this –
our body
bled

back to this
greenness bleeding
down each leaf

name be damned
the russet of leaves
in the wind

all at once
the rain
until now
forgotten

• Otata 6

by candle-light
words fall further than
               where we end

without the moon
I take a leaf out of
Basho's book

leafless now
a transplant seeks out
its roots

• Otata 6

autumn leaves
           each day adazzle
     in doubt

birth of stars –
the sky means nothing
in seeming blue

dark autumn –
decay deepens its hold
over me

in leaf tones
the warmth of company
all but gone

hippo poto
monstro sesquippedalio
phobia

failing light –
mine is the darkness
that shadows me

after a shit
how did my forebears
come clean?

night thunder . . .
ancestral bodies
warm me still

lightning:
words remain
unborn

in time
flashes of night
unmooned

• Otata 6

without light alone lingers

deep night:
the heartbeat also
is mine

• Otata 6

nothing
overwhelmed with
more of it

in autumn rain
an ancestral threnody
of belonging

autumn night
I read myself deeper
into Buson

night pain . . .
windows mist over
my soul

moonlit dew
less than ever
a breath

• Otata 6

deadened
    low water laps
    old terrors

• Otata 6

nothing
en-worded
in the flesh

• Otata 6

darkness clings moving into it