This is the official blog of Northern Arizona slam poet Christopher Fox Graham. Begun in 2002, and transferred to blogspot in 2006, FoxTheBlog has recorded more than 670,000 hits since 2009. This blog cover's Graham's poetry, the Arizona poetry slam community and offers tips for slam poets from sources around the Internet. Read CFG's full biography here. Looking for just that one poem? You know the one ... click here to find it.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Kyuubi no Kitsune

Kyuubi no Kitsune
(Nine-Tailed Fox)
12.3.09

She tells me of Kitsune
a nine-tailed trickster
in the shape of a fox
who slips into gentlemen’s homes
from Hokkaido to the Ryukyus
tells them tales
brings magic stories to their doorsteps
she holds them tightly in the night
until love binds them

the Greeks, too, had their nine
daughters each graced with a gift
to dispel on poets and playwrights
inspire the great works
and leave the men besmirched with laurels

as she loves the most secret parts of me
I wonder what mythology we’re living

I see nines in everything nowadays
the edges of maple leaves
the measure of minutes on the alarm clock
until I have to leave her
Saturday and Sunday have seemingly doubled in length
leaving me two more days to love her arms
in the morning dawn light
the tips of her foxtails slip out from beneath the sheets
fading into ether by the I find my glasses to catch them
and all the artistries
flow through my fingers when her warmth wraps around me
and demands that I create

this is some Grecian Zen monastic koan
to bleed my mind dry of superfluous thought
focus my attentions to the nexus of my world
leave my mind free to wander
sans distraction
sans intention
poetry tabula rasa

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I felt touched by your poem as I consider myself a foxy person.

I found it doing a research on Kitsune for a photographic project.

Could I use this poem for a narrative photo-story?
Where did you get your inspiration?
What do you know about Kitsune?

FoxThePoet said...

Feel free. Just give me a shout out. My inspiration is my girlfriend, Azami.

I'm a fan of mythology and folktales, especially about how to relate them to modern storytelling and poetry.