Tokyo Correspondence: Notes From a Writer Beyond the Headlines
I kept a blog from 2007 before I started this site in 2011. Here’s the link below. I’m also sharing after this TEPCO CORRESPONDENCE: Notes From a Writer Beyond the Headlines. Those are my posts on Facebook in 2011, while I was covering the utility behind the Fukushima nuclear disaster. It’s amazing to run across bits of your past self _ and what you wrote then. Both so clearly you and not you at all. Yet totally the truth. And all that makes you you.
I usually don’t write poetry in Japanese, but I wrote this. And now, looking back, I realize I’ve written Japanese rap. I am going to make this part of the rap section of my song “Nothing Happens.”
THE RIVER _ a poem in the spirit of Hart Crane _ byYuri Kageyama
THE RIVER _ a poem in the spirit of Hart Crane _ byYuri Kageyama
Katsushika Hokusai’s hawks Still eye this Sumida River Crying their fue whistles Echoing music on scuttling boats, Carrying workers, travelers, modern-day geisha _ Some rickety, faded lanterns dangling, Other ships are futuristic tubes of glass; The torrents are dark with the wind, Torn dreams of star-crossed lovers Jumping tied by cloth as one From the Kachidoki Bridge No longer a draw-bridge, separating at the center, The winding waves glisten in tips of white Like the wings of seagulls that flutter Only during the fall and winter seasons,
In the rain, darting sideways sumi strokes, Tiny people scamper across the landscape The O-Edo “salarymen” and the “office lady” O-Ls Faceless, hustling proletarian lives Clasping sheer convenience-store umbrellas Not the woven straw hats of the past Tokyo Tower to the left Sky Tree to the right Stirring distant eternal visions, Swimming in the Seine, Sumida’s Sister River, And Van Gogh’s deranged mind, Sashaying to the ocean and the connecting skies, Where the sun sets again, Bleeding purple among wispy twisted clouds; And the River churns, Remembering glory, Knowing sin Through an anonymous city of lights
(II) The BIRDS
Kabuki’s answer to the Pelican The Flamingo, the Albatross, The Heron swoops through the sky Perches so perfectly on a pine _ Princess in mirrored waters;
The humble fish-gulping Cormorant Dives in muddy waters, Spreads battered wings to dry, In flight, freed from slavery _ Transforms, a gliding Black Swan;
The Sparrow plays, chirping staccatos, Small furs of speckled brownness, They play, always searching Like a lost forlorn child _ Unchanged from Issa’s poems.
(III) SIGNS OF LIFE _ A Poem and Not a List
Azure-winged Magpie Bobbling Lanterns Giggling Motorboats Baby Crabs, some are still Worms on the pavement, mostly still Fish are jumping, really But Seagulls mew like Cats And Monkeys slide on Dagwood Trees; Smell of Tsukudani, dead Rodents, Where Basho began his Journeys _ If We can feel the Words, A List turns Into A Poem: Zinnia Elegans Profusion Zinging Cicada Couples in Yukata Cotton Clouds After the Storm
(IV) HANABI (fireworks)
Fireworks at Ryogoku by Utagawa Hiroshige
Hiroshige had the idea Roses, wine glasses, mandalas Exploding big in the hot dark Psychedelic flowers blooming Over milling crowds of evil Drunken laughter Exclamations Aspirations of Smallness: I whisper to my blind friend: “It’s lovely like truth, Like forever.” Fragile glows bleed with neon Hanging low only for a moment Hiroshige had the idea
Sumida River fireworks
(V) POETIC MOMENTS
Let me create them Poetic moments A Ditch is a River Poetic moments The River is Vision Poetic moments Lost forever found Poetic moments Everywhere Poetic moments Nowhere Poetic moments Let me create them Poetic moments May I stay pure So I don’t miss them.
SUMIDAGAWA
隅田川 どぶかかわかは 浮世ビジョン
Sumida River Whether a ditch or river Ukiyo Vision
FAREWELL TO TSUKIJI
their fangs shimmer in the darkest of nights in multitudes like starving soldiers they make their run across downtown fur upon fur covering the cement, nails scratching, blocking the office lights, monstrous mice mewing, looking for the fish that is suddenly gone, as they once looked for the Pied Piper of Hamlin, the rats of Tsukiji are moving, not to Toyosu, where the ground is poison but into rich people’s homes to eat their steaks, greed and children; the rats blink with tiny golden unfeeling eyes, diamonds of stench, in time with the stars above
THE RETURN OF THE YURIKAMOME
I waited all summer For your return Flutters of petal Above the water Buddha’s wafting lily pads Your squawks swim the salty breeze Circling, swooping, dancing, They say birds vanish before an earthquake, A hurricane, an apocalypse; It matters not you don’t remember me Your playful swoops Silence screams of hate Your presence is comfort In this Atomic Age You are back: “I will not cry Except in love” _ I wrote those lines When I was very young, And they are still true As I die, You are back
An ode to the Asian Uncle Tom A Yuricane poem (or does power always turn evil?) by Yuri Kageyama
a painting collaboration by Munenori Tamagawa and Radio the Artist as Yuri Kageyama reads this poem written by Yuri Kageyama at What The Dickens in Tokyo Feb 4, 2018.
