love « Yuri Kageyama

LOVE SIMPLY a love poem by Yuri Kageyama

LOVE SIMPLY a love poem by Yuri Kageyama

The poem as sung by Miho Ryu with music arranged and performed by Toshiyuki Turner Tanahashi.

Love Simply

To be near hurts

To be far hurts, too

Love simply hurts

To live hurts

To die hurts

Love simply hurts

Watching you die

Hurts even more

Love simply hurts

To know you hurts

To have known you hurts

Love simply hurts

But to not know you,

Not hurt for you

Is simply not a choice

Love simply hurts

A rendition by Teru Kawabata with his singing and guitar. August 2025.

This poem, now lyrics to a song, was written in 2023. It is still developing, but I feel it has come full circle. It still makes me cry. My love is still so very real and, I know, eternal, which means the pain will never go away. It is overwhelming and frightening. But I now know many people feel this way. It is a feeling that comes only with someone you truly love. The wonderful thing is that I was able to show him my poem. He just said, “I feel loved.” The look he had on his face was like a child, totally fulfilled and happy. And what else is a poem meant to do?

I read “Love Simply” with music by Jackson on drums and Teru singing and playing guitar of the music he wrote at an open-mic in Tokyo Oct. 5, 2025. Thanks for having us and being such a fun crowd.

I read my poem “Love Simply” with Teruyuki Kawabata on guitar and Osaki Haniya, fellow poet and co-writer of “Continuously Poetry,” at Bar Gari Gari in Ikenoue, Tokyo, Sept. 19, 2025. Thanks to the Drunk Poets for having us.

The links to what is becoming a series of poems.

I read “Love Simply” with Teru at Infinity Books Oct. 11, 2025. Before I read, I told the people at the jam session that the poem was about my partner of more than 40 years, who died in April. I don’t think I ever said that in public about my poem. I also told them that I showed him the poem before he died, and he told me he felt loved. You know how you feel a bit drained, depressed even, after reading your work. But one young man who was there to jam told me he liked my poem, then said: “Your husband is one helluva lucky man.” That made it all worth it. And I thanked him.

The Bear _ a poem by Yuri Kageyama

The Bear _ a poem by Yuri Kageyama

It still sits crumply

With bit of a stunned look,

That first thing you bought for me

More than 40 years ago

“Into that little girl thing,” you said,

Like you were calling me out on a pretense

But you knew all along it was true

Like our love;

“I want you to live a full life,” you said.

Days, weeks, months,

Years from now after you’re gone

Piercing my heart,

Squeezing out tears,

The bear is still here,

Dry cleaned

Maybe just once or twice,

Watching me

Sitting prim

People say things have little meaning, and it’s just the person or the emotions that the thing reminds you of that have meaning. Sometimes they are one and the same thing because if you have something for more than 40 years, that certainly means something, and that thing has a meaning of its own. People leave, taking off from this world and going somewhere very far. But the thing stays. And it continues to tell us what that person means. Because that person never really leaves. He is always here, just like, or even more than, that thing. This is the fourth in a series that follows this third piece, which has a link that connects to the previous pieces.

ISAKU’S SONG FOR HIS FATHER

https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/UHpWS3a76U/

This is a song Isaku wrote for his father, “Sanctity,” featuring Sumie Kaneko on vocals.

あなたからの　贈りもの

遠く離れても　耳をすませば

私の大事な宝もの

か弱い鼓動　今は誇り

惜しむ間もなく　走れども

もう何も耐えることはない

てしおにかけた　我が子ども

もう何も迷うことはない

This is how I’ve translated the words into English:

This gift I got from you

Listen hard, even from afar

It’s my most precious gift

That faint beat is now my pride;

Before one even knows it, that passing of time,

There is nothing to bear anymore,

That child, you raised with all this love,

There is no uncertainty anymore

From “Katari Vol. 2 Stories from Japan” by Isaku Kageyama 2025.

YOUR ROOM _ a poem by Yuri Kageyama

YOUR ROOM _ a poem by YURI KAGEYAMA

The door is open

It still smells like you

So sweet

Strange how I don’t remember

Your smelling so sweet

I let it air out

I don’t want the smell to fade

But to let you have some fresh air

This is the third part in a series, which has the link connecting to the earlier pieces. The link to the piece that follows this one.

FEELING LOVED _ a poem by Yuri Kageyama

FEELING LOVED _ a poem by Yuri Kageyama

You would tug at my elbow,

Meaning No,

When I stared too long at a good-looking guy,

To be fair, you would never gawk at beautiful women,

Although you might have been doing it when

I wasn’t looking.

You lived up to that Ideal,

The perfect faithful husband,

At least in that way, which

Makes you a good guy,

Despite all your failings

In other ways.

Because that is what love is:

Doing everything that makes the person you love

Feel

Loved

And not doing anything that might make that person you love

Not

Feel

Loved.

You said as you lay dying:

“I feel loved.”

And I knew I had done good.

In our Love.

This is the second installment in a series, which follows the first installment “What Do You Think?” These poems will be part of a bigger piece I am working on about Japanese American men. I don’t have a title for either the series or the bigger piece yet. Go to this link for the next piece that follows this piece.

what do you think? a poem by Yuri Kageyama

what do you think?

a poem by Yuri Kageyama

what do you think?

it’s a trick question

what do you think?

with a right answer

what do you think?

not at all open-ended

what do you think?

as it might seem

what do you think?

it’s asking do you really love me?

do you truly understand?

what do you think?

the answer isn’t fixed

just a right answer, and a wrong

what do you think?

i love you so much

what do you think?

and long after we’re all gone

what do you think?

that big question is still there

what do you think?

