嚽玄 yuugen an awareness of the universe that triggers emotions too mysterious, and too deep for words Jomiro Eming
We a r e a l l d y i n g , a n y w a y. S o i t ’ s b e s t t o l i v e l i f e a c c o r d i n g l y : p o e t i c a l l y.
/foreword I write; therefore, by definition, I am a writer. But I also sing, and am no singer; I cook, yet I am by no measure a chef - not in the leagues of a professional, anyway; I jog, but have not yet taken part in a marathon. So, by what standard does one call oneself a writer? Writing and the art of words is a mysterious arena - one might even dare say a mythical one - but is something which has escaped the minds and mouths of philosophers alike since the dawn of thought. How does it work? How do words invoke such emotion, and such power, and such prowess? And, furthermore, if I am a writer, am I also - by extension - a poet? Well, poetry usually finds itself as a sub-branch of writing, where writing might encompass novels, newspapers, blogs, obituaries, philosophical ponderings, advertisements, and then - too - poetry. So in that sense, yes. However, I grew up with a somewhat different idea of poetry: rather than writing including everything to do with words, I see poetry as the umbrella-term, and I think it extends far beyond the confines of letters, sentences, grammar and rhyme. Poetry, to me, was waking up to a freshly-made cup of coffee on your bedside table. Poetry was the late-afternoon sun trickling through the leaves, down your curtains, and cascading across your floor into little golden puddles. Poetry was a song you heard an age ago, hummed by a stranger walking down a little cobbled alleyway, which you now hear again, transporting you to the exact time, the exact place, the exact sensation of that moment all those years ago. Poetry was and still is - the hug you receive from your best friend. It’s the way a single moment makes you feel, be it an incapacitating sorrow or a euphoric epiphany of hope - or anything inbtween. Poetry can be a clean window, the condensation on a wine glass, the crackling of a fire in your childhood home, the sound of your car finally kicking into gear, or an acceptance letter to your future university. Poetry is not simply words, or verbal expression; poetry can be anything that makes you feel something worth being aware of. And if true poetry is something ineffable, poetry itself must be beyond expression. In this collection, I wanted to show you my “poetry” - in the way that I understand it. I want to share pictures, and words, and languages, and writing... Some might call it a “multimodal” approach to poetry, but I just think it’s unrestricted, undefined, undiscussed, undictated, undulating, understood… Make of it what you like, but I challenge you to read the poetry in your own life. It might not be written - it might not even be a language - but it’s definitely there. You just need to want to find it.
J. Eming .
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This bus station stinks. Smells of congestion – is that possible? Like an over-filled stomach, food brimming at the oesophagus, epiglottis lapping at the swell of churning breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Too full. Too full. The seat I sit on sticks to my sweaty skin, I can only imagine the dirt that has been there before me… I’d prefer not to, but now I have. My imagination implodes in the humid, rancid, lucid air. I cannot stop it. It clots. Clogs. Clutters. I cannot control it. As I am digested amidst personpersonpersonperson a man he throws a genuine gold plastic ring and a USB stick under my nose ‘for good deal prices’ but NO (thank you) I want not I don’t want these things now not now why now? My money is stuffed between stuff clothes stuff clothes stuff in a bag of stuff clothes and stuff and I have no need for them anyway (please stop badgering me, sir?) Patience is a virtue but GOD does escape look appealing.
A sea of needles ebbing, flowing in your throat. Spines pick at your pores, skin tender to the touch. uh. Head feels double its weight. (Mind too? Mine too) Thoughts as murky as your phlegm. Cheeks dry, warmly throbbing. uh. Why is everything so heavy? uh. Then a hand cools your cheeks. Familiar, selfless, sincere. It relieves your body from fixing itself. It fixes it for you. The hand touches what hurts.
And then it doesn’t hurt anymore.
It heals.
It heals what isn’t even sicks.
My lungs miss the taste of air. They do. The way it kissed their gaping mouths… It’s foreign to me now.
I’ve been robbed.
I step outside and all I can gulp is a sludge of scorn from the teasing earth.
She hates me.
The trees, they breathe – they always could.
They are her watchers and informarnts
and she feeds them from hidden earth,
nourishing their sneaky, cynic eyes.
The serenity of the scene mocks me.
