
I am at peace in this steel carriage.

hello rice fields, goodbye fishermen
hello bamboo camphored skylines
hey Otsuki, hey yellow house, when will I have
a wife and a roof and a small car that goes vreem
along snaking country roads?
where will I be a father and still a poet,
my little girl asleep on the carpet with my head
on arm so gazing, adoring you…

…

And now, back to home, back to a floor and bathroom to scrub, back to a fried egg sandwich just waiting to be the end of my spirited travel and toil, a bath with tingling salts; laughing fool. It’s as my comrade the cameraman asked last night, has my life been strict or sweet? Oh yes, no mistaking this life is certainly sweet. That most precious of lessons was taught to me by you, Melia.

kangaroo

wheels and metal
wheels and metal and padded seats
why am I here
is this a break
how can I cull the noise from my life
separate the cream from the chaff
life is too grand to be taken asleep
but when will the fighting end?

…

tanuki

saffron and sunshine
need to release myself of my expectations?
自分の期待を捨てた方がいい？
long, long and light, flowing up over everything

…

kookaburra

I will be as the water, and the wind. I will fold myself into the world, taking invention and the dreams of men with me. I will be in the temples, behind the trees. I will be alive as a seeker, listening quietly and reflecting the sunshine as a placid lake. With passion I shall bake my bones and make a temple of my body. For soil from whence I came, and soil must be revered and returned as taken.

To take music and rhythm, building from the noble things created by man. A ship on the ocean and a sail in the air. Nimble sewn devices put together in science and driven out to the land. With patience and understanding grow my heart, then reach out calm to the night, breathily.

Known and unbidden, but pulled to the road as I was born, to be and true as possible, for all that I can find is immeasurable.

A path, on a path, moving forward; away and back again, two supple legs and a heart to guide them.

This is me as I am, as I was. I hope you can learn from it someday.

selfless lost
no more cries for support or guidance
a light, then many
slow moving fish in inky black water
wood
and grass
softly ignored breathing
and muscle pains snaking out like
cracks in frost
a can wanders
not so much searching as released
brush unmoved by fur-padded steps
and realization
too late
or on time
whichever makes no difference
to distant traffic

ripples
collide
so much northwest summer again at night
thoughts spent as she rose out of the water
a pitcher of daiquiris and the backstroke
how to spend a life in bliss later
submitted for dissection

with flapped mouths, oping
taking in algae with the insects
slow, slow trickling
and closed grey skies shut tight until morning

droplets and leaves fluttering
lost and found in the evening wind
a harmony of petal and dust swirling around
in little jetties, as cat jumps down from the chair next to me

poor Caroline, crying and playing Chopin
alas, the song ended all too soon and my mood was struck
struck and beat, from jocund gaiety to chilling awareness
of the pain in my wrist and the rat-rat-
rattling of windowpanes

beams and trickling off again
a spring day and a winter night
far from the heat of the gas danbo

away, up spritely, up rickety stairs cat
runs, in leaps and bounds with the furry
tail bobbling after mischief and to see if anything
new has fallen from the kitchen counter where she cooks.
and me in my blissful solitude, blissful without
phones or wires or signals of any kind
only me in the home of a muse again

how long has it been since we met last?
three years; three long years when I was
setting out to the place of your blood you hardly knew

then six storied months falling I was falling
falling through myself and breaking any branch
on the way down
tumbling into darkness black
tumbling through a rabbit hole into another
society from which I may never emerge
no, the languages and foods and customs that
cut me, scared me much more so than they should
until at the bottom of the glade I found my way
into another wood with mushrooms to eat.

wooden chairs and silken pillows
a palanquin of allure moving
just ahead through the crowd climbing
yet climbing upwards and ho,
to see the next ridge in peace

and tripping over waterfalls
slippery rocks in my path set
not by others but
by my own limitations

but Sundays always came and I was fed on omelets and rice
rolling around in blankets and cigarettes
running with you to catch a train

trains roll and sail here, on rails and through the air, through the fancied dreams of men crying for expression through the heart of a money pumping bear, through a place of civility and debauchery, a place I lost a few dollars.

as much as I damn myself the spring forgives me and a winter of bloodied knuckles and stained oxfords are washed away with the cherry blossoms. throwing one small yen at a time and wishing to treat fellow man, myself, with respect.

winding up and down, making such careful strokes on paper, on paper, where things are cleaner and safe, things captured that I’ve longed to chase, for quite some time. around, swinging around, in a vacuum of impatience. so be patient, and let things come. let them come as they should on their own and stop trying to force so many flowers into bloom. if I were to only close my eyes, and let the reins go slack, so we could be one and another, together and as we should. as God intended, men not beasts destroying themselves but noble evolutionary things, majestic stags astride a briskly flowing stream of time. loops and curls, vines so ensnaring but nothing more than so many brushes, so much foliage to take in with the land. the land, the land that has taken me in.