This is the first piece in a still untitled series. Continue to this link for the rest of the series.

FEARLESS AT 90 a poem by Yuri Kageyama

FEARLESS AT 90 a poem by Yuri Kageyama

I am fearless at 90

Wrinkles deep as the Nile

Hair translucent spiderwebs

Varicose veins throbbing blood

A map of fate on a carcass of skin

I am fearless at 90

I rap poetry with my dentures

Jazz dance with my wobbly knees

I rock like Jimi Hendrix

We Boomers invented Revolution

I am fearless at 90

I’m so close to the pearly gates

I’m on speaking terms with the angels

I’m so near-sighted I read minds

My fungus breath slays dragons

I am fearless at 90

My wheelchair zips Ferrari-style

My voice resonates five octaves low

My cane duplicates as a samurai sword

My hearing aid just blocks out noise

I am fearless at 90

I have no appointments to keep

No bosses to please

No dates to impress

No one can put me down

I am fearless at 90

I barely remember what’s up or down

Or who is where anymore;

Beyond gender, race, class,

Or even age

I am fearless at 90

My skin like washi paper

My fingers gnarled like a witch

I am neither man nor woman

White, black, brown or yellow.

I am just 90, and fearless:

Those days are long gone,

Not trusting anyone over 30,

I’ve given birth to a thousand children

And have a million grandchildren

I am fearless at 90

Although death is around the corner,

I’ve seen war and peace

Endured abuse to survive;

Don’t expect or need respect

I’m proud to be fearless at 90

^___<

Note from the poet:

I am not yet 90, but I feel this way and wrote this poem.

When I’m 90, I will write my real fearless at 90 poem.

The poem was published in the Winter 2024 issue of KONCH MAGAZINE.

A Letter to Isaku

A Letter to Isaku

This came from a corner of my desk when I was cleaning up recently. It’s a letter I wrote to Isaku as part of a school requirement. I still like this letter, and I will keep it.

Spring 1998

Isaku

When you were still unborn, you were already someone I knew very well. I could feel you thinking inside my stomach, sucking on your thumb, looking at your tiny toes, jumping with surprise _ with me _ when something startling happened, like a dog barking out of the blue.

I hope I don’t embarrass you with this letter, which Brother John O’Donnell tells me you will have to read before your schoolmates. But I would like you to know that I love you very much. And nothing will change that, ever.

These days, I feel you are sometimes unsure about your future. That’s understandable. Like other Sophomores, you are still so young, yet important decisions are coming up on you fast.

Having two nationalities, two cultures and languages may seem a bit confusing, but it merely opens up more choices for you. You don’t have to close the doors of opportunity too hastily. You have plenty of time. Be strong and believe in yourself, although it is OK to be weak, and you are not alone. Many people, including your teachers and friends who care about you, are there to help you.

I hope you do your best in your studies and try to grow up to be a fine young man. The world is a beautiful place, but it is filled with many problems and needs young people like you to care and at least give it a good try to bring about a change for the better.

I thank God every day for making you part of my life. I thank God for keeping you safe.

It is only after becoming a mother and watching you gradually grow into adulthood that I finally know why God chose to come to us as a little boy who grew up among us. He knew that would make it so easy for us to love Him. It seems such a very simple and so obvious a fact, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.

Have a good retreat,

Mom

HAIKU FOR MY FATHER by Yuri Kageyama

HAIKU FOR MY FATHER by Yuri Kageyama

A dead man’s desk

Snacks he’s forbidden to eat

Magic tricks for grandchildren

My father died in his 70s, a big man with big ambitions, prone to cruelty and violence but just as quick with his brilliance, generosity and humor. He calmed down a bit with age. And it was natural he was far more loved by his grandchildren, who found him just hilarious, than by his daughters, who had found him oppressive. His desk upstairs had to be cleaned out after he died. My mother found bags of treats like nuts and kakinotane he was secretly eating, because his doctors had put him on a strict diet for his heart condition. She also found toy magic tricks he had also bought secretly and had been practicing to impress his grandchildren. They adored him, played games, ran around outside with him, going fishing or going on goofy rides at a tiny park. They would laugh and laugh with this old roly-poly man, who was really just one of them, never mind he was a former NASA engineer and university professor. My mother used to say my father always acted as though he couldn’t care less if his grandchildren visited or not. She wondered why he would say such an obviously untruthful thing. That was my father, too proud and too big and strong to admit to any weakness, like missing his grandchildren. There is nothing as heartbreaking as love because even love must come to an end with death. But love that can’t be expressed openly, and must be stashed away like magic tricks in the drawer of a desk. I don’t know what to call such love. But it is love.

No Tears _ a poem by Yuri Kageyama

No Tears
a poem by Yuri Kageyama

We do not weep, scream, even whimper,

Too scared to speak out;

Tears seek sniffles of sympathy,

Pleas want cuddles of resolution.

Born into darkness with no escape

We stay silent.

“Mama, I’m sorry, mama,”

Is not Something we say.

We drink in all those words

Like the salty tears we do not taste;

Just wait in fear,

Filled with hatred.

And the blind groping for justice,

The secret tongue-biting vow of revenge;

We we do not ask for pity,

We do not cry.