It throws me over hills steep with sweat,
and shows me more splendour,
and more splendour.
It shows me what I cannot touch, feel.
Then, finally, I choke. The air. Thick. Constricts. I. My lungs.
Give up.
you cast me out to sea and let me float away alone and all you tied me to, left me with, was an invisible lining not even silver but transparent like the water i am overwhelmed and swallowed by.
you tease me
you tug it, but only every so often.
so seldom, in fact, that i can no longer tell it apart from my own pulse anymore it is so sparse.
At least my body is mine. It is, is it? I am scarred, no longer scared, you killed my fear when you stole what I had to lose, I didn’t cry when you shed a tear gas shell by my feet, I fled to my house of rubber bullets, And hid. At least my body is mine. It is, is it?
/the gate-keeper The old grandfather clock that stood in one corner of the room
“Um… Angy Michener.”
was unpleasantly dusty and decrepit, yet its ticking was still strong and in-time. When he has the time, he’ll polish and restore it so
Peter paged through his book. “Hmmm, yes. Well, by the looks of
it shines like it used to. That is, when he has the time. This whole
it, you aren’t a sinner. You may proceed. Oh, and when you see
“holding the keys to the kingdom” job isn’t effortless. He, having
Him, please do be so kind as to greet Him with a little more cour-
to direct the deceased, is waiting for people day and night. Going
tesy than you did me?” Picking up a small remote, he hit the white
to the bathroom is a risk in itself, because by the time you return,
button and the wrought iron gates in the wall beside him creaked
there could be queue all the way down to the earth!
open. Angy moved forward slowly, still dazed, and stepped through the towering, metallic gates. Saint Peter closed them with a touch
Thirst clenched St. Peter’s throat, but he saw his glass of water was
of another button and reclined back into his red velvet chair with a
as dry as his mouth. He stood up to fetch the jug of water on the
sigh. Reaching for a drink, he let his hand hang just above the rim
coffee table a few paces away, when his train of thoughts was in-
of the glass as he remembered it was empty. Disappointed, he ad-
terrupted by a bell tinkling as a fragile wooden door opened on the
justed his spectacles into a more comfortable position on his nose,
other side of his office. A pale woman walked inside and looked
and then stood up, clutching the glass in his hands.
ever so uncertain of where she was. Frustrated, he heaved a sigh and sat down once more.
As he was about to get himself a refill, the golden bell tinkled once more, and Saint Peter paused, and grimaced for a moment, before
“Welcome, Miss, to the Gates of Heaven,” Peter said monotonous-
reluctantly setting the glass down and rolling his chair underneath
ly, as if reciting a routine monologue. “You have just passed on,
him yet again. This time, a spritely young man stepped over the
for reasons I have yet to find out, and are currently about to be
threshold, into his office. Peter glanced at the time; forty minutes
assessed on whether you are permitted into heaven.”
past eleven - nearly mid-night. He took a deep breath.
“Died? Heaven?” exclaimed the elderly woman.
Peter couldn’t remember what life was like before this.
Peter rolled his eyes and mumbled something to himself, then looked up from the aged pages of his soul’s registry.
“Welcome, Sir, to the Gates of Heaven. You have just passed on, for reasons I have yet to find out, and are currently about to be
“Name, please.”
assessed on whether you are permitted into heaven.”
木漏れ日 (n)
komorebi –
The way in which sunlight slips through the leaves of trees, filters through layers of foliage,
and lands on whatever it touches with an air of serenity, gentleness, softness, and warmth.
It is sunlight peaking through from behind a tree, delicately pushing aside each leaf
individually - so as not to stir the branches - and shining through with an excitement to fall
upon the shadows beneath it, and to dapple the ground or water below.
I am an observer. The weather wages war with Itself? Outside. I am inside, behind glass, within walls, amidst comfort, I might need binoculars to see the rain hammer down on the Grass. Soil. Earthworms. Crust. Mantle. Core. The wind cuts across the torrent, sideways the rain falls, blurring the lens, through which I observe. I am an observer. Is she angry? That she throws such tantrums? Thunder clapping to keep the skies awake and so they cry in fear – No. They don’t cry cry; they spit. But I am only an observer.
