I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.

I am not jealous
of what came before me.

Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your ******* and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!

Bring them all
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone on earth
to start our life!

Drinking my tea
Without sugar-
    No difference.
                                        
The sparrow *****
    upside down
--ah! my brain & eggs
                                        
Mayan head in a
Pacific driftwood bole
--Someday I'll live in N.Y.
                        
Looking over my shoulder
my behind was covered
with cherry blossoms.
                                        
        Winter Haiku
I didn't know the names
of the flowers--now
my garden is gone.
                                        
I slapped the mosquito
and missed.
What made me do that?
                                        
Reading haiku
I am unhappy,
longing for the Nameless.
                                        
A frog floating
in the drugstore jar:
summer rain on grey pavements.
        (after Shiki)
                                        
On the porch
in my shorts;
auto lights in the rain.
                                        
Another year
has past-the world
is no different.
                                        
The first thing I looked for
in my old garden was
The Cherry Tree.
                                        
My old desk:
the first thing I looked for
in my house.
                                        
My early journal:
the first thing I found
in my old desk.
                                        
My mother's ghost:
the first thing I found
in the living room.
                                        
I quit shaving
but the eyes that glanced at me
remained in the mirror.
                                        
The madman
emerges from the movies:
the street at lunchtime.
                                        
Cities of boys
are in their graves,
and in this town...
                                        
Lying on my side
in the void:
the breath in my nose.
                                        
On the fifteenth floor
the dog chews a bone-
Screech of taxicabs.
                                        
A hardon in New York,
a boy
in San Fransisco.
                                        
The moon over the roof,
worms in the garden.
I rent this house.

[Haiku composed in the backyard cottage at 1624
Milvia Street, Berkeley 1955, while reading R.H.
Blyth's 4 volumes, "Haiku."]

You are
delicious
And I am
greedy.
You are
generous
And I am
needy.
You are
experienced
And I am
learning.
You are
flammable
And I am
burning.