vircapio gale

vircapio gale Feb 2013

"river willow"
well versed in play
cuts roots to same water

.

"senryū" translates from japanese as "river willow."
"kiru"(cutting) or the "kireji"(cutting word) is considered essential to traditional haiku.
therefore i picture an ancient conspiracy of asian lumberjacks.

the same formal elements of syllable constraint, short-long-short, and juxtaposition have defined both senryu and haiku... so their difference is in the content: broadly, traditionally: natural vs. human.

but the literal translation of senryu conjures a tree by a river...
do willow's rarely grow by rivers in Japan? was that considered funny or odd at some point?
yet even if anomalous, wouldn't that just mean: there are diverse exceptions to patterns in nature?

aren't humans and all their inconsistencies still encompassed by 'nature'?
isn't what is considered 'outside nature' also encompassed in a more universal sense of the term 'nature'?
nature! nature! nature! and **** i'm a 'wild' human; can i escape my own humanity?
wait, is there a side to choose from? anymore? by necessity? such definitions seem like embryonic ideologies

haiku traditional senryū

traditional tradition,
tradition
of seasonal flouting--

whipped by the river, we laugh
willow switches turn to crowns

vircapio gale Feb 2013

underwater love

swimming under lightning,
lighting our submergence flash allure:
smooth bodies, bright to glimpse and shadow-grin intent
collide and mingle folds of pleasure, firmly
bent to tangle, clasp and spurn the world above,
rely on one another's breath, stored for loving
long in bubbles gasping sweet melodics free
as with imagined merfolk passion-songs of lore, prescient
lapping dance of tidal fruits you loved before they came,
moonray columns stage us in our seashift wombs--again--
within a womb--like instant chrysalises blinking luminescent bursts
i am interred within the waves you ripple into me, blind
carnal pressures built from ancient shores become the sea again
the magnitude entrances on its own, that acrophobic thrill
celestial in our interthreaded eyes, open
to a color deeply in the dark of octopodal ink
a curtain phosphorescent armpit pulse,
caressing thumb and lip, billows, sways the dance anew,
to sonar drumbeat, pulmonary height
the spinal scream a surface ripple for the sky,
symphonic deep to barely whisper into air

vircapio gale Feb 2013

succumb

paint the world in green, spiral love on henna bellies, toes;
paint it red and ravage hearts,
a poet sings it either way,
sudden and illuminating all another hue
something less than true if true were known,
something more, i call it when it's poetry,
but who am i, this poem, to judge all poems?
who am i to claim a rightful place, within a poem itself,
to demarcate times with halting rhymes...
how many times have i rhymed rhyme with time?
before it's expressed, it ravels in--in deeper--in the dark,
this glamor symbol syncretism
sometimes urgent, never fully formed
no words can turn within and label when their labels came to being signed--
but here i am, to sign, succumb and sign again at signs

vircapio gale Feb 2013

Huacas del Sol y de la Luna

given                                emerald veins
enfracture           sightful           caverns
of        this           pulmonary        gaze,
earthbeat        pericardium     of  whim
and mystic with a settled dew of ages--
some  heady  ancient   script     of    silk
still        gathers      fragile nourishment
and            struggle warmth     to drain
my        needless      thoughts   of flight,
center          span to dome         the air--
geodesy                                       of form
enframing                               emptiness
and                   crimson                   fates
to                                                  quench

vircapio gale Feb 2013

mirror and candle

at the advice
of a persuasive psychotherapy
talk-show
guest
i once attempted staring at myself
in a large mirror propped
on a chair
with a candle,
for four hours
as per his perscription
burning, dripping there
i forget
exactly what happened to my vanity,
but it wasn't pretty

vircapio gale Feb 2013

limn compassion

purple,
violent with love
so deep beyond sight
but silver calm serene as well--
the flicker-mood incarnate,
a swiper styled at the center crux of being
that better me,
likes to hide all foxy
in giggle fits of cosmic nothing else but play
--amethyst beams
and silhouetted sundust whirls
of pain dispersed and lethe wards agleam

vircapio gale Jan 2013

senryū haiku (3)

"river willow"
well versed in play
cuts roots to same water

~

river willow
roots cut through ice,
ancient water sounds

~

"play verse" river
branches cut the wind
on willow roots

~

2013 still wondering how my rivers run from red to green, yellow-silver moss trek root mice steps