*
in this low land
of sand and
bramble
scandal
Japanese cherry
strewing petals on a
daylong
seawind
*
as I walk
down the dim
hall an old man’s
ghost floats from
the oval mirror
to mimic
me
*
In the gray
hoodoo of new
light in the pelagic
luster of ice pearls lit
on black halyards of limbs
the crackpot cryopath halloos the
fleeing gibbous moon like a flayed master
of the flying dutchman clutching the shattered
bowsprit spies a cobalt iceberg crying land land ahoy
above his unregenerate gibbering wraithy crew of bone
*
KASE MARU
summer grass
all that remains
warriors’ dreams
-Basho
deep in the hold of
the sunken warship
scrolls of barbed
wire incubating
blue-striped
angelfish
*
the emaciated
spooks of if
suffer
vacancy
however
newborn the
memories
departed
in situ
lineage
without
ligatures
vocables
without
tongue
sights
unsocketed
*
september’s fanged
flowerless rosecane
doing the demon
samba with
gusts of a
tropical
squall
John Perlman is the author numerous titles of poetry, including Kachina, Homing, Swath, and The Natural History of Trees. He lives with his wife Jan in a clearing in the woods close to the tidewater.
John’s A Walk around the Lake was #2 in the Empty Hands Broadsides series.
You paint with your words – a true artist, John. Proud to know you.
Hi: Wondering if this is/you are the John Perlman who published SHUTTLE magazine?
-Thank you, R. Carella
R. Carella, I am not John Perlman. You can find him on Facebook or I can help you get in touch with him. Let me know!
Mark Kuniya