Brandon Shimoda
from Lake M
Soul-ships mirage
maiden masts flood
larks the valley
beacons shine
the horned masks
floating
benignant brides cast
baleful
by the light of aging men
Sori steamed
on blackened glass
layer the inadvert cenobite
ships turn
blue fur in the spectral light
animals devouring sailcloth
inspissate — waves
the rhythm of the white cloth
lain across corse faith
bunched wharves of breathings’ oil
“and how could the buildings
in silhouette
“surrounded by a vermilion fence
“with sac — red stream
“tied to sakaki boughs “fail
•
white aspens
suspecting
a trace /
trembling / airy ground
minutely, the impressionable earth
The marks you leave
inverted warts on mines
only those on the coast
on tender arms
•
Everyone waited for the flowers to rise
through two thousand feet of snow
towards the vibrating wires
They waited for a cold century
levied friend and nation
for the first inflorescence, but
the flowers did not rise
snow spread a tumulus
the flowers curled the bottomland
stirring the dark, redoubtable weight
of two thousand pacing feet
Wires cast thinly on the field
slack, untapped and frozen
•
memorial
cut to the oleum
gentian in the mud
singing insects climb their blades
in the wake bells, bridle
grounds closed for the night, serrated
stridulating dark
fire and observer work
a lambent guest
shawling falls on lag gravel
tumescent sings
her answer, her answer, her answer is
from O Bon
the Inland Sea
long tress
let down
from the ship of war
to the indomitable wave
how many blooms per crest
warming the katana hilt
tapers brush the surface of the water
the helm by the hair
half faces
leather and iron
scalp
shut
in the vault
the crests
crimson
Brandon Shimoda was born on the west coast and raised on the east coast. He is the author of Lake M, One (Corollary Press, 2007), as well as writings appearing in Practice: New Writing + Art, Xantippe, Aufgabe, Verse, Pilot Poetry, and elsewhere. He teaches at the University of Montana and curates the New Lakes reading and performance series, in Missoula, where he currently lives.