Jane Joritz-Nakagawa


blank sky 1

i draw everyone in a circle, white and me red in the center. the sky is
blank, the nothing it all is, told in the language no one speaks. a yellowish
emptying light allows you to hit the insect again and again tho it continues
to trudge sheepishly forward. dear friend. he likes me better when i
cook softly. i am bullied by students every night in my dreams. a baby is
stolen while people eat. from the remnants of fire that never was is the
nothing i become. days are increasingly fictitious and objects lose their
brilliance. everything appears to move slowly or maybe really. people with
locked in syndrome are said to be happy. animals losing their spots signal
the end of the season. voices arranged in a pattern of light. days blend
together like old paint. half inspecting the barn. the mountain path is strewn
with twigs. airstrikes over the anonymous country. color returns to your face.
we all have two names at least one of which we never answer to. a drop of
color absorbed by a larger mass. a voice in the woods.




blank city 2

dear friend. you are finally able to match n with n. if there was any to be
found (no one is telling). the elderly get out their coloring books. focus on
the test pattern until sleep becomes yours. the latest technological
breakthrough enables more war. the future is dark green with no borders.
(there will be no more colorless days.) perhaps the keeper of the fire has been
banished. you grip the railing. i wait for hours in an anonymous city.





Jane Joritz-Nakagawa's sixth poetry book, notational, is forthcoming in 2011 from Otoliths. She lives in central Japan. Email is welcome at janenakagawa at yahoo dot com.

 
 
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