The sky splits in two as the sun slices through on its journey to the sea. It parts that too, and pushes aside ripples of colour, pushes them aside for me. I’ll see my father soon, he’ll be waiting on the other side of the moon. Now that the sun has set the scene, The moon can rise to meet me. But the light isn’t right yet, not yet. My father’s boat rests idle in the night, but I cannot come until the stars fall away, away from the way to the moon. I pace along the horizon,
step
by step
waiting for him, And finally he floats towards me. I greet him, and he drifts by, and docks on a star, that has knelt for him quietly, gently. He leaves his boat, and it turns to dust– It was never that important, anyway. I reach out, but he only runs his fingers through my hair, And brushes my eyelids closed. I am back, now, watching the sun as she halves the sky. And my father is gone, But I don’t wait to meet him. Because he’s already home. It’s me who has left. I’m on the other side of moon, in my boat, waiting.
浮世絵 (n)
u k i yo - e –
“Pictures of the floating world.”
A state of being detached from the stressors of life, in which one seeks only pleasure,
and only self-fulfilment and self-enjoyment, living entirely in that moment, however
fleeting.
A line becomes a marquise becomes a sliver of light becomes colours, and shapes, and depths becomes my bedroom ceiling A breath becomes a yawn becomes a drawn-out sigh becomes the aroma of brewing coffee becomes the joy of being home A whisper becomes a faint mumble becomes a familiar voice becomes my name becomes the song of love A twitch becomes an open hand becomes an outstretched arm becomes a tight embrace becomes a morning “hello�
I want a pocket on the inside of my jacket on my left side, on my heart’s side, with a secret zip that only I know about for all the moments I’m afraid to forget. The ones I want at another moment’s notice that I can flick through, and smile at, and remind myself that they do exist. for all the people I adore. The ones I met on the way to the moon and that I miss when I get there. The ones I need close by when I’m far away. for the little reminders of how perfect the world can be, and how still the sea can stand, even when – inside – it’s chaos.
What does love look like? Not this. What does love feel like? That’s not for me to say. What does love hurt like? Like you wished you had never asked. What does love smell like? Don’t be silly. What does love taste like? It’s different for everyone. But what does it taste like? Like you would never have to eat again. What does love sound like? The silence between the notes. What does love look like? You’ve asked that already. I’m asking again. Love looks like a red swing in a park. Like dipping your hands in paint and not caring about what you touch. Like playing with your food. And singing in the shower. Love is like lighting a candle. And playing with the wax, making casts of your fingerprints, and laying them out on the table. And laughing. Laughing until you fall asleep.
does she know that the shadow on her chest is the way you used to lean in and kiss her on the cheek? can she recall the way her lips fell onto yours, as well as you can? where they start, and where they finish, where they rise, and where they fall? does she know that you can still trace her arms, when they were in yours, that you can trace the arch of her back as it rose from the sheets of your bed? her cup is where she left it: on the kitchen counter, next to where yours once was– when she once was.
nude.
nude.
nude.
nude.
nude.
nude.
Shedding. Drifting. Waving. Drowning. Floating. Flying. Trying. Failing. Winning. Changing. Moving. Growing. Loving. Smiling. Smiling. Smiling.
One day, when the wind stops breathing so deeply, I'll connect the dots on my chest. I'll visit you in the evening mist, And we'll trace the lines in the dusk of our days.
There’s a place to which our feet cannot carry us for which our arms cannot reach to which the wind cannot sweep us It’s where we met, and where we’ll meet again, And where I’m sure we’ve met before, long ago, long before we knew we were. Where time loosens its grip, and lets us feel the sand slip between our toes with the ebb and flow of the stars, and the dust, and the fleeting hours of our fleeting days. But none of that matters, in this place, where we met, and where we’ll meet again. Because there, there’s no struggle against anything else. We can just be, just exist, just us, nothing more, and silence can colour the air, rather than thicken it. It’s where my knees don’t feel the cold through the holes in my jeans the ones you draw through, and that I smile at the next day. Where bones and flowers weave and grow together, And the trunks of trees crutch themselves on their flaws, But we don’t see it any differently than it is – because it simply is. It’s where we met, remember, and where we’ll meet again, And where I’m sure we’ve met before, And where I hope we’ll always meet, When I can no longer knock at your door.