Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private.
—Allen Ginsberg
Hiromi Yoshida’s work has been included in the INverse Poetry Archive, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, the Wilder Poetry Book Prize, the New Women’s Voices Poetry Prize, and the Gerald Cable Book Award. Her poetry chapbooks are Icarus Burning, Epicanthus, and Icarus Redux.
Welcome to the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey. Hiromi, what poems have you brought for us today?
Icarus Superstar
No longer the most distant
star from Earth—superseded
by Earendel, newly discovered. Yet,
Icarus remains
burning, a
blue supergiant,
larger and
brighter than the sun—
billions of light years away
from our blinking
eyes, unexpired specter.
Green Icarus slides into
blue along the slippery light spectrum—waxing toward red light districts of the mind reimagining corroded
pennies, and other tarnished tokens. Superstardom was
within Icarus’ coin-sized overreach till he became
the flipped bird
itself (subversive, obscene
signifier), drowning in the green
sea of envy, a superseded, scratched-
out asterisk.
Icarus Ekphrasis
In Louis Parson’s oil painting,
Icarus is already a ghost—
a white chalky form floating against
a night blue sky bleeding pink
rose petals and pearling stars
scratching away paintbrush errors
and after-thoughts beneath
dense layers of roiling
blue and rust-colored paint—
earth-colored wings to gird
the ghost bleeding his way out of Crete
before the cruel sunrise,
and the secret greening of
Aegean sea waves curling into frothy
roses beneath the ghostly
feet; pale vertical streaks streaming
from oversized wings, viscous
tears and eye wax; a flutter of
eyelashes and startled birds.
Icarus | Epicanthus
Black hair filament
hovering before my right eye—
DNA strand twisting a
tangled tango; blink, and un-
lock that algorithmic
dance; blink again, and chase
away that pesky black speck—
like burnt Icarus drifting,
hanging on the epicanthic edge
of my eyelid; shifting vitreous
floater.
You've been listening to the poems of Hiromi Yoshida on the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey.
