Suzanne Hayasaki Poems

In a dream within a dream
I stood alone on a beach.
As I looked up at the night sky,
The full moon unhinged itself and took flight.
...

Float me down the Thames
Past centuries of history
Show me the dome that Wren built
Row me past the Globe!
...

Let me burn somewhere deep in your heart
Like a live ember buried in the ashes of our past.
Let my heat rekindle the passions of your youth
When middle age weighs you down with its ugly truths.
...

An old woman sits on a folding chair
Outside a dilapidated shop with peeling paint
Talking on her phone in bellicose sing-song tones
That sound alien to me but like home to someone.
...

Here I stand
On this rocky piece of land
Head to the wind
Calf to my lee
...

I stood between two trees,
Each wreathed in paper streamers,
Marking them as sacred
In the Shinto tradition.
...

If summer is a lusty brother,
He is also a slothful one,
Lingering far longer
Than he is wanted
...

Shall I remind you of those summer nights
When we were young and I without renown
And we would meet out past the city lights
And I would spread a blanket on the ground.
...

Go ahead.
Make us wait.
Leave your musicians on the stage
While you change your clothes
...

If sentences are journeys,
Then poems are expeditions
Into the unknown reaches
Of the jungles, the deserts,
...