Beside a Glass of Water

It is still possible, I see,
to find a shattering dazzle
in a simple thing; the lazy
looseness of liquids
turning in certain weights of light,
in the trembling layers that shine
inside their reflections of the room.

Did the inventor of glass realize
what he'd given us?

I sit at a corner of a long table
and let my pieces of paper and history
find a random rhythm of place
as though the rituals of Dogen's punctuations
are here as well,
echoing in this momentary arrangement
of my transcient clutter.



by jerry gordon
cafe independant, kyoto

Before Evers

Our marriage is on and in the morning
we will steal into our death.

Never; before the dawn
and the end of our dreams,
I will touch your hair,
as soft as the clouds
that carry these stories of rain.
Believe me. I am getting lost
to find you.
To meet you without all the bodies
I have gathered to just stand
bare against the sun's cleaning light.
Smile to me from the other side
of the road. Then I will cross,
take your hand
and place it to my face.

The sky and ground may fight,
but we can walk between them until dawn.
Let the mountains roll their rivers
into the mouthes of babies.
Sweetly giving in that
blood-milk-nipple-lip-belly-heart
promise.



by jerry gordon

Rolywholyover, A Circus

for shigemi

In a word the years disappear
and we are sitting at that chess board in Mito;
me on this side
you there
playing across the space of John Cage's brain
in a world of only one rule.

As I remember, three hours passed with us
ending in enough concentration to hear
the sounds of our pieces
taking positions amidst the rest of
randomly hung art works.

Here, on this train of an unimaginable future,
the emotion of a moment
nearly old enough for high school
sets a thread of honesty into my voice
as I tell what this person now gets
to imagine.



by jerry gordon
3.28.09