Paul Julien - Nigeria 1950s.

Cid Corman

after some tests a walk outside the hospital

bought this read read in hospital, perhaps it will be interesting

To explain my poetry would be like explaining the shape of my face. -Ryunosuke Akutagawa quoting Bashō (tr. Cid Corman)

in hospital, Kochi … just arrived; view from window (afternoon glare)

Shimpei A light in the mountains, white roses and a small dog’s company He thinks at sixty time he made poems good enough to live. -Cid Corman

the sun down there at the salt hut perhaps a shel- ter for the night -from the Noh play Yashima by Zeami (tr. Will Petersen & Cid Corman)

Eliot Weinberger

a moth eats the gold threads of the tapestry, gnawed the edges of the dream, I lost count the broken things what was to be my life -Jonathan Greene

The contingency Fell from the ceiling black. I struck it with the nearest object. It coiled; another blow flattened it to a stain. The vicious centipede. -Cid Corman

I wake from a nap the sun low on the wall shadow play of my dream

Eliot Weinberger

Psalms of the leopard and the phosphorescing mosses! Flesh in the wisdom of its crystals! -Gustaf Sobin, from “Notes on Sound, Speech, Speech-Crystals and the Celestial Echo”

Silent Matter: Edward Lear's "Hagar and Silsilis, Egypt," 1856. Bequeathed to the Wadsworth Atheneum by Edward Gorey. Initially drawn to this watercolor because it reminded me of Seghers—later to learn of its provenance and Gorey's search for "silent matter" in all art.

Night Sea Cloud Shell Moon Pearl -José Juan Tablada (tr. Eliot Weinberger)

6.55 a.m. east red sky … songbirds … mossy red tiles … dry soil

Let me die in spring beneath the blossoming trees, let it be around the full moon of Kisaragi month -Saigyō (tr. Burton Watson)

Just to play hide and seek the way I did long ago — crouched down in a corner, squeezing in so tight -Saigyō (tr. Burton Watson)

The wild geese departing, their wings in white clouds, call longingly to their friends in the paddies before my gate -Saigyō (tr. Burton Watson)

The leaves have fallen in this village at the foot of Mount Ogura and I can see the moon shining in the tops of the trees -Saigyō (tr. Burton Watson)

Beyond the ring of questions, the first unprecedented answers shall alight. -Gustaf Sobin

Mystical accidentalism for sound-hemmed naught in night’s botanical glossary -Susan Howe

Turtle Can he see his shadow where he walks? -Homero Aridjis (tr. Eliot Weinberger)

nightwalk with squalling tawnies flatcalm the bare trees method-act wind contact contrail-moon-branch

Susan Howe

The morning seems to drop entire into a trembling puddle -Homero Aridjis (tr. Eliot Weinberger)

Homage to Mallarmé To baffle an enemy the deepwater squids discharge instead of ink luminous clouds. -Jonathan Griffin

It’s thirst that sculpted the source. -Gustaf Sobin

Epitaph for a Science The child would explore the spider’s trap-door. -Jonathan Griffin

7 a.m. moulting season … a peacock cries from the rooftop

Probity in the poem or our hearts will grow old and break -George Oppen

2 p.m. Cloudless sky, empty of birds. Dragonflies hover over wild grasses. I sit on a stone by the flowing water. How many ashes have been immersed in this river?

Andrew Schelling, from “Forms of Writing”

7 a.m. light fog … peacock chases a black cat away

Christopher Middleton

The lunar house lies four miles south of the moon’s ecliptic. Three bees part ways at the arrival of the stellar wind. Star ☆ chart from Heitengi Zuka - Yoshitaka Iwahashi, 1802

Let the lopped branch of the Java plum caught in the peach stay where it is. The squirrel uses the shortcut, as if it had always been there, to reach the crepe myrtle. -Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, from ‘Small Holdings’

A flag revolves, a bird has flown — Our objects, humble, they aspire; Learn we our ashes by their fire. -Christopher Middleton

In the early evening I watch a flying fox swoop down to sip from the river

A breath rotates the stars -Christopher Middleton

Christopher Middleton, from “In Anatolia”

Bird Everybody’s doing fine, ferryboats shipshape, houses fresh, women slender as candlesticks. Little bird, perch on my palm, just today, I’ll not eat you. -Oktay Rifat (tr. Christopher Middleton)