I want to stop speaking of want, to only be and exude serenity. to weep the kind of emotion that is clean and beautiful in men, the kind that leads others to see themselves.

but life is fast paced, it is a rambling machine, gears and wheels long out of control, oh but a wild ride to clutch and to gasp before a crash.

and still, still quiet. still awash ahead of me, overtures of what one may become, preludes to the greatest unfinished things of all humanity. it’s dreams, cranberries, and fried, melted over crackers and honey, delicate stouts lined up for consumption like so many raw materials, refined in the minds of men to be something much more than just sugar heated with water, oh no.

and the plates clattered upstairs, so softly, a time for me to think but not think behave but not behave, as we all should or would under any similar circumstances. I will overcome these weaknesses, they will be ironed and pressed, as shirts prepared by the cleaners for Sunday. for that’s the day I’ll assume to make so much of something out of nothing. something I’m quite famous for. for now, is nothing, but something.

haiku for iwamoto
falling grace over
did I win today? unknown.
God save me from hate.

the simplest pain
is often the most wonderful
please let me die here.

are you so alive?
I wish to be just like you
please tell me your dream.

thinking alone, you
your skin is so wonderful
I hope to be close.

diodes burst and life expires. current discharges into an open circuit, and the glow fades slowly, a dimming breath of bulb-lit eyes, so damp with three hundred days’ worth of dreaming. rain slips, through fingers, moisture lost in windy asphalt. cold tarmac, slow death on overdue credit long since spent. break and fall.

There is a really good piece by Future Sound of London that captures almost perfectly the way I feel right now. “Domain” is two minutes and fourty-seven seconds long, which I am not sure is a blessing or a curse, for every time that it ends, I am half-wishing it went on longer and I want to loop it, but part of me feels deeply satisfied, as if it served its purpose in full, and we are each complete in having experienced it together. Regardless, it fits a certain kind of mood at a certain kind of time, and that time is now.

My apartment in Sendagaya is fairly close to the business district in Yoyogi, giants like Glaxo Smith Kline and See’s Planning are dark, quiet giants for most of the hours that I am home, so an open wind brings no company to my ears other than the rare cheer of a victorious soccer crowd at the national stadium about a mile to the east.

However, lying in bed here in Kawasaki, I am blessed with a curtain of bubbling warmth from my fellow Tokyoites nearby: children laugh and run down narrow alleys, a car starts in the lot below and meets others in a dull sea of whooshes several streets away. The trains come regularly, and their gentle clacking reminds me of time spent by my window at Lambeth, or the occasional freight deep in the woods behind my grandmother’s backyard.

These are the sounds of suburbia, a place I’ve been away from for too long; buried in stuffy, dimly lit study rooms, or under the weakening fluorescent flicker of the sticky mocap lab. I grew up like most Americans on the outskirts of a city pushing 50,000; the base of a mountain surrounded by cow pastures and horse farms. As a child, some of the most exciting events for the city included visiting The Golden Mile and seeing what sorts of Christmas decorations were up on the outside of Eyerly’s department store.

I don’t think that I begrudge living in the center of a grey slate commercial metropolis, it’s location is prime and not completely without charm. I think as an artist I should like to move as a stray dog, drifting from borough to borough with sporadic pockets of consistency, sampling with vigor each welcome house’s flavors and aromas.

Do you remember those digital scales from AP physics and chemistry in high school? The ones that had the TARE button on them to reset with the current weight? But of course you were thinking “TARE? Stupid Oxford Metrics or whatever idiot science company in Connecticut…first of all it’s T-E-A-R, and second this has nothing to do with paper or assholes so why is this button on the scale? Why don’t they just say “ZERO” or “RESET”? Crumby moron eggheads failed English.”

I think that was a rather inefficient way of saying we’re moving on, so TARE a new page off in your mind before reading on in this blog.

Damn it, I forgot what I was going to write about. Oh yeah. Miles Davis. So there’s the jazz fanatics, the casual listeners, the idiots that put Kenny G on the Weather Channel local forecast, and there’s me. Yesterdays. It’s a good piece. I recommend you find it. And when you do, read the following poem aloud (and ideally have a glass of bourbon on ice with a steamy summer night). The man makes me think things. Lots of things. I miss writing.

Enjoy.

From Eight Years and Ten Thousand Miles, the early works of Steven Rorrer…

Yesterdays
Steven Rorrer

soft and dear your face
on the brim of my mind so late at night
how can I best describe
the way you hang around my thoughts

here every night at this time I drink alone
but you join me just the same
I wonder where you are; are you sleeping
or up late alone as well, sitting there with me