they sleep all day under the eaves

headland houses

half-naked on mats.

the wives gather shells

coarse-tongued, sun black

or working at carrying rocks

for the new coast road

eating big lunch balls

of cold rice.

tobacco and grapes on the dunes.

some farmers come down to the beach

in the dark       white lanterns

sending out rowboats, swinging

a thousand-foot net

five times down the length of the beach.

we help haul

tumbling pockets

glittering eyes and white bellies—

a full-thighed young woman

her dress tucked up in her pants

tugs and curses

an old man calling

across the dark water sculling

the last haul a yard-wide ray

she snaps off his switching

devil-tail stinger

& gives us three fish.

they beach their boats

full of nets

their lamps bob over the dunes

we sleep in the sand

and our salt.

September

Rucksack braced on a board, lashed tight on back,

sleeping bags, map case, tied on the gas tank

sunglasses, tennis shoes, your long tan in shorts

north on the west side of Lake Biwa

Fukui highway still being built,

crankcase bangd on rocks—

pusht to the very edge by a blinded truck

I saw the sea below beside my knee:

you hung on and never knew how close.

In Fukui found a ryokan cheap

washt off each other’s dust by the square wood tub

ate dinner       on worn mats

clean starcht yukata

warm whisky with warm water,

all the shoji open, second floor,

told each other

what we’d never said before, ah,

dallying on mats

whispering sweat

cools our kissing skin—

next morning rode the sunny hills, Eihei-ji,

got the luggage rack arc-welded

back through town and to the shore,

miles-long spits and dunes of pine

and made love on the sand

October

The Rich have money; Give to the Rich!

—J.C.: “All suffering is self-willed.”

you CAN take it with you

[THE OTHERWORLD FORWARDING SERVICE

leave your money with us;

we’ll get it through]—

Low-order Tantric phenomena.

“God in cinders; wreck on child.”

J.C.’s law—“You can’t get out of the same trap

until you get into it.”    Hemp

“retted” with dew or water; then the fibers

“scutched”

Somehow life has been like … every day is Flag Day for me. . .

Cold turkey       with all the tremens

[File your absence

with NULL & void

—Gilt-edged Insecurities—

loose ends bought in vacant lots

& the

NOWHERE VACUUM TRUST]

says the Armpit from Outer Space.

“1000 shares of mikan futures” (she’s a

Kshatriya—hell yes,

let her run things)

Promiscuity:    they sell themselves short.

All

Dragon-Riders

All,      Dharma Kings.

November

hoeing the hataké, pull out all the clover bulb—

long white root stem, deep

and other long roots,

“those daikon will rot in December, the frost;

smoothing the row.

“this daikon will live through the winter,

but it don’t taste so good as the other

white lime sprinkld on fresh turnd furrows like

snow these acid soils.    see that daikon?