Title
Excerpts from the Rain Song Poems
Author(s)
Terry, Trafton
Citation
沖縄大学紀要 = OKINAWA DAIGAKU KIYO(16): 63-96
Issue Date
1999-03-31
URL
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12001/5854
(1999*)
Excerpts from the Rain Song Poems
Dr. Terry Trafton
CONTENTS Ikioi
Dragon's Garden
Acquittal
View Above the East Lawn
Rain Art
Arcadia on a Rainy Night Shadows Ephemera China Sun Escape Death Spin Rainy Season Sidewalk Poets Yarajoseki Park Abstract 64 66 69 70 74 75 81 85 86 87 89 90 91 93
Representative of the collected poems under the title Rain Songs, these particular poems acknowledge the fundamental complexities of the human condition and experience. They convey such universal themes as despair, loneliness, errant love, infidelity, and the exoneration of the conscience. Okinawa is frequently the setting of these writings. Sometimes symbolic, sometimes poignant, these
(199930
Ikioi
Wind is snapping the carp streamers into a snarl of bold colors on a gaunt sky
Huge gaping mouths are cavernous yawns
speaking eagerness and boredom
silent frightening contorted mouths sticking
bitterly blank and splashy words to this cutting spring wind a biting wolfish wind chasing sidewalkers deeper into their coats (and always the click clack of the pachinko) Two kids go by on the same bicycle coughing as they pass over the shaky lids of the
benjo ditch A few feet from these cracked and broken stretches of concrete which cannot keep the coarse repulsive smells from swelling rank in the humid air incense from a hinukan is blowing into the street a sweetness
and it settles on the faces and on the tongues of those who stand too long
watching the carp swirling and blowing dazed on a thinning grimmer sky
(1999^)
In a few hours the orange lanterns of the
izakaya will shine in the eyes of young men
wearing indulgent slacking faces as they bring their smiles and their pretty girls to drink awamori
to laugh late into this flagging Friday night
He sees her look at the flying carp
still swimming on the sky
but is pretending not to see them because like her they are swimming wildly
towards the edge of town where the sky is bluer towards the sound of crickets calling
(away from the click clack ofpachinko balls) charging fast into the sunshine of another life
Dragon's Garden
On the edge of a stone wall
sitting near Hojo-bashi
he watches the shy faces of birds
looking into a stone world with
wild crazy eyes
A few feet below these andesite panels of carved birds and flowers which mold and crumble in a hoary shade a pool of carp churns and sloshes through a blue sky shining on the face of Mirror Lake a frenzy of gaping clicking mouths licking the hot morning air
already thick with humidity He smells heat stiffen the air as sunlight squeezes through the
gajimaru tree and burns
this snarl and twine of aerial roots
in a soft ceremonial fire
Bending and turning
then staring with glass eyes into the fat shade of the tree chimera hunched and coiled
(1999^)
and belching fire
flick their black tongues at the feet
of a kijimuna
who hides in the dark
branches of the gajimaru
stretching yawning
waiting for a chance
to eat the eyes of the fish that clatter the water and snap the air
in this red heat of the dragon's garden
Moving closer to the water he wonders
how many others have sat here
in bare arms
stained in early morning sun hiding among flowers watching the silver fish
under clouds that roll into a cluster
in the sky
above Mirror Lake
Certainly he is not the only one to hear a rustling of leaves
(1999^)
Surely others
have seen the flash of red hair
in the branches
during the day as the kijimuna unable to wait for the dark slips from the shadows of the gajimam
to suck out the eyes
Acquittal
Day by day more red leaves from the maple
on my pathway as I follow you into evening assuring myself it is easier to hide a conscience in the dark
(199940
View Above the East Lawn
Hurried crowded stacked like concrete boxes the buildings of Naha push provocatively against the flushed flinty belly
of a sulking sallow sky With so little space to breathe
wooden houses
cramped and strangled in a black perdition wash their bashful faces
on a spring air
and hope for a last touch of sunshine
In the old days
before new buildings
before this ruthless
cruel
(1999*)
red tile roofs buffed in sun fire
sang in the eyes
and smiles
of blushing children who ran from their play
into
the narrow shade of trees
to sit on the grass away from the sun A rush of cool air shutters
the window shades and everywhere the voices of young students break with a
shivery laughter
as they sit between classes
on grass
talking loud crude words They are pirates
Their bravados are real They wear clothes that do not fit and hide their individualities
in boxes
beneath piles of old intentions among lost intimacies graying in stacks of tender letters and Polaroid photos that
still stir imagination They ignore the darkness
coming behind them like the whistle of a passenger train late on the tracks and for a few moments for a few splendid moments
in this wandering whispering twilight a few moments before they sink deep deep
forever
into the ground before
by the grass
of the east lawn
these young faces show
the hope of living alone proudly
even arrogantly under a bulging sun
Rain Art
Rain falls in black lines
behind blacker windows shivers the glass
into mournful frightening frescoes
splinters of pain for her to hold but
hands as comatose as these
cannot touch
anything warm for long
but unlike the rain which colors its sorrows in grayness
her trembling fingers
seize the warm orange crayon
to paint black from the sky
to paint black from her windows to paint the midnight
(1999^)
Arcadia on a Rainy Evening I have not been to Arcadia
since you left
much safer the long way home
those roads which keep you and Arcadia behind
in a fading past of passions and lusts
It is raining again today and I have no place to go on this late Friday
