Vol 1 No 2 2007

8 tankas from hush rush

opening the dark
small closet of muffled thoughts
my hidden self crouched
in a cluster of demons
dusty and outdated lies

that lantern riddle
is a flickering question
tell me, I insist
yet the wind moves its own mind
to escape my foolish grasp

are you like that wind?
beneath your pleasant greeting
a mysterious sound
heard through wet hair and dazed eyes
I raised my head and wondered

early morning sun
pigeons’ keen throat-sing on eaves
innocence recurs
the Drive’s asleep, a reprieve
quick, a chance to contemplate

golden spinning globe
all eyes and longing pinned firm
on chancing a glance
of fate, the swarm of bodies
rushing through mortal battles

what’s the party for?
we hunger to claim the streets
to conquer and shine
jewelled fields of ecstasy
to reach immortality

turn! I say, turn now!
letting the water slip through
my slightly open
fingers—do you wish for change
an irreversible plunge?

songs of drunken love
lost on the moonlit pavement
while this wordless ache
knows no home, no refuge yet
lying alone, listening

[Poet’s Note:

I first experimented with the tanka form (5-7-5-7-7) after I read River of Stars, an English translation of tankas by Akiko Yosano. Akiko Yosano lived in 19th Century Japan and was of course writing in Japanese. She shocked the male-dominated world of poets with her frank explorations of women’s experiences. She was lauded for her daring innovations. As a woman and a poet, she established a bold, feminist presence by inventing her own poetics, letting her experiences inform and inflect her language.

After writing a few tankas, I put the project aside for three years, and only resumed the project this summer. Thanks to the phenomenon called the World Cup, I’ve since been developing more tankas as meditations on noise and silence, on the need for companionship and camaraderie in the world as contrasted with the need to retreat.

It’s been fun as well to see how I create my own poetics as I work within the parameters and limits set by the form. I like the paradox inherent in imposing such conditions: although the exercise is restrictive in one sense, it also challenges me to move and relate differently through the language. A certain kind of urgency emerges from such a challenge. Here are 8 tankas from my manuscript-in-progress hush rush.]

Lydia Kwa