Issue Number 5

robert d. wilson's

A LOUSY MIRROR

A depository of Wilson's Japanese short form poetry,

haiga, haibun, and free verse performance pieces.

and still no

moon to guide me

through blossoms

into half lit huts

reeking of fish

beneath the 

ulam vendor, a monk

chastening flies

on the 

other side of

the world

leaves talk to you

in brown whisper

       twilight dawn . . .

a dead woman

frying tofu

she ladles

soup over rice

in a tin 

shack straddling the

pasig river

      

deep morning . . .

raindrops tiptoe past 

our house

i light a

candle to find

clarity

in the cell i've

locked myself into

       autumn noon . . . 

caught in an old

dragon's tailwind

is this the

dream i dreamt long

ago when

elves danced on blossoms

miming crickets?

     high noon . . . 

new rice watered with

exhaust fumes

what's she

thinking, the pregnant 

girl staring 

at me with a 

rice field smile?

still morning . . . 

chicks hoping the 

monkey'll feed them . . . 

she holds my

hand at night when 

the dragon

passes through me

coughing memories

      

      street children . . .

eagles devour

their prey

deep morning

the light inside of me

watches late 

night movies with

the house lizard

to be a

cockroach feeding on

people's dreams!

not to my

liking, the dreams

you dream and 

plaster on walls

claiming to be a mirror

between walls,

a cemetery

painting blossoms

tell me i

can still dream, walk

on water

without having a

messiah complex

moonlight hangs 

from my fishing line 

like wall flowers

the night we 

cast our hearts into 

manila 

de bay and snagged

a plastic bag

i wait on a 

seatless toilet for

spring to blossom

even the 

dogs eat rice here, have

another

bowl, chase it down

with yesterday

in the floating 

world of summer, a

kano courting pesos

*Kano: a tagalog slang term for an American

she waited

until i was gone

to chasten

herself in the mirror

i refused to be

autumn rain . . .

a kano wipes sweat 

from his forehead

high noon . . . 

laborers dance 

with leaves

in a ballroom 

made of mirrors

small snails . . . 

for those in the rice 

field, dinner

lucky girl!

washing laundry in 

a clear 

water stream 

without strings

.

who is she, the

girl washing laundry in

a giggling stream?

the sky yawns

spewing clumps of clouds

into thoughts

i can sculpt between

subway stations

      late night . . . 

a hummingbird between

heart beats

is this where

you belong, egret,

lodged here

in my cranium

like a stone buddha?

poor dog,

a cage growing out

of his head

he drinks too

many beers beneath 

a paper 

moon oogling who

could have been his sister

An untitled haibun

how I feel?
another damned
illusion?

Basho came and went, writing this and that, careful not to blemish his status as haiku master extraordinaire . . . talking about lonely seas and crickets living under helmets with young soldier's dreams . . . kept women, peeing horses, weeping fish . . . and me, centuries later, nothing like the master, the un-xeroxed poet he asked us to be, sitting cross-legged on a 500 foot banana leaf covered with fish scales and gossip scrapped from the heels of wannabe Basho's; bearing a soul only Allen Ginsberg would understand, with his angel headed hipsters and a mother who lived in a world Dali would run from or paint . . .

walls tremble . . .
blushing from the lyrics
sung by god and frog

robert d. wilson

----------------------
The following is the same haibun translated into the Serbian language by Sasa Vazic.

Хаибун без наслова

како се осећам?
још једна проклета
илузија?

Башо је дошао и отишао, пишући ово и оно, пазећи да не поквари свој углед хаику мајстора, изванредног... причајући о усамљеним морима и цврчцима који живе под шлемовима са сновима младих војника . . . бринуо о женама, коњима што мокре, уплаканим рибама... и мени, много векова касније, ни налик мајстору, оригиналном песнику, како је то од нас тражио, који седи прекрштених ногу на листу банане дугом 500 стопа, прекривеном рибљом крљушти и трачевима саструганим са потпетица тобожњих Башоа;  са душом коју би могао да разуме само Ален Гинзберг, са својим анђелом на челу упућених и мајком која је живела у свету од кога би Дали или побегао или га насликао...

дрхте зидови...
поцрвенели од песама
бога и жабе

All poetry, haibun, and haiga on this 

blog were written by robert d. wilson

©2011