A shady April sky reaches miserably shamelessly across the Pacific puffing it into a greedy face with too much insolence a chafe
mocking irreverent face
laughing rudely in this thudding thumping
dismal gloom
mocking the man who has stopped in a purging rain to remember Arcadia
One stop back in my mind I find a
particular night when you stared into rain falling on dreams outside the
window a pouring silver rain pounding the glass in a harshness
an impenitent rain a repressive rain
strangling words spoken and
I thought it was the rain I hated most
A white flash of lightning hurried you from the window into the
greasy light of a dressing table where you sat brushing your hair I am a reflection
sitting then standing behind you embarrassingly naked
embarrassingly alone
a stranger from across the years but tonight
a humbled victim of illusion
trapped inexorably by circumstances regrettably human
an outrider on a world
spinning madly into oblivion
Suddenly a splash of tires on
wet pavement
and turning I see beside me through the splattered glass the face of a young woman who lowers her eyes shyly
You were never shy though and
you would never know the arrogance the magnificent assurance that comes with shyness
and when you said to me once
that shy people had too few words to share I thought I hated this trembling that writhes and contains the conscience of quiet people afraid to speak
I hear the sounds of an engine running rain striking the roof
wipers emancipating the dead a dog shaking himself dry in the doorway of a collapsing storefront only a few steps from the new lovers who come and go like echoes
in a busy city
Unlike the dog that is shaking dry beside these lovers who smile inside the night
I have commitments unfinished business
promises to make and keep (Frost) So while the voice of the
Great God Himself shatters the huge monotony
(1999^)
to issue ultimatums I will keep the fantasy shut out timeless proprieties and live again in rain
but my breath is a drunken noise
in my throat
I do not want these expressions of you surging ripping through my head like rain
these intruding agonies these regrets anguishes confining me to tedious days and months
of interminable rain
Along the walls of Arcadia amaryllis glisten red blood red like my
shame and when I look again at the
window I see the young woman from the car smiling
as if she knows my shame
Brushing a slow hand over the glass to wipe away the mist she looks into the night which has gotten bitterly harsh and hostile then pulls the green curtains after I catch her eyes again
(1999*)
When the agonies soar high like
paper kites
suffering above the rooftops I expect them to crash and burn
I see flames rushing
shooting into the sky
lighting it up before it explodes It is time to run
time for my return to nowhere
but somewhere
someplace where I can repeat the unreality of dying with a
purpose
Once again and hurriedly I tell myself you were only smoke from a dying fire and if I ever knew you at all
you were nothing more than a beautiful face
in a beautiful dream
a bold flash
passing in a crowded room
where shy people sat along the walls hunched into the seclusion of corners contemplating courage
(1999*0
Thinking it is over I drive off to get a life
to resume the charade
In the mirror I catch a blink of neon and realize the frailty you were a bold speck of fleeting colors
streaking
soaking into a desolate desperate night
I used to know
I do not know where you are now though and wonder if you are laughing tonight and if it is raining where you are and if you ever really saw or knew the shyness behind my face
all those times you were around to smile at me
all those times you were there with tomorrow in your hands
(1999^)
Shadows
Those morning shadows
that are alive in the shade of trees are dying
as the sky darkens into rain
I sit on my father's front porch
listening to the birds
who somehow know when rain is coming
My mother rushes out of the house to take in laundry that has not dried and gives me a look
that says I should help
but I do not move
Everything outside is made of shadows These are not the same shadows
haunting closets
and are not like the ones
swelling up beneath my bed at night Staring into the woods across the lake I indulge the sorrows that come with rain sorrows which can leave you hard and bitter
(1999^)
Voices from the cemetery are speaking of other rains and of other winds
Salem Auschwitz Pearl Harbor
are in us all
and Latin and French and Japanese are spoken in every cemetery We are in the dirt
of those murdered beaten massacred raped slain and are the criminals the
perpetrators of every horrendous crime
We are the victims of each atrocity and we suffer in the presence
of all these dead
Then it is not my mother's eyes I see
but the blank eyes of people I knew
set in pleasant faces as they look at me nearer the edge of my father's front porch
They are moving down the hill coming up the gravel road these people from the town and they are falling
(1999^)
above rooftops into the white
wicker furniture around me
shining once more
in this blackest of mornings as they shake away
the shriveling cold that took them
They have come with stories to tell these ghosts in their own time in my time
in anyone's time
but like porch lights that fill winter nights with soothing colors there is too little time for them in this world
even when they come alive again right before my eyes
like I knew they would
I sense a strange coldness pulling at me and am much
afraid
especially with the sound of rain so close and moments before the grass moves like quicksilver and the heavy sky lowers its shade across my window
I wonder where they were when I was curiously afraid and shoved a hand
into every morning shadow to find someone
who knew about dying or about anything resembling
(1999^)
Ephemera
Just for a moment
in passing taxis he looks
at her looking back
