Seth A. Howard


CALLIGRAPHY OF THE ORCHID GATE

I

I breathe deep to know
the afternoon rains.
O white blossoms, blue & a bird listless by the shore.

II

Red earth that calls, calls.
Dream of eight doors
from which I exit, with a key held firm amid star fall.

III

Being there, or elsewhere.
Did it so much matter
I was in love with the dark-haired girl of the bookstore?

IV

That summer in Tengachaya
I searched, lost,
in a rainy music I found a marvelous stillness.

V

Today the earth quivers,
the moon is red
by the late reeds of silence & deep reverie.

VI

Light that swims lucid,
the elms vibrant
in the quiet dusk, a dusk she holds in her heart.

VII

We sway amid a limbo
of suns, this quiet
blonde-haired girl who smiles at me by the zelkovas.

VIII

These masks we wear, unconscious
of what we do. Sand,
the words of the master, bones of the latent moon.

IX

I knew an autumn soul of Kyushu.
His blood longed for some-
thing more, but he had a love for the cherry trees.

X

Who do we let into our lives?
Silent the waters of
this divide, & an arching bridge by the slate roofs.

XI

She had a calm about her, dark eyes
that spoke of sadness. I saw a
star travel through her heart, but she remained still.

XII

In Harbin China the women are elegant.
Their words are like liquid bells
that call from the sun. Geese gather at a grayish pond.

XIII

Snowy gate. A hope hard
as it is. Night reapers
deep in the star-freckled sky. This resemblance.

XIV

Waking dream, the red wheel
that revolves in the
clouds. Pale fire of a soldier who drifts in limbo.

XV

The Saint spoke of a locus,
we listened. Migrant
ghosts in the courtyard where she became real.

XVI

I see a distant signal,
this life of pain
& the mountains of pale fire that summon us.

XVII

Stages of dark, brightness.
The sound of footsteps
on the stair. She called to me softly from above.

XVIII

Breathe, she said & take in
the winter air.
Purple filaments spread across the night sky.

XIX

I sought a word, a sentence.
Snow dusted the streets
where I met her by the red chair & the liquid sun.



HAIKU OF A GLASS ELEVATOR

I

Revelation comes with its four horsemen.
In the morning, a hotogisu calls
as the magnetic moon journeys past clouds of your sleep.

II

Can you hear the stillness? Cool
flashes across waves. The night
city flares, a border at the north. These silences.

III

It was the end of something, yet all that
remained was a glimmer. The river
dark in a separate zone, driving the red road home.

IV

God of silence, goddess of mist & rain.
Guide me in the glass halls, by your
invincible arms. Show me your heart of victories.

V

Blue & pink sky where I wander in my sleep
as the cuckoo calls in the night.
In Japan we had a name for this, it was the rasengan.

VI

It was a silence of storms, a hope held
in the rain. Quiet strength of a
God who is in me. & that morning, a broken glass.

VII

Mystifying pearl, & the striations of sunset.
A globe of light green when the night
rests upon a pillow of yesterday. Cool winds by the station.

VIII

Black horseman of painted sunsets. White angel
of my desire. A goddess dips her finger
into my soul. She ensnares the horseman of high stages.

IX

Morning of fire & ice, of the far signal that
vacillates on the horizon. I looked for
her amid the reeds, the wind caressed the waves.

X

You, lonesome poet of the orange mirage
who sees the girl with white sandals.
This silence of a God who is restless, these hopes.

XI

A thousand fires along the coast, a coin.
In sleep I met her on the moon,
& she pulled from me the golds of quiet longing.

XII

Fade out the tides that are held in a
stranglehold. The maples deep
smolder in the winds. Pale fire, lost souls.

XIII

A bloody sun hangs on the horizon
as if a child had painted the
scene. A fugitive crosses over & disappears.

XIV

In the poet’s full glass, a resonance.
In his empty cup a silence.
He hones his art, a shadow boxer of autumn leaves.

XV

Long days. Vacant moon, & the silence
of cicadas. I dream of a liquid coin,
a girl comes to me & asks. I venture into the darkness.

XVI

The fire of a Japanese flower she holds in
her palms. I wanted to know what
poetry was. The glaze in her eye said it was exhilaration.

XVII

A bell rings in the hall of haze,
I call to the sublime force
that pulls from the center of my cityscapes.

XVIII

The heart beat of soldiers, the drum tempo
of forgetting. I live in the autumn
stillness. The quiet earth awakens in its purgatories.

XIX

Show me the naked moon, the
resemblance of a youthful
goddess who sips from my delusions.

XX

Red of leaves, purple of leaves.
A thunderstorm in the
heart, of the tabi-bito who journeys far.

XXI

He had come to the barrier of silence,
a dream with two sides of a coin.
The night chill by the river, a phantom in his palm.

XXII

White of the egret, & the Chinese poet.
The desert was a deep indigo,
& night, it was night in the heart of the mountains.

XXIII

Guide me, spirits. By the shrine of the
zelkovas. Let the holy one come
in his tattered robes, to quench my thirst with his waters.

XXIV

Let me go to that distant country.
This earth that suspends
from a wire the quiet sun, the golden crow.

XXV

We sit beneath the Milky Way, an
aurora of days past. Nostalgia
deep inside, a crystalline wave in the distance.

XXVI

Quiet longing for a past that is,
these illuminations of silk &
sound. I kept her close to me by the snowy temple.

XXVII

A red string is suspended across the
sky. Shouts of children
playing somewhere, & the bloodshot eye of Shōgatsu.

XXVIII

I fall asleep by the waterside
as she caresses my soul.
Intoxication, the sun slowly sinks into an abyss.

XXIX

I watch my friend’s figure fade, a swan
slowly vanishes in mist, in rain.
The many words we spoke return, but he is gone.

XXX

Quiet embers in the night,
when the moon is
cognizant of all space, I wake & it is too late.

XXXI

A girl is softly sobbing at the crossroads,
a dream rustles, a box within a box.
It is dusk on the river Sumida, an unsmoked cigarette.

XXXII

I think of her, peaches in autumn
air. Coolness comes,
my lust for her a quivering sunset on the lake.

XXXIII

I sat still & beheld the deep momiji
that swirled in my tea cup. But
when I looked up; a crimson leaf poised on the moon.

XXXIV

Plum blossoms of Kanazawa.
Temple bells chime in
the clouds. My heart homesick for a young princess.

XXXV

Sleep, the sound of water gurgles
in yesterday’s temple.
I felt I left something behind, a glistening pearl.

XXXVI

Silence in the blue pines,
deep north where
graves line the hill. A sudden urge to sneeze.

XXXVII

Dream of slow migrations.
Yōkan. Waking a bit
this present moment, a coin falls in a tavern.

XXXVIII

Haze lifts from the road,
a hawk still on the
clay tiles of Lafcadio Hearn’s old home.

XXXIX

This life of stages, raindrops
that fall from God’s eye.
I hold a silence firm, a chain-link of illumination.

XL

Wooden floors, wooden walls.
I search for a door
of glass. She is beside me, sashimi & nihonshu.

XLI

I nod off by the moonlit bay
as I listen to the drone
of crickets. A star surfaces, an eclipse in my heart.




Seth A. Howard is the author of Out of the East, & Waters from a Well, two experimental chapbooks. His work has appeared in Otoliths, BlazeVOX [books], unarmed journal, Big Hammer, Oddball Magazine, Chronogram, Saudade, & Elephant. He graduated from the University of Connecticut, & attended Sophia University in Tokyo for three years. In his spare time, he enjoys the practice of Zazen, watches J-drama, & studies French in New London where he resides.
 
 
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