Yoko's Dogs: Four Collaborations

The Sphinx Moth’s Riddle

she’s never met the wife

yet knows the husband’s garden

today he thinks

his male nurse is a novelist

he rejected

Nabokov was also famous

as a lepidopterist

in the greenhouse

with a torch—

night-blooming cereus

the answer to the sphinx moth’s riddle is

not man

***

Li Po

in a boat, very tipsy

Li Po tries to kiss

the moon and drowns

not dead after all

a branch of the plum tree blossoms

***

Ukiyo-e

dusk —

ferns and cedar in the rockface

shading the railbed

a bit of chaff on the print

still damp from the woodblock

she serves rice

from the steam table

arm wrapped in a towel

the bowl's empty

Basho sleeps in a windowless room

***

Sturgeon Moon

the laundry out to dry

then in —

summer rain

the whole valley heard about

the ruckus in the henhouse

bear scat loaded with saskatoons

by Wolverine Creek

I’m not afraid

my cabin among laurel
deep in the forest

sturgeon moon —

my father wakes

in his recliner

alder leaves drying in shade

on the hot beach

my lunch an overripe peach

I take two plums

from a basket

they were so sweet

and so cold

"Ukio-e" and "Sturgeon Moon" are from Yoko's Dogs' 

first book, Whisk (Pedlar Press, 2013)

"The idea for Yoko's Dogs came about in 2006 around a small tin table in Montreal when the four of us, living in different places and time zones, got together and decided to explore collaboration as a way of expanding our individual practice. Over the first few months we wrote and revised, and wrote some more; read and studied and discussed the traditions of Japanese-style linked verse, all via email. We chose a system of composition and eventually decided that for readers the mechanics of this system should disappear, the way forms for moulded concrete are knocked away once the work is finished."  
... more about Yoko's Dogs 

Jane Munro: Excerpts from "Old Man Vacanas" (Blue Sonoma, Brick Books, 2014)

 from “OLD MAN VACANAS”

1

The old man

to whom I’m married

hits the sack again

after breakfast.

A black bear

out in the rain

on Blueberry Flats.

Is it too wet

to hibernate? The muddy creek

burgeoning.

By lunch, he’s up.

The sky’s no lighter – candles

with our tea.

Tell me, can a soul

fatten up for winter?

***

5

The old man who picks up the phone

does not get your message.

Call again.

Please call again.

The cats leave squirrel guts

on the Tibetan rug.

Augury I cannot read.

You’ve got to talk with me.

I scrape glistening coils

into a dust pan,

spit on drops of blood and spray ammonia.

The blood spreads into the white wool.

I am so sick of purring beasts.

Don’t tempt me, old man.

Today I have four arms

and weapons in each hand.

***

6

If you want to know the way

out here,

I’ll tell you.

Drive and drive.

The road goes up and down, to and fro.

If you want to come visit,

I’ll invite you.

My old man won’t know

the difference

between you and billy-be-damned.

He’s been wearing out old thoughts—

holes now in plenty.

Fewer in his drawers.

And he’s not keen on new ones.

We lay the bricks of conversation.

Block one. Block two.

Small. Tidy.

Start again.

Solid. Reassuring.

Four windowless walls.

Roar up the drive. Spit gravel. Blow your horn.

I am gnawing through myself.

***

8

My old man

oh, my old man, oh my

old man

is lean

as a wooden spoon

stirring batter

that folds

around it the way

at his waist

a softness drapes.

He sleeps on his back,

straight as a broom.

He sleeps on his side,

curled like a cat.

He sleeps with the heater going

and a T-shirt on.

My old man likes

to catch some zzzzzzzs.

***

11

The old man

takes his choppers out

when chicken sticks to them.

He parks them in a glass

of blue fizz.

DNA from fossil bones

tells us we’re siblings to Neanderthals—

and the small arrangements

we make? Language, travel, art? Props

in a little, local, theatre of light.

Blue Sonoma  (Brick, 2014. 45 – 55)

Jane Munro's sixth and newest collection, Blue Sonoma (Brick Books, 2014), was awarded the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize. Her previous books include Active Pass (Pedlar Press, 2010), Point No Point (McClelland & Stewart, 2006) and Grief Notes & Animal Dreams (Brick Books, 1995). Her work has received the Bliss Carman Poetry Award, the Macmillan Prize for Poetry, been nominated for the Pat Lowther Award, and is included in The Best Canadian Poetry 2013. Munro is a member of the collaborative poetry group Yoko's Dogs whose first book, Whisk, was published by Pedlar Press in 2013. She lives in Vancouver.      .... about Jane Munro    ....  about Yoko's Dogs