but such moments don't last in a world
where time stops for none of us and in another second or two
both of them
are gone in rain
leaving in a bony grayness
one more memory
China Sun
a flat gloomy hazy day the sun vague
spotted on a damp sky
and in the park
carp are swimming
among water lilies stopping
gaping curiously
vacantly blackly
in a pool of green water
staring
at an Orion beer can floating in a shiver of muddy chalky light then turning
on flicking silver tails
they swim away
into deeper dirtier water leaving nothing behind but the confounding glare of this odd and ominous sky
(1999$)
Escape
Looking ahead
he is counting
the days of another month
when cooler November air turns over on a rush
of duller flatter sunlight He is relieved
to see the sunlight weaken and the stifling summer heat run itself out
even when it means he's getting cold on the ground
with an angry August night
flaming above the festered faces of the dead who are whining and scraping along the sidewalks on their broken knees
in search of absolution But
all the dead are strangers anyway
so it doesn't matter much
(1999^)
He stops a few minutes in the early lights of an izakaya wonders if the birds
are still sleeping in the trees above the town
sleeping in this fierce fire that keeps him watching the late night sky for rain
!- (1999^)
Death Spin
In these broken shades eternity pales ragged
'round the edges and ten million miles from this beautiful chaos
another piece of rock
is in a death spin but even
in this inexorable truth a loud ugly calm until
all that is left is a few more years of running afraid waiting afraid sinking in sunshine begging for the chance to live a little longer
as others going fast
spin
and die in space while we brush off
(1999*)
Rainy Season
A yellow truck blue paint scrambled into kanji along its sides
pulls up
stops in front of me the blue shining much too significantly in this huge gloom that has taken the sun from still another day and while leaves fall to the pavement
like dead sparrows
I try hard to forget the sound of rain
and paint a stony sea with sunlight that I
have saved for days like these and only a few steps
from this piercing chill which bites and stings the grass on a drab dreary lawn bright cotton shirts
are waving cheerfully
snapping wet in a balmy wind
off the water
(199940
Sidewalk Poets
You scribble in chalk your narrow bullshit
profundities
on the broken sidewalks
of West Queen Street in a blistering heat
The sun fades
then dies in the windows behind you
Along the fence beside the hedges the smell of flowers is strong but you do not smell flowers You are the First Amendment
gone wrong with the
afflictive rage of hate
a sad reality of free expression
shaped from fundamental idealisms liberal theologies
apocalyptic oracles
visions of despair
predictions
(1999^)
You proclaim arrogant philosophies
in a cataclysmic language
for indifferent people in clean clothes
They walk around your caustic sordid revelations
with a curious courtesy But already in the eastern sky
unseen by you
unwanted by you
dark clouds are closing into a threatening mass
and soon a pleasing precipitous rain will come with arms long enough to scrub the sidewalks clean
As I smile at each insane word you wrote washing inexorably into the gutters of West Queen Street
I'll surely realize
how very much alike we are in our madness
to say something true
(1999^)
Yarajoseki Park Slowly
quietly
small fogs floating in the mist
of this cool February morning begin to melt in the coming light that is spilling through the pines to lay down a face
of imperial yellow on a stone path winding
descending
into Yarajoseki Park
Conscious of the flashing flickering
tongues probing the green shadows hanging slick and wet on the trees I look at you
caught in your own sunlight and think that you do not see
the sunrise coming in along the banks
oftheHijaRiver
and you will not know
the softness of these footsteps glistening silver
You walk into taller grass under trees and birds regard you
with bent heads as you pass
in a contemplation
deep and distant as the stars
At the edge of these trees
where the long lawns of the park run away from us to the sea I lose you for a moment in a river of blinding light pouring out of the eastern sky flooding the hot dawn
in a trembling pulsing orange When I find you
sitting beside the water in a brutal silence leaning back on hands that are missing in the grass I realize how intensely I have loved you
and how in such a short time you have loosened
exposed undressed
every secret every hope
(1999*)
I do not tell you any of this These lines were spoken
on rainy days in Shuri
in snow in Seattle and Chicago and already I have lived too
many years in the presence
of such dark thoughts stacked them high as God in the absence of living footsteps
dressed them white in starched shirts
confused and betrayed them
with shyness and every night
before sleep took this troubled tumbling conscience
I saw the pretending abstinence slip through my clutching fingers into the silence
into the darkness
where it stayed immutable until morning
So long I have waited for
someone
to keep these secrets I tell wondering between nights if I have really offended the dead with this illusion of propriety
(1999^)
You are the one
who has seen the armor rust and the sins drip sour in a cracked crooked moonlight
but a familiar voice is shaking
the trees a failing fading voice calling you back
Why are you looking into another day searching the breaking morning for
trees shoved up against mute hills like the white masts of sailing ships waiting on the edge of a new wind
I want to sit in the warm grass beside you
and live a little more in the sun
today
but already you are packing my secrets
into a shiny suitcase
walking away to find the sailing ships that cast their bleak and dismal shadows
across me
across the quiet lawns and across everything else that remains forever soured
withering
