ODE 11
A fiery
Propaganda speech
In a primitive
Coffin scientific burlesque The muse
Is a lone shriveled tree I like to
Begin and end on
Cheerful(less) notes Years later
And much before you came
Every day in search
Of a (the) living I was
Never allowed to touch the
Camera peculiar measurements
Dotted with numerous reasons fog
Shrouds the jungle (the empire) now
I’m finally getting into the last
And darkest section (I wait patiently
For my turn) blending into the
Earth artificial crow tribal
Connection prescription for
Disaster tangible pathos with eyes closed
Looking long and hard at the photo blending
Into the earth’s enormous words (I made the
Same promise to
Myself busily constructing
Pure light elaborate furnace expansive
Death remote witchcraft
Emits a strong smell the inaccessibility)
Of the temple
ODE 12
i.
my hand was dirty at
the bus station i tried
to hide my hand in
my pocket but it
became all sticky i couldn't release
it the bus terminal has no
end the train
im waiting for never
comes
ii.
i almost . . . during it how
much his face showed he
cared how little i was cared
for how in comparison to
him could not
care enough because i used to
care too much and that did
me in so i decided then & there not
to care too much again and then finally
not very much at all this was
a gradual process
iii.
hystrionic timeout stalemate contraindicated men
oh!, pause (don't stop)
iv.
that ended in today in this
question mark i
lie back and feel the chair(n) press
into me i lie
back and hope the chair will
wrap around me like you
didn't see
myself hug myself
and then i cry some
more i arrange
my body into the shape
of a question mark so
it no longer fits the
chair so i slide off
into another space that
has no end that wraps
me around like a question
mark that has no end but
today
ODE 13
for a category that does not exist
had randomly struck when it comes
right down to it the dramatic impact
to a stranger her effort
to hide that sad face on
account of the wooden architecture distilled
a certain atmosphere perishing in due
course secret in front of one's
acquaintance from the past high rise
buildings and pachinko parlors foreign
cars running there alongside something that has just
started now i got off
at a station too small cameras jumped
a harmless lie for instance the
most annoying thing about a modern person's
writing there are several traditional methods of self-
improvement standing in a waterful in this sort
of situation for just this sort of beauty that simply
Jane Joritz-Nakagawa’s poetry books are Skin Museum (2006), and Aquiline (2007). "Ode 11," "Ode 12" and "Ode 13" appear in Jane Joritz-Nakagawa's third
book, Exhibit C (Ahadada 2008). Email is welcome at janenakagawa at yahoo
dot com.
3 poems by jane joritz-nakagawa