Scott Watson: Three Poems

Photo by the Denver Post

Scott Watson in Sendai, Japan, sends along regular missives, updates and poems.  Some highlight grim news; others, such as one I received last week, contain some of his fine work which often challenges us all to look deep and hard within ourselves.  I was delighted when he granted me permission to share these with you.



Three poems from Scott Watson

securing a world against itself

police use clubs, flash bombs, hoses,

tear gas, guns. a world’s secret needs

securing, a world as it is, a world

that this way keeps itself.

neither violence nor nonviolence

change a world much. a world free

of itself is a free world.

OCCUPYING MYSELF


i’m preoccupied by

the way things are

before there was a me.


the world and not the

world. it does as i do,

lives as i live, dies.

IN THE PEN


we are arrested, imprisoned by a world, in a

world, from birth. some of us try to escape. some

demand reforms. some support harsh crackdowns

and death. i’m given a pen to celebrate life.

i’m armed against life with a pen.

                                               - Scott Watson


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This week's featured poem comes from the Lilliput archive, issue #103.  Kitty Marie Sciotto's fine poem reminded me of another by Bashō, which I've included here, along with a 3rd by Issa to wrap things up or, more precisely, unwrap them.  Enjoy.

waitress
pushing back damp hair
in mid-step

Kitty Marie Sciotto

Wrapping dumplings in 
bamboo leaves, with one finger 
she tidies her hair  

Bashō

rice dumpling in bamboo grass--
skillfully the cat
unwraps it

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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