Japan

Four More

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Alright – here we go.

I’ve got one day and too many poems to write. Here are a few, and I’ll post a few more tomorrow.

4.17

I’m working with a calm heart and hot hands.
I’ve got undressing on my mind.
I’ve got skin to ruin.
I’m collecting my thoughts sequentially.
I’m breathing, breathing.
I’ve settled my actions.
I’ve unleashed my mind.
I’m calm.
I’m ravenous.

4.18

Putting a rhyme in the middle of a sentence
Throws off the time and the beat of the poem
Stuck hitting lines that create expectations
How the brain pines for that matching set of sounds
Sensing a path in the rhythm and the cadence
Facing the wrath of an uncompleted couplet
Perhaps without knowing you’ve already discovered
You’re already flowing making breaks of your own

4.19

On the banks of the Tsurumi
Fuji fading into shadow
I’ll let you listen to me
Dream about tomorrow

Fell behind. Must catch up…

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Well, ok, I got sickish.

Then I had work and it all just started tumbling away from me. I’m nine days off, but I have nine more days to make up for it. If I do two or three a day, I should be caught up.

Luckily for you readers, I have been scribbling poems down on paper!

Also I’m working on an epic poem as a bit of joke for a British friend of mine. More on that later!

4.13 Bitch on a Train

Your instincts told you that the foreigner wouldn’t know to pounce.
Safe in your prejudices.
Fool.
Know what you did not anticipate?
This foreigner has been riding the rails for months.
I’ve lost my fear.
I’ve lost my patience.
That seat is mine.
I claimed it ten stops ago.
You may want it,
But you won’t get it.
Sorry, Junior.
You snooze.
You lose…that seat.

4.14 Sakura Philosophy

Sakura season is but a breath of spring
A flippancy, a dalliance, the barest floral fling
Two weeks tops of cherry blooms under which we dine
Staring up at flowers while drinking sweet plum wine.

Such times seem held in stasis as though to last forever
And yet the trees are stripped with the barest hint of weather
Seeming snow-capped branches shaken by a forceful gale
Spring begins by shaking off the prettiest of veils.

Perhaps that is the lesson that we are meant to learn
That we are the like the buds that bloom and fall in turn
So take heart, my blossoms, that spring will come and then
Upon our fall new sakura will burst into bloom again.

4.7, 4.8, and 4.9 for Good Measure

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The past few days, I’ve been toying with free-form verses that have a vaguely hip-hop aesthetic. I’m usually terrible at this, but then that’s the point of practicing, right? And that would be the point of this monthlong endeavor – to practice stretching out muscles and learning some new tricks!

Enjoy!

Post-Booze Brainstorm (4.7)

Buzzed with booze, a brain
Firing neurons terrified to lose
The wisdom of cups and relaxed blood flow
Is not done thinking
Chasing the siren song to dawn
Tied to the mast of exhaustion
Sinking in the unknown

Falling in Rain (4.8)

In Japan, it rains so heavily,
umbrellas are barely a remedy,
Rainfall patters out a melody where
I fall like a drop into reverie
Mess with the rhyme scheme
and pay a heavy penalty.
Soon words wild in anarchy
Make forms flown to thunderstorm cacophony
Little April showers ripped of all their piety
Best use that umbrella to fend off your anxiety
Lest you run down gullies of depravity
And settle into puddles of stagnant mediocrity.

Grey day Walking (4.9)

My mind is a Jane Eyre grey
Pinched in, cinched in every way
Until my voice goes quiet
And I lose the need to speak
People become my visual cues
Not to cross the streets
Muted eyes rest on blind sights
Unable to recognize my own fights
With attic-dwelling feelings
And a hollowed chest sounds a lone note
Suggesting fiery heights
Of deeper meaning
Lost in the repetition of day-to-day pattern
I do not wonder or wander, yet I do yearn
And hear the premonition
That the destruction of my worldly goods
Signal a break from Jane Eyre grey
And the woulds, coulds, and shoulds
Give way to brighter days.

Sakura Haikus….Part 1?

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Sakura Haikus…Part 1? (4.3)

Sakura sending
Friends into a frenzy of
Instagram photos

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Under the blossoms
Spring up gardens of people
Faces turned upward

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These weeks in Japan
Of well-organized madness
For tiny flowers

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My supermarket
Has a sakura section
Tents, blankets, and booze

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Stopping at each tree
At this rate we will never
Get to work on time

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Each blossom must fall
Fragile, fragrant, and fleeting
Treasure the moment

Haikus: In Yokohama

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In Yokohama
The bats dive spinning for bugs
The spiders hold still

In Yokohama
Umbrellas are art pieces
When the sun is out

In Yokohama
Fish is cheap and plentiful
Cheese is exotic

In Yokohama
The shadow of Tokyo looms
Urban tsunami

Cosmopolitan
Brushing up against the shore
In Yokohama