Linked Forms, Sequences and Contrapuntal Poetry

Shiki’s ambition
an insatiable tiger
stripped of its claws

his poem journeys
to smaller mountains now
- cockscomb and peony

from his sickbed
observing the beauty
of all that passes 

a fish in a bowl
swimming in glass-walled freedom
this painful beauty

a moonflower falls
the night so quiet
it echoes

dawn breaks early
the night too short
and painfully long

his fever rising
how he longs for the rain
of the picture-book store

Shiki’s frail hand
love letters to a garden
seen through a window 

Shiki in his bed 
strolling through the garden
stepping on nothing

Shiki flies out
among the chrysanthemums
- a butterfly 

outside his window
the dew evaporates
each drop a Shiki

the invalid poet
a once in a lifetime
persimmon

Shiki rises up
his body motionless
- hototogisu

Shiki’s death bed 
the bird has taken flight
unseen garden

Shiki’s empty bed
his enduring brilliance 
loaned to a star

my ruined knee
will carry me no further
than the banks
of my own pond . . .
I dive into stillness

roiling mud
in shallow water
pain obscures
the silver minnows
of the mind

slowly
silt settles
the search
for lotus root
& snapping turtle

the illusion
of a separate self
bites deep—
sharing the sun
with frog spawn

in the depths
an ancient catfish
lurks unseen. . .
I wait for the softest
brush of barbels

morning chill

nose to the glass
a second coming
of childhood dreams

a raindrop slows

air show rehearsal
the pilot thumbs up
from a dead loop

before its reflection

bed to floor
a blanket parachute
nails the landing

 
Roman Lyakhovetsky
Peter Jastermsky