Poetry Challenge 2026
I was invited by some poets in Japan to join an online project where we write a poem every day of the year. The same theme is assigned for everyone for each day. Today’s was “reset.” I decided to write my first poem of 2026 as haiku. And so here goes:
HAIKU FOR RESET
by Yuri Kageyama
Jan. 1, 2026
Pain loss empty love
It’s still here live it
YOUR JACKET
by Yuri Kageyama
Jan. 2, 2026
Alone
I sit here,
And you have left your jacket
The blue jeans jacket
With the golden snap buttons _ and the one that is missing
_ with the zipper zipping up and down on the shoulders, the
pockets, the arms _
Then discover, caught in one, your hair _ black, black
and long _ a wavy dark thread
Too big, the sleeves hang limp over my hands;
I am in your jacket, in you _ almost _
Almost the way you feel so good against and inside of me
I’m covered
By the cast skin of your skin
Like the dry brown shells that
Yellow butterflies leave
behind
I smell your smell
They way a baby smiles
inside
The Mother’s arms _
thick and soft and
there
always, always _
I will sleep with your jacket _
cuddle it, feeling it under my palms, kiss it, tell it my dreams
I smell your smell, resting my cheek against a sleeve
I smell your smell
breathing deep
and deeper
I miss and wish it were
you
But your jacket has fallen asleep
quietly
Next to me.
This is a poem I wrote some time back so it is about young love. I decided I still like this poem and so I didn’t change a word. It’s wonderful this challenge made me remember the poem, all of a sudden. It took some rummaging through stacks of books and drawers that hadn’t been opened in ages, but I did find it, published in a literary magazine called Women Talking Women Listening, out of California. Now this poem is reborn, online. I am so happy. Today’s theme was “jacket.”
ZEN
by Yuri Kageyama
Jan. 3, 2026
Close your eyes
Forget
Those grudges
You will never forget
Even those
You’ve long forgotten
Like old cotton fog
Burn a single stick of incense
Preferably
The one that smells like lavender
But is deep orange in color
Take a deep breath
Wipe out those faces, those voices, those aches,
Slaps, kicks, abuse, ridicule, words and thoughts that hurt
Hurled not at others by you
But by others to you
And now forget about you
Or anyone else
Your children
Your grandchildren
Including those you never had
The love of your life
You had that
And let nothingness seep in
Like that old cotton fog
Except
Now
It’s clear
Invisible
And nothing matters
CHAOS
by Yuri Kageyama
Jan. 4, 2026
The House on Second Avenue
The shutters are always banging
A drum machine keeping time
Down the block from Eddie Moore’s house
Around the corner from Russel Baba’s house
^-<
The House on Second Avenue
Robert Kikuchi Yngojo from San Jose
And Duke Santos, a conga player who’s also a
Paramedic saving lives on the ambulance,
Live in the basement rooms
^-<
The House on Second Avenue
Rickety wooden stairs lead to our doorway,
We’re upstairs, you and me,
With Aileen, who plays the qin,
And Richard, who’s white and gay
^-<
The House on Second Avenue
We share the kitchen, bathrooms, our dreams,
Not a care in the world except for Truth,
Justice, John Coltrane;
Musicians, dancers, poets
^-<
The House on Second Avenue
We could walk to Golden Gate Park
Or down to Clement Street
We’d sit for hours over coffee and a croissant
And run into Randy Senzaki’s wife strolling their son
^-<
The House on Second Avenue
Birds taking flight in a buzzing hushed whirl
From that tree right outside our window
Doves, you’d call them,
Though I knew they’re just pigeons
^-<
The House on Second Avenue
Where magic brewed and ceilings shook,
In time to the downbeat during rehearsals
And to promises of forever at night,
All shrugged off like the breaths we took
BOOK
by Yuri Kageyama
Jan. 5, 2026
Let’s read a book together, Mommy
You would say in that sweet little child voice
Eric Carle, Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak
Margaret Wise Brown
That faraway smell of paper with ink
We breathe in together as we turn the pages
Your warm body snuggled next to mine
Bedtime story time
That daily ritual
Like the morning cereal with “mook”
Our adventures gliding on the stroller
We forget when it ended
Just the way I was never sure
When you’d fallen asleep
IMPOSTER
by Yuri Kageyama
Jan. 6, 2026
We laugh at the jokes
Ride the bus standing still
Show up at the office
Read emails
Take a lunch break
After the Zoom
A shadow
Lining the landscape
Never questioning
No matter how illiterate or inane
Devoted to being normal
Uncontested, conforming, proven
Making sure
That deadly darkness
Never shows
Except in poetry
Scribbled in secret
Like silent gems
CONVERSATION
by Yuri Kageyama
Jan. 7, 2026
My recent poem “What Do You Think” is perfect for today’s word, “Conversation.” And the perfect song below by Ryu Miho.
https://on.soundcloud.com/azCKDBweZ4iSsd57xs
MASTERPIECE
by Yuri Kageyama
Jan. 8, 2026
Years ago, I went to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Today, I saw the works again in Tokyo. I once asked my partner if Van Gogh was happy having all these people gawking at his works, likely for the wrong reasons. And he assured me Van Gogh was happy.
Alien
by Yuri Kageyama
Jan. 9, 2026
Ching Chong Chinaman
Sitting on a fence
That sing-song taunt
That face in your face
Skin stretched way back
Till eyes are slanted slits
The freckled boy
Spits out that word
Laughing on the school bus
I had to come home and
Ask my father
What it meant: Jap
EMERGENCY
by Yuri Kageyama
Jan. 10, 2026
The ground shook and shook
On that day, March 11, 2011,
For a very long time
The earth was heaving madly
It felt like everything was ready to end
But that was just the beginning
Smoke spewed on the TV news
As reactors sank into meltdowns
In the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl
LULLABYE
by Yuri Kageyama
Jan. 11. 2026
Neeen nen Okohrori Okohroriyoooo
Booya wa Iiikoda Neeen ne Shi nah
You would always start crying
When I sang that old lullabye
Not crying sad
But just soooooo moved
Though you probably didn’t
Understand the words
It’s a feeling
Handed down generations
Over starry nights
From the Edo Era
No one remembers the writers
But all mothers sing
That mother of songs
So hushed you can barely hear it
You are so precious
You are a good boy
We have so much to do tomorrow
But let’s go to sleep now