James Maughn


Kata
.
.
some forms

To Sensei Rod Sanford
& the instructors and students
of the Zen Bei Butoku Kai


pinan
sho

really no other way      how to walk
when you know
you’ve been all wrong       doing it

breathing

the same

ni

cut in quick
fixes      handle to get on

rhythm spelled

rhi
          zome

san

without course re
turn    and straddle

fences

not better

neighbors    fewer

yon

chasm and be
yond      not at the lip

in it

go

up and add ‘em—
pull the need
le through the thread

ap
proaching a scape
velocity

a shaft or stalk
to walk

Seisan

evidence of push

pulls a glance

even from one

half a face
enough to drive

water

to erase      stone

Patsai Dai

flank to pass      breaches

                          a wall

when bridges      drop out


drives further
nails in

          cork
          screwed

to clock

works a
pair of hands


ropeswings from rampart

a hammer

autumns      end to all that

Niseishi

word
in process

a step
gait opens

plunges
turns on

tense in
sentence

shadows
cast light

tables turn
to serve

tide charts
watertable

what words
make

water do
draws back

pulls the
punch a

mean of
what means

meaning
means by

Tensho

wind
                mills

to mind a hand

crux to
churn

crescents

anchor in
three

movements

wax only
to
wave

      and wane

crescendo de

notes climate

Wankan

subter
fugue           peaks in array
                               parry a jut
                                    get thrust

orbital
to epidermal                here’s
                                    to
                                    that
done

Empi

Like a fist out of water

empty

cage of swallows’tails
a wake to catch
from ups
well to
sweep the scaffolding

clean

until dust has windows

Itosu Lohai Shodan

versed to be well
shot of that’s up buried deep

                               into the hatchet portion
                               of my evening     this is work

                     so be glad for it

rules get drawn
bandolier style      for every little thing

engagement      even

Ba Xian Guo Hai

*
gravity’s pegged instigator
content
ious in that it falls heaven-
ward

one foot in the fold

*
propels a turn to meet the better
of two futures:
first a
gain    second a wall
then twice to top    but once only

*
over it      erratic
as geology
means

canyons    in
to which things

drop

*
flip and thrust a
way

light what

makes the moon
sharp

*
astride two opposing streams     twist
and reach in

straddle is to
meet by firing behind    then in front

*
once then
again

greet the fixture
with the neighborhood


*
always this hardscrabble    back
absence in that

it’s where           the gap is

*
spun and settled down action
met with equal
and apposite          interaction

Naihanchi

sho

train
one
to
track
both
ends
in
destination
in
ends
both
track
to
one
train

ni

train one to track
one to train
back
both ends end in

destination

in end both ends
track
back to one
train stopped in tract

san

destin-
ation ends in both train and traction a tossed coin a
back and forwarned motion mycology
                                              is destiny

Kushanku Dai

out    or           up
deeper

in

breathe the same

sky                     views
                     as body

tend to re
main

in motion
           relation
             by means of

an outside
force      my
corrhizal

               to current
in water or

electric
as is right         now

no steps
discrete      cadence

roots in stance

expanse
                     sunk
skyward

Author’s note:

Kata are at the heart of traditional Okinawan Karate. They are preestablished forms created by masters of the art in order to instruct future students. None of the moves are arbitrary, and students should practice them in the proper order, neither adding nor subtracting techniques. This is due, in part, to the fact that each kata has its own unique rhythm, or cadence, and part of learning a kata is to learn to enter that cadence. It is through practicing the forms and discovering the cadence that the student learns to act spontaneously. It is this interaction between form and spontaneity that relates kata and poetry in my mind. These poems are not attempts to write “about” the kata, or to impart any special knowledge of them. They are a student’s efforts to better understand this concept of cadence by “translating it” into language. Each poem was composed after repeating the kata referred to in the title many times, and then writing down lines that came to me during and after practice. The kata these poems are named after are only those empty-hand forms I studied between beginning Karate and testing for my shodan.

Niseishi also appears in the latest issue of Susan Schultz's TinFish. Permission to reprint is gratefully acknowledged.

James Maughn is the poetry editor of the Henry Miller Library's literary journal, PingPong. His poems have appeared in Lungfull!, Parthenon West, MiPoesias, Moria and Horse Less Review, among others. New work is forthcoming in Sentence and TinFish. He curates A New Cadence Poetry Series in Santa Cruz, CA.

 
 
 
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