After and during

reading and inadvertently bleeding ink upon

‘A Gentle Breeze, Graveyard, Dulcimer  (Soyokaze, Hakaba Darushima)’

by Shuntaro Tanikawa

Inspired to chime

with a Tanikawa signed

prose gem to hand

and

with fountain pen poised gently

in the other

my so suddenly ham fisted

unthinking sneeze

covered and twisted jet-black ink

upon

a preciousness of Graveyard Breeze

to darkly spit and yet to dream

such aimless scrawl upon Dulcet face

confirms to me once and for all

my

lowly grovelling snivelling place

within Shuntaro’s sweet neat world

of

simplicity, immediacy and poetic grace.