Issue #7

robert d. wilson's

A LOUSY MIRROR

A depository of

over three decades of

haiku, tanka, haibun, 

haiga, and free verse

performance poetry

The man in the haiga above, is

my father, Robert Dean Wilson,

the man who made poetry for me

a spokesperson of the soul.

1925 - 1991

I dedicate this issue to

Professor Micheal F. Marra

whose research into Japanese

Hermeneutics and aesthetics

are second to none. Sadly, he

sent me an e-mail last week telling

me he is in much pain and has 

approximately six months to live.

"The willow tree has been traditionally associated with tears, fragility, instability (a reflection).  It is also the tree to which an Imperial concubine hung her robe before drowning herself in a pond  in the ancient Capital Nara as soon as she had lost the Emperor's favor.  There are so many stories associated with willow trees that a poet and a reader of waka [today, called tanka] must know in order to appreciate and understand the meaning of willows  If one understands all these implications, he/she is bound to be moved by the willow, and will never look at them with inattentive eyes."

Michael F. Marra

Excerpted from my interview with for Simply Haiku

which also  comprises Chapter 20 in one of two

final books, 

Essays on Japan

Between Aesthetics and Literature

Published by Brill

©2010 

can i stay still

sipping stars from

a cup of moon?

breathe me

like a trumpet solo

full of

pauses, interludes

and stretched notes

she makes our

bed at midnight

birthing winter

children squat

in mud under a

cardboard roof

befriended by 

a need to sleep

my breath sings 

stillness into an 

egret's prayer

above 

the floating world

i sip tea

with an egret

standing in shit

tea blossoms . . .

at the river washing 

laundry 

statuesque, 

the egret, standing

in mirrors

would it

be rape to pick 

petals from 

the blossom of 

an okra plant?

the moon and i

have nothing better to do . . . 

lizard song

you sleep on 

a makeshift cot 

above the 

mud in a canvas

too painful to paint

lucky catfish 

he doesn't have to

live in a shanty

what the mud,

the stench, holding

a candle

to dreams stolen from 

a barangay captain's soul

on stilts . . .

watching sewage pass

beneath us

where do 

butterflies sleep 

at night 

when the typhoon

floods our homes with water?

heavy rain . . .

my reflection covered

with sewage

we all

have memories . . . 

our lines

searching for the

big one that got away

learning stillness

from an egret's eyes . . . 

october dawn

am i

crazy, the walls

are speaking

in tongues in a

cathedral without God?

    autumn night . . . 

i trace the stars

with your finger

eating 

peanuts, i take my 

walk in the

cemetary

hoping it doesn't rain

on his back,

a casuality of war . . . 

the cockroach

the stilt house

is too dangerous 

to visit at 

night; a hundred

drunken dragons 

another 

       sleepless night . . .

october rain

i breathe with

tonight's tide on

planks stretched

across thatched roof huts

fastened to heartbeats

a gaggle 

of stars and

longer nights

a giant

sunflower, the

setting sun

what does she

do when her child

is hungry

and a white ghost

offers her the world?

rain follows

us home to the

lizard's lair

what is my

daughter thinking

tonight when 

the dragon blows smoke

rings around the moon?

    deep morning . . . 

a cockroach covered

with ants

like an owl 

in flight, the mute

thrust of

a knife into

another mother's son

.............................................

sunrise

petals replaced

with skin

What a difference a morning can make. The night

before, a couple friends and I partied in Mytho City, 

an urban center 13 miles west of our duty station in 

Dong Tam. We drank, smoked dope, and caroused with

prostitutes, our way of coping with a war we were

ill equipped to handle.

The morning after, all hell broke loose. Rockets

bombarded the base. The sky rained shrapnel. Mortars 

came from all directions. The enemy attacked when we 

least expected them to. Soldiers and base workers ran

in all directions, unsure of where to go, a path of

adrenaline in their wakes. To their battle stations 

or the nearest bunker. Our lives, for a moment, a crap 

shoot without dice.

Excerpted from Vietnam Ruminations

©2003

wishing 

i could 

hold you again 

and 

again 

i think of you 

at night 

when wind 

beckons me 

to enter 

a dream 

we shared 

once 

upon 

a time 

you 

placed 

my hand 

upon 

your breast 

pulled me 

into a 

watercolor 

painting 

that stubbornly 

refused 

to dry

01-10-2004