My AP Stories for 2021 are below. Please click on the highlighted links to read my AP Stories, and to go to My AP Stories for 2020, and My AP Stories for 2019 and 2018:
My AP Story July 30, 2021 about the Tokyo Olympics collecting lots of spit in an effort to curb COVID.
A great “memory shot” by Kii Sato of where I did a video interview for The AP on the Olympic opening ceremony. It was just across the street but because of blocked off traffic I had to make a giant detour and was drenched in sweat when I finally got there. But Yes, I did the interview!
I interviewed the Blue Impulse pilot and the youngster who ran with the torch-runner for this AP Story July 30, 2021 about memories of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
My AP Story July 2, 2021 on the Americans accused in the escape of Carlos Ghosn. Michael Taylor, choking over tears, told the court: “I stand here today a man whose life has been destroyed because of this.”
My AP Photo and My AP Story March 5, 2021 and AP Interview with the chief defense lawyer for Greg Kelly on trial in Japan on charges related to Carlos Ghosn’s compensation.
My AP Story March 2, 2021 explaining what might be ahead for the American father and son being extradited to Japan on suspicion of helping Carlos Ghosn skip bail and escape to Lebanon.
My AP Story March 1, 2021 on the prime minister’s PR chief resigning after lavish meal tied to broadcaster.
My AP Story Feb. 26, 2021 on Japan partially ending the state of emergency, while keeping it for the Tokyo area.
I’m a contributor to this AP Story Feb. 12, 2021, the day Mori is expected to officially resign.
I’m a contributor to this AP Story Feb. 4, 2021 about a Japanese Olympic official facing calls for resignation after a remark apparently belittling women.
My AP Story Jan. 4, 2021, a co-byline with our AP Sports Writer, on pandemic worries looming as the countdown clock for the postponed Tokyo Olympics hits 200 days to go.
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
Graves are always There
for those Who are still
Alive to Forgive
Accept Reconcile.
They don’t Speak Back.
They don’t expect much
because
they are ready
to be Forgotten
if not
really already
Forgotten.
So when You
Go There, You
will Be Forgiven:
Grave are Gifts
from the Dead
for the Living.
At a temple in Toyokawa, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Photo by Yuri Kageyama.
An excerpt from Story of Miu (a performance piece in the works)
By Yuri Kageyama
You are curled up tight, in fetal position, eyes still closed but seeing red blindness, throbbing flesh, still alive, deep inside our stomachs so entrenched within us but also disjointed and expanding like our pain and like all the solar systems in the universe.
I was already there in that moment. We shared in that secret of knowing you will someday be born, before anyone else knew, and then grow up and become man _ or woman _ with a yelping gasping flash-of-light wail, the newborn’s cry in that first breath, and recognizing from the very start that you will someday have this same joy and same pain, growing inside you and being born.
It doesn’t matter that you will make towers. You will make music. You will make computer programs. You will make money. You will make babies.
It doesn’t matter that you will be a pillar of society. You will be an outcast. You will win rewards. You will be abused as a stranger.
It doesn’t matter that you will witness a great northern earthquake, although it is a once-in-a-century disaster setting off a torrent of outraged water that turns farmland into mud, buildings and homes into rubble, and quiet untouched happy towns into ghost towns covered with radiation.
I was there, with you, before it all _ in that redness and blackness and all seeing blindness that was here and everywhere, bleeding and beating and breathing and being, inside my uterus, that spot near my navel that connects with your navel, before and even after your newborn cry.
This is the same cosmos inside the bodies of all mothers, where we fall in our slumber, snuggling against our blankets, the safe and eternal place we visit that are called dreams after we awaken.
This is the same cosmos in the resonance of the giant taiko drum, shaking and deafening, but we hear and understand every note like our mother’s heartbeat.
The otherworldly world that awaits behind the mirror in a Tadanori Yokoo painting, the crooked road not taken behind the church in a Vincent Van Gogh painting _ a world from this end we fear might be the Michelangelo hell of a nuclear meltdown with faces and arms peeled, stunted and melted by an erring god scientists will never admit was provoked by anything other than a mother’s mistake, or else it could smell like lotuses and incense and candles, sinking into a Claude Monet lake of sheer light and blindness that is canvas and museum walls no more but total artist’s vision.
This is the same cosmos where ghosts with long black hair reside, sometimes standing besides riverside willow trees weeping about their lovers’ betrayal, and at other times mysteriously saving children from car crashes as benevolent all-knowing ancestors.
After all these years, I finally know this is where I return when I die.
To be with you again, all the time, in that moment of eternity that is before birth, so perfectly connected we don’t need to speak or breathe or remember.
This is what death feels like a poem by Yuri Kageyama
it is the end
you are gone
no more
it is only a dream so i
decide this must be what death is like
not your death, but my own
it is the end
you are gone
no more
my throat is hot with weeping
my eyes are blind from searching for you
my heart is bleeding with emptiness
it is the end
you are gone
no more
how can i keep on living
knowing only this waits ahead, i can’t,
this certain separation, this death
it is the end
you are gone
no more
but wait, this calm i own
when you are here now, close by,
or not so close, but somewhere
it is the end
you are gone
no more
this is what death feels like
i am always close to you, total, perfect
and it doesn’t matter
it is the end
you are gone
no more