Ben Kemp


Ju-ni Gatsu

Japan is delicate,
and in December when snow settles
upon the branches,
it feels like a Buddhist prayer...

Walking to work,
a stonewall shoulders my path...
it was built 700 years ago
by monks who tendered the gardens with
tiny scissors and a clear mind...

Walking to work,
my fingertips hang out from under the
sleeves of my jacket...
tickled by a morning sun and
a frost, fragile, like the ribs of a leaf...

Walking to work,
the peddlers in steaming noodle
carts have faces like nourished hide...
If you get close,
their foreheads are old photos,
with grandfathers, mothers,
brothers and uncles, resting over their brow.

Walking to work,
from Yoyogi-Uehera, where I live...
it's saintly...
for when the sun hits...
the orange tile roofs
knelt down through the night...
they rise to their feet.

and in Shinjuku, where I work...
the People
have the temperament of porcelain,
with cheek bones
like ZEN...and Kurosawa

and in the canal,
the carp bask under muddy glass...
sometimes twelve or thirteen at a time,
trading their safety for
the sun,

and over the bridge,
with wide hips and feet resting in a puddle...

I enter the arteries of Tokyo...
With ears open...
listening for you
for Manutuke...
the Te Arai...
and the sound of oranges growing.

* NOTES : A Christmas postcard from Japan to my
family back home in New Zealand. As a child I grew
up on an orchard in Manutuke, Gisborne and the Te
Arai river ran aside our little farm, where my brother
and I spent hours and hours eeling on her sandy banks.


The Girl, The Restaurant and The God

1. Outside a restaurant in Harajuku,
the rain fell like a psalm...
and through the windows the lights folded like yellow origami...
She placed her fingers on the glass...and God listened..

Tofu is a Buddhist monk kneeling on a plate,

2. Winters was a stone throw away,
and snow brewed like ice cream churning in the sky...
God slipped into her closed fist and slowly turned her palms
inside out...
her face turned red as two apples welled under her cheeks...
but she said nothing...

Soba is the same monk meditating with his toes in the water,

3. I was silent in that sea - that was people...
and she was a buoy, bobbled...
for her head had lowered and her shoulders had drooped like
a wilted leaf...
God placed his fingers under her chin...
and upon her tongue he put an olive...
She was so sweet, like torn silk,
Inside me....


Eight Pieces From August 2, 2004

Kurosawa
On Orchianamizu riverbanks...
A Samurai and an Artist turn out their pockets.

Sakura
Pure silk...
utters "spring"

Homeless
Cardboard caves and wounded shoes...
his blood-shot eyes.

Smile
The sun opens...
children move closer to heaven.

Island
Broken ship on sweaty palms,
a voice over blue table-tops.

Kiyomizu-tera
On a hillside,
crouched amongst tree-tops...
a tiger.

Hideyoshi
The general dismounts...
laying bloody sword and ear to earth.
hears "Monkey"


Tribute To Edgar Henry

Edgar was a Poet...

" I feel like you are on the other side of a wall now Edgar"
" I feel like your teeth are no longer broken and stained with
red wine"

" I imagine your ears have become perfectly tuned to the
warm blood of poetry, the grammar has finally caved in"
" I imagine you are whole, inside of spring"

" I envision that the key with which you spoke, will never be
cubby holed into any pentatonic or diatonic scale"
" I envision that the silence you experienced was much deeper,
within the cracks of silence"

" I wonder Edgar...how thick is this wall? 2 feet? 3 and a half
maybe?"
" I wonder if I place my ear to it, and you do the same, Can I
hear you and can you hear me?"

"I will sing for you a thousand times"
" Edgar you are a Poet...

"But it is the Man I mourn.


Kara: Lily

1. The LILY under
your nail, child...

In this yellow light and upon this
table...
is a SONG...
of no key or CHORD,
strings or ivory...

only a tongue...
like the corners of the mouth turned upward...

2. Of the light shaped over
my hands...
In arcs and rectangles...

like the white and black in the eyes, child...
feeling your heart scoped out,
like the seeds of a melon...

3. The LILY is fragrant...
Like a garden of saints,
with scrolls, nibbled at the edges by
moths...
flitting WINGS in a pocket...

4. A lily and tendrils of SALT water, is you...
Swelling under your lip and breaking
On your TONGUE,
rushing to the back of
your throat...

hearing the syllables of your name...
in
nakedness... and PURITY

I have felt this once,
But ONLY moments after it had past...

In the still,
and the sunlight...
with a LILY resting upon your nape.

* NOTES : 'Kara' means 'Lily' in Japanese