You sit prim with your glasses Behind that desk, title, resume Won on the backs of The 442 Purple Hearts Oblivious in your banal Banana-ism To the fact that Yellow is your Color The most expedient, forgotten, Cheapest of lives Hiroshima My Lai North Korea You sip white wine at ethnic restaurants New York, Tokyo, Dubai, Bangkok They all look alike Smiling in Instagram posts You have it made You have them duped You have arrived Never mind, in your deepest fearful solitary moments, You can’t help but pick out Just those Who look like you: Race suddenly a Reality; You must put them down, And make sure they stay down, Remain the invisible man, the invisible woman, Establish as Fact through rumors and appraisals That People of Color Can’t be objective, and, be careful, Get easily used, You can do the math _ as the stereotype goes _ The slots are limited, Tokenism being a zero sum game, Diversity cannot be the majority; You’ve long lost your ancestral accent You’ve adopted the air of leaders You’ve deleted memories Of how we were all shackled, We picked strawberries, We built the Transcontinental Railroad, We survived behind barbed wires, Instead You go to meetings, Rehearse video appearances, Take vacations to the Caribbean and Bali, Sneer at Chinese going shopping, Plan your retirement, Asian American Only to whites
Hozumi Nakadaira (with Hybrid Soul guitarist Chris Young at a Tokyo gallery, which recently had a retrospective show) has been taking photos of jazz musicians for decades. His photos of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and other legends are a documentation of history _ and gorgeous testaments to their art. He was one of the few who had bothered to take their photos _ legends making history. Only the musicians appreciated he was there, snapping away with so much creativity their moments of creativity. That’s amazing. What’s even more amazing, Nakadaira has never made any money off his photos. Making giant prints for exhibits is very expensive. He can’t sell them because they don’t fit in any homes. He sells smaller prints at a fraction of their cost at a several hundred dollars a piece, or replica post cards at cheaper prices even I can afford. They don’t make up for what he has had to spend on travel to take photos at concerts and clubs around the world. Nakadaira complains people don’t understand photography is art. They ask to borrow his negatives _ for free _ as though the fruit of hours of effort and talent and work of love is an accidental commodity at a push of a button that can be borrowed and returned. Nakadaira runs a cafe called “Dug” in Tokyo, where he used to have concerts by musicians you wouldn’t expect to hear up so close. But he had to stop the performances. His neighbors didn’t like “the noise.” He still doesn’t expect to make money from his photos _ those photos he takes carefully on old-fashioned film, those photos that have become album covers of famous artists, some taken right at Dug, transformed in his photo to a dramatic backdrop that claims its rightful place in the history of art, no longer a tiny, dark basement cafe. There is no money. But he won’t stop.
My son is lucky and should be proud in having in his grandfathers from both his maternal and paternal sides men who refused to fight on the wrong side of the war. His Japanese grandfather made a point of majoring in aeronautics at Nagoya University because that was the only way he could avoid the draft. He had studied English and loved baseball. He knew war with the U.S. was pointless and disastrous. He married a woman who worked at a hospital that her parents ran, watching victims of air raids bleed to death in the hallways before they could get treatment. When the emperor made his announcement of defeat over the radio, people crumbled on the ground and wept. But my parents were just relieved. When American soldiers stopped by the hospital, everyone was too afraid to go talk to them, and so my mother went and all they wanted were directions. Everyone else carried around little pills they were going to swallow to choose suicide over rape and death at the hands of the Americans. My son’s Japanese American grandfather was in the 442 and fought in Europe in World War II. He has a Purple Heart and many other medals for his bravery on the missions, including helping the liberation of Dachau. It was a huge embarrassment for the US that while Japanese Americans were risking their lives in a war to end concentration camps in Germany, they were putting Japanese Americans, many of them families of the soldiers, in Internment camps in the American desert that were far less lethal but no less discriminatory or wrong. My husband’s father had to leave his wife in Minidoka Camp. There has been no evidence of Japanese Americans having posed a security threat or engaged in any espionage or other crimes. In 1988, President Reagan issued an apology from the American government, and every Japanese American who had been interned received a redress check. The 442 is still the most highly decorated military unit in American history.
