Gitanjali Jazz Rifts Part III

Gitanjale Jazz Rifts Part III

Torii Gate

#74 There at the fording

Monk in lone canoe

One oar left behind on shore

One oar cross-breeze drifts

#75 River has its work

Interviewing stones

No traces of little boats

Chance trail encounters

Jim Bodeen

6 December 2018

#76 Great Sky Solitude

Riding bicycle asking whereabouts

of my departed friend,

Meng Hao-Jan asks about tea

Leaves in thermos

Spring Harvest High Country Green

Friend's telegraph road

carries from far off

Jim Bodeen

6 December 2018

#77 I don't grasp your hand as friend

My God apart

You are other

What I don't know

And all I want
But I don't worry
you want me back

I got too much practice

7 December 2018

#78 Snapped harp string song stopped

Taking books to bed

What GIs call early out

Gates of Paradise

THE WAY OF THE GODS

Torii Gate Way

Distinguished way to the past.

Heavenly Kami, illustrious ancestors--

falling leaves, foxes and stones

cooperating. Sun and moon,

two eyes, left and right,

openings to our candle prayers.

If Japan's faith was likened to a tree,
Shintoism would be its roots.
Natural as song thanks

offered and received.

Makoto no kokoro

heart of truth
touching human history

gates to mountain trails.

A fox with a key in his mouth

and one with a child's ball.

Jim Bodeen
8 December 2018

#79 If not my portion

Priests knew of poets

They just didn't matter--they

had been taken out

9 December 2018

#80 If this be thy play

Out here, be careful!

Transcribing odd man exiled

Ink freeze Parker pen

Poet and Matron talking

Come out into the open

Pickled herring is divine

9 December 2018

#81 Idle day blossoms

Social control squeeze

Social control taking hold

Squeeze seen as fiction

10 December 2018

#82 Empty altar offering

Driven into there

No where does anyone ask

Yet they were here once

Jim Bodeen

11 December 2018
















*

KAREN NOTICING

always surprises

her eye

able

to see

individual

stitches

paths

thread

follows

needle

She

takes

me

oh!

wait

to the gate

of no gate

knots

how

they’re tied

one way

on one side

only

on the fence

Japanese Gardens!

I failed

knot

tying

and for that reason alone

never

became

a scout

following

instead

Karen

he surprising ways

Jim Bodeen

12 December 2018

#83 Sorrow neck pearl song

When I pull my telephone

from my pocket

I can hear them sing to all of us

Jim Bodeen

Día de Guadalupe

12 December 2018

#84 The number left off

All or within an all

I

disappearing

in the self

of the language

the we that is

no longer

possible

Of all things

I had wanted a word

and with you

I had

there was a you

in you

which gave direction

to where the word

might go

anti-obituaries
13 December 2018

#85 Peace on their foreheads

French Toast with six eggs

Farm cream, cinnamon, milk, whipped

Little bells of prayer

13 December 2018


#86 Worship with tears, folded hands

American cans

Club members swallow weak selves

Swilling labeled beers

Jim Bodeen

14 December 2018

#87 Let touch the Allness

Mountain children talk

Consecrate snow solstice trek

Cook noodles for High Camp

15 December 2018

#88 Night worship away

I'm going to bed

I say goodnight to Karen

To read, sleep, read, sleep

To read, sleep, too tired to dream

read, sleep, sleep

#89 No noisy loud words

Ski to here children

This mountain stands as prayer

This mountain is here

16 December 2018

#90 What will thou offer

But I have been dreamed

But for my great toe throbbing

Coffee tucked in boat sleeve

How completely did I die

Where did I leave from leaving

Indian oars red canoe

17 December 2018

#91 One final glance flowed

3 AM NOTEBOOK

Looking at this page

A deer crosses the highway

breaks rear view mirror

18 December 2018

#92 Careless treasures rare

My friend waves goodbye

Outside library parking

Where truth meets mask

19 December 2018

#93 Lamp lit dark corner

Snow daughter, daughters

Snow mountain solstice

Layer up for rain

Weather needle in between

Grandpa Dad's Three Lights

Where then would one go

High Camp Bench Window

Molé Mountain Tamales

Jim Bodeen
20 December 2018

#94 My wedding garland

Practicing Goat Rocks

Showing me to be raven

Lower Solstice lights

Non-participant

Practicing for what's coming

Hoarfrost growth through fog

Yesterday's rain what we had

Yesterday when Tyler died

Back outside snow's now

21 December 2018

#95 Vast mystery bud

After Solstice light

Just as dark as yesterday

Snow bodies on skis

22 December 2018

#96 Unsurpassable Parting

Of course the poet

demands nothing less than this

Chew meat from his bones

Jim Bodeen

23 December 2018

#97 World with eyes bent stands

Lights of the full wombs

Three rose windows on sunrise

Wake late in snow field

24 December 2018

#98 Its honey will be bared

It will all come out

Love refuses all handcuffs

State bracelet's wired joke

25 December 2018

#99 My lamps are blown out

But I made waffles

Whipping eggs, corn meal, and flour

kids ski deep through trees

26 December 2018

#100 My sport tossed on waves

After skiing soup

Ham bone, white beans, celery, carrot, onion, cumin

Vegetable broth

27 December 2018

#101 Have I sought thee in my songs

Thought I had a date

with my wife, she went shopping

with her daughters

28 December 2018

#102 Who knows what they mean

His life's last stories

Why not return to poems

Rain, ice in mountains

29 December 2018

#103 Homesick cranes flying

Nothing but ball games

On television, to bed

Early with a book

Jim Bodeen

30 December 2018