 |
|
Kenneth Tanemura is a 28-year-old creative writing student at San Francisco State University. Some of his poems have appeared in Hummingbird, Modern Haiku, Zambabwa, American Tanka and The Suisun Valley Review. He co-founded the first tanka journal in the country with Sanford Goldstein, and served as associate editor for the haiku magazine, Woodnotes. His focus is poetry, and he writes mostly in regular forms.
You are opaque, except for a moment,
when you tilt your neck forward, down,
and cast your dark eyes up. You are like
this Muni. Skrishing sound of its groove
on metallic rails is the song of dying.
You put hand on head, your eyes say
something new, and you, or I,
will leave this Muni car, in one stop, or two.
Your voice, texture singing the grain
of the everyday, recedes in shadowy eyes,
that draw everything into them.
My whole attention. This car is
submerged in graffiti marked tunnels,
shoving light in margins. I can't help
but draw your eyelids down.
Stop singing desire. Discomfort.
With subtle changes in the shape of your lips,
like the scene outside, changing
from garbage cans to cathedrals.
Then, to a blank pearl gray sky.
Clouds woven together, bleaching
color out of the sky.
This is your stop. This is
what you leave me with.
A train honks its horn, then bows to cricketsongs
that stay long like a guest from another country.
There is nothing left to do for the rest of the night,
but let its black/cerulean sky quietly tear
at a day surrendered to longing, let it offer its moon.
Streets are empty, cold sidewalks and the silent
liquid amber trees. There is nothing left to do
for the rest of the night, but let it borrow the weight
of my thoughts, until I grow sick of the indecipherable
whisper of wind trapped under a tarpaulin of stars.
Here's another poem, Ph. D. Program.
All the poems on this page Copyright © 1998 Ken Tanemura
Page design by Diane Kirsten-Martin
Return to Valley of Saying home page.
Please contact me at KTanemura@aol.com