BRANDON SHIMODA
from O BON
THE
before I can
see
the ogress
wale,
empress or
red water
becomes
THE
anther
licking my ear
okay
clutching
the emperor to my
cleavage—is
he mammal—my
shoulder—macaw
a paper box
on a lady’s lap
must be a
good one the children laugh
know I do not belong
smoke
clearing the crematory
in the dark
slaughtering
paper screens
bones
transferred from beast
to one
tasting
of nape rose
to avoid the
trees
my
grandfather
would not
have forgiven me for
sympathizing
with the natural world—
a broken
vow, he loved
never
sympathized
when he went
natural
many years
hence to its level
over the blowdown, the weather
watching,
enfeebling lady
THE
mist through
the window
no letter
but cindered
organs in the altar
as a young
boy, an elder’s hand
holds the
crest
every moment
the water of
the last
moment, the
first moment
of the last
immediately
after—
the last
forty-nine days
I have not
slept
circling the
trough of red water
washing your
slumber
every moment
where
welcomed the
living threat in—
THE
a crucian carp
falling into my lap
like me, it had too much to eat
carved thinly
airing out on the slope
black water growth of passenger
masks
parachutes closing upon a failing lung
a long determining ear—
I carry the carp in my undragoned hand
home to feed to my larger half
asleep on the love seat
the open window—
sylph on the wind
inflaming
Wake up, the boned one steams
gently through my throat—
THE
people
along the darkened shore
charge of ribbon integuments
freshen into antiquity
new rivers, air
bladders where the stem meets the
leaf, complete
now
to pieces
Is it injurious to wear one’s self
around one’s waist:
in radiation first is flash
burn, second
flame
THE
braids
falling to
the sea—eels
behind the
curtain
tiny nose
stoic mouth
make murder
more
delicate
flesh straps
torn
to the
planking
reflected
knives into
the wrists
dragged
the inner arm
floating
the torrent
THE
dawning
atoll—
scion plants
at our waists
the people
diminish the people are diminishing
the people
barely
perceptible
o
foundering
deaf
declivities
drafts
to the rice
the national
eye
sunken
recitation
there
no
recitation
o
no remnant
of her body
or her bones
among the ash
only
a blooming
blackpoll, turning albino
o
no wood to
burn
but water
will carry
our weight
away
blanched
branches
reach by
yonder fast
the reeds of
the paradise boat
o
thighs
stridulating
damsel
fat
jaundice
stone
rolling the
inner thigh
the swell of proxy
waves
THE
Think of all
the people
in the
condensation by the river
where
they—or so they believe—might prosper
Parasols turn
out flesh
Eyes growing,
ears and feet
growing.
Heads and faces growing
demonstrably.
The people, wastefully heavy
jacket to
the rendering pit
Earth lightens
It has a name,
after all
the intimacy
of bodies fast becoming
occasion for
slaughter. And the people—
holding
tight with evermore thirst
rising away
from their fat—
THE
An ovary held between white grasses
drinks praise from attentive blooms
along hard, dated ground a single life’s length
below
I slip into atomy
my family walked into the river
uneven curtain stretched from the
wood—
o
feet swelling with deadweight
splintered lamps arousing
the cold water, ankles drawn by river
grass
their legs (their shins, their knees
coils of wool wiring their thighs
their hands (their fingers curling
their fingertips, fingernails, the moss
beneath their fingernails
ash in the folds of their knuckles
palms stitched with divinatory lines,
the braid of their wrists
the poor pulley of their arms, slack
to their hips
their chests (flowering lungs
their upper arms, the current rinsing
the skin on their shoulders
marbling napes
their chins
their lips
varicose solvencies flooding the
brain
with every opening to speak
in calling each other
close
their ears
lopped
weight upon a stone
their noses collapsed
with the redolent lance of eucalyptus—
there
was a time the trees were young and
supportive
eyes white with cataracts
epilated lashes, brows
the horizon
stretching thin
mist rises
where their foreheads spore the banks
hair fanning out
on the water
bulbs roots
old smoke veiling shore stones
where
are their heads what
may I rest my head my hands
upon of them
o
The guards found me wrapped in an ameroid
bladder
seized with the enormity of flesh
spoiling in squamous
pasturage
to the trigone—ureter, urethra and bulwark
the tastelessness of flesh upon a
ravaged tongue
the taste of flesh to an eroding brain
abraded buds on a ravaged tongue
the removal of the tongue entirely
the enormity of the vacant hole
a waxen rose, intemperance of red
while overhead
weather planes angling through the
contrails
double droning a negative sky
o
Inside of the nucleus of the Atomium
every surface
is a mirror
I see my family in
though I never learned
any of their names
for fear they would have changed my
course
my shadow
wake
the disembodied
White umbrellas gaining earth
THE
grow open my
mouth
spectering that I speak
as I speak a
sea forms
in mid
stricken air
the sky
permitting itself
inside
at once
of me, and
out—
waves, a
procession of waves
drawing
back, piles of stone, piles of stone
drawn,
skinning
the sky cast
I try to reach
with my dry
hand, to turn the flame
though
merely tear the filament
opening not
of flesh, but sand
I don’t
remember seeing you
I don’t even
remember when I first saw you