The fires of the dead

The sea has for several days
been growing angrier; and now
the muttering of its surf sounds

far into the land. It always
roughens thus during
the Festival of the Dead.

And on the sixteenth day,
after the shōryōbune have been launched, 
all the fishermen remain at home. 

For on that day the sea
is the highway of the dead.
Upon that day is it called Hotoke-umi—

the Buddha-Flood—the Tide
of the Returning Ghosts. 
And ever upon the night

of that sixteenth day—
all its surface shimmers with faint lights
gliding out to the open, 

and there is heard a murmuring of voices, 
like the murmur of a city far-off—
the indistinguishable speech of souls.

Then will the dead rise tall, 
and reach long hands and murmur: 
Tago, tago o-kure!—tago o-kure!

(From the journal of Lafcadio Hearn, 1891)

To master crime

On the day a criminal decides 
he is smarter than the police, 
he moves that much closer 
to the moment of his capture. 

It takes an amazing amount of cunning 
to master crime. Live in best hotels. Buy 
diamonds with cash from Cartier’s when I 
want to sell a hot one. Women are stools,
dogs love the taste and smell of cinnamon.
Make sure it is same cut and purity.
Believe opposite of what people say,
leave phoney overcoat button at scene.
I wonder a good deal about whether 
I’m crazy or not. Solid gold armor.
Use sneeze powder to foil capture,
sold in novelty stores. Rich people live 
on Number Ten Hill in Baltimore;
go down through roof or up through floor.

(From 1950’s Iowa burglar Michael Sutton’s notebook)

panting flowing breathless

Heavy, tormented waves, 
tossing in the rising tide 
and smashing on the beach in white surf 
and masses of phosphorous. 

The twilight of a dark night at sea. 
Vivid jags of lightening 
showing us to each other. 

Out until up to our shoulders, 
the waves dashed over our heads. 
Swimming, swimming out to infinity—
racing in under the pulsing water 
to the solitary light on shore. 

Swimming far out we slipped off 
our bathing suits and let 
the water caress our naked forms.
But the heavy waves swept us in.

(Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s diary, 1929)

Belfast 1972

Naga-uta

Sat on the grass. 
Babies crying – tired and hot. 
Harassed, worn faces. 
Smoking cigarettes non-stop. 
Army won’t move out, 
therefore people have no homes. 
Came home and sunbathed.
Got my arms and back roasted. 
Gunmen opened fire, 
there’s wild shooting going on.
No one hurt, thank God.  
Four times I’ve turned the lights out.
Same weather for tomorrow.

(From a 17-year-old Belfast girl’s diary, July 1972)

Nine days in July

Arose before anybody else — came down and went out to look at Mamma Earth and her green clothes — Breakfasted — Read aloud from Madame Recamier’s memoirs for the ladies — Kept this up for an hour, got as hoarse as a fog horn.  Think the ladies got jealous of Madame Recamier — It’s so hot — I put everything off — Hot weather is the mother of procrastination — my energy is at ebb tide — I’m getting Caloricly stupid — Tried to read some of the involved sentences in Miss Cleveland’s book, mind stumbled on a ponderous perioration and fell in between two paragraphs and lay unconscious for ten minutes — Smoked a cigar under the alias of Reina Victoria think it must have been seasoned in a sewer — Mrs Clark told me a story about Louise’s mother singing in a company a song called  I have no home, I have no home, somebody halloed out that he would provide her with a good home if she would stop — I understood Mrs Clark to say that this gentleman was a bookkeeper in a smallpox hospital — Mrs G has placed fly paper all over the house.  These cunning engines of insectiverous destruction are doing a big business — One of the first things I do when I reach heaven is to ascertain what flies are made for — this done I’ll be ready for business, perhaps I am too sanguine and may bring up at the other terminal and one of my punishments will be a general ukase from Satan to keep mum when Edison tries to get any entomological information — Satan is the scarecrow in the religious cornfield — Towards sundown went with the ladies on yacht — Talked about love, cupid, Apollo, Adonis, ideal persons.  One of the ladies said she had never come across her ideal — I suggested she wait until the second Advent — Damon steered the galleon,  Damon’s heart is so big it inclines him to embonpoint — On shore it was hot enough to test safes but on the water twas cool as a cucumber in an arctic cache — Mrs G has promised for three consecutive days to have some clams a la Taft, she has perspired her memory all away — Been hunting around for some ant nests, so I can have a good watch of them laying on the grass — Don’t seem to be any around — don’t think an ant could make a decent living in a land where a yankee has to emigrate from to survive — For the first time in my life I have bought a pair of premeditatedly tight shoes — These shoes are small and look nice.  My No 2 mind (acquired mind) has succeeded in convincing my No 1 mind (primal mind or heart) that it is pure vanity, conceit and folly to suffer bodily pains that ones person may have graces the outcome of secret agony — Read the funny column in The Traveler and went to bed.

(Thomas Edison’s diary, 20 July 1885)

Expecting

What my heart first waking whispered the world was.

I picked these summer roses because
they looked so disgusting waiting there
wanting the bees to come and fuck them.
On this lonely afternoon what is left
of my youth gushes up like a geyser
as I sit in the sun combing the lice
out of my hair. It is June seventeen
but the sun keeps going in. Rabbits
die of indecision when an experiment
forces them to be forced two ways.

I need a house, a husband, money,
a job, friends, furniture, affection,
servants to look after the children, clothes,
a car, a bicycle, a destination.
I see now I was the one-too-many.
I was the mistake. The circumstances
in which I find myself are marginal
notes, never the text. In the thick hedgerows
the summer flowers like their rapturous
lives that have nothing to do with me.

(From Elizabeth Smart’s diary, June 1943)

The last ten days of Ramadan

I never said a proper goodbye
to the city where I grew up.

On the second day
I phoned my cousins.
We spoke about cancelled exams
and pilgrims stuck in Mecca.

By day four
my cousin could barely speak;
the family were all on the ground floor,
she was too afraid to shower.

A trousseau for a bride,
red slippery glittery tobes,
perfumes, dainty sandals.
Kilos of pistachios,
bags of sugared almonds,
boxes of Turkish delight –
all this would be looted.

The sky over Khartoum
was lit with savage fire,
smoke billowing at dawn.

On Eid day
I dragged myself to the mosque.
I hugged other women and cried.

Eid mubarak.

This time, they didn’t pick up.

(From 5 Sudanese writers on the country’s nightmare conflict)