“Little YELLOW Slut” a poem by Yuri Kageyama at The Juke Joint in Tokyo.

“Little YELLOW Slut” a poem by Yuri Kageyama at The Juke Joint in Tokyo.

“Little YELLOW Slut,” a poem written and read by Yuri Kageyama with the YURICANE band featuring Musical Director Hirokazu Suyama (drums), Hiroshi Tokieda (bass) and Yuuichiro Ishii (guitar) in a performance for the second anniversary celebration of Writers’ Bloc, a group of Jamaican poets in Tokyo, at The Juke Joint in Tokyo, Dec. 15, 2013. Video by Biankah Bailey. Poem first published in KONCH MAGAZINE, Summer 2009 issue.

Little YELLOW Slut
a poem by Yuri Kageyama

You know her:
That Little YELLOW Slut, proudly gleefully
YELLOW-ly hanging on Big Master’s arm,
War bride, geisha,
GI’s home away from home,
Whore for last samurai,
Hula dancer with seaweed hair,
Yoko Ohno,
Akihabara cafe maid,
Hi-Hi Puffy Ami/Yumi,
Kawaiiii like keitai,
Back-up dancer for Gwen Stefani,
Your real-life Second Life avatar
Eager to deliver your freakiest fetish fantasies,
Disco queen, skirt up the crotch,
Fish-net stockings, bow-legged, anorexic, raisin nipples, tip-toeing Roppongi on
Stiletto heels.

Yessu, i spikku ingrishhu, i raikku gaijeeen, they kiss you,
hold your hand, open doors for me,
open legs for you, giggling pidgin, covering mouth,
so happy to be
Little YELLOW Slut.

Everybody’s seen her:
That Little YELLOW Slut, waiting at
Home, cooking rice, the Japanese
Condoleezza Rice,
Smelling of sushi,
Breath and vagina,
Fish and vinegar,
Fermented rice,
Honored to be
Cleaning lady,
Flight attendant for Singapore Airlines,
Charlie Chan’s Angel,
Nurse maid, gardener, Japan-expert’s wife,
Mochi manga face,
Yodeling minyo, growling enka,
Sex toy, slant-eyes closed, licking, tasting, swallowing STD semen,
Every drop.

Yessu, i wanna baby who looohkuh gaijeen, double-fold eye, translucent skin, international school PTA,
maybe grow up to be fashion model, even joshi-ana,
not-not-not happy to be
Little YELLOW Slut.

I recognize her:
That Little YELLOW Slut, rejecting
Japanese, rejected by Japanese,
Ashamed,
Empty inside,
They all look alike,
Faceless, hoping to forget, escape
To America,
Slant-eyed clitoris,
Adopted orphan,
Dream come true for pedophiles,
Serving sake, pouring tea, spilling honey,
Naturalized citizen,
Buying Gucci,
Docile doll,
Rag-doll, Miss Universe, manic harakiri depressive, rape victim, she is
You, she is me.

Hai, hai, eigo wakarimasen, worship Big Master for mind, matter, muscle, money, body size correlates to penis size,
waiting to be sexually harassed, so sorry, so many,
so sad to be
Little YELLOW Slut.

TOKYO WOODSTOCK

Woodstock, Tokyo, Boston, Accra, the Primordial World of My Poetry _ Lots of Places and Spaces involved.
Come and Explore with us at What the Dickens.
A Multicultural Multiplatform event organized by Kev Gray.
My Yuricane Band featuring the Best and Brightest from the Berklee College of Music and from the Addy/Amo/Boye Master Musicians Family of Ghana:
Hirokazu Suyama (drums, percussion, musical direction), Hiroshi Tokieda (bass), Yuuichiro Ishii (guitar) and Winchester Nii Tete (kpanlogo drums).
We challenge boundaries with integrity.

ROTU (Rhythm of the Universe) at Berklee College of Music

Trailer for a project at Berklee College of Music in Boston, created and led by Emir Cerman, that brings together musicians from around the world including Isaku Kageyama .

Tokyo Yuricane Reading

Tokyo Yuricane Reading: Poetry by Yuri Kageyama with Taiko drums by Chris Holland, percussion by Winchester Nii Tete, guitar by Takenari Shibata, bass by Satoshi Adachi, drums by Jin Imamura.

I feel decidedly good about the future of Japan (and the world) when I work with young musicians like the ones who played _ and so sincerely and so passionately _ as the Tokyo members of The Yuricane, with my poetry reading Dec. 3, 2011 at the Tokyo American Club.
The world is in good hands _ if only it would allow the right people to get their hands on what happens.
One of the relatively new works we tried out, using different percussion to highlight the contrasts/evolution:

ways of saying ‘yes’ in Japanese
a poem by Yuri Kageyama

“Hai!!”
That’s the correct way of replying when spoken to in Japan for centuries, hai! the way people are taught in school, by their parents, what’s right in society _
respect for the hierarchy, yes sir, thank you ma’am, hai hai hai, like hiccups, like hiphiphurray, hai! hai! hai! no pause, no hesitation, no thought,
following orders, quick, no questions, grunt it out, soldiers at attention, yelling, spitting, believing, say it with all your heart and mind,
hai!
“Haa~aai!”
That’s the way people answer in Japan these says, haa~aai! the way people drop out of school, freeters, parents are just friends to follow only on Twitter _
flattening out the hierarchy, maybe yes, maybe not, haa~aai! like a mumble, like a whisper, a kiss on the ear, haa~aai, innocent, hurt only for others,
wind blowing in your hair, smiley faces heart icons in cell phones, improvise, imagine, immaculate, sing it without a care in the world,
haa~aai!

Haiku for Van Gogh
by Yuri Kageyama

An old wooden desk
Yellow dots of light shrieking
Van Gogh’s room

Warped plums dagger rain
Crazed geisha dance in ukiyoe oil
Breathe Van Gogh’s Japan

Sliced ear of love denied
Road to nothing ravens in flight
Genius of yellow

Music at the Moon Stomp


From left to right: Isaku Kageyama, Winchester Nii Tete, Robby.
The “MoveThatPoem” poets from Spain read after the music at the Moon Stomp in Koenji Tokyo Sunday Oct. 11, 2009.
The music keeps getting stronger.
And the poetry _ read in their Spanish original by the poets, followed by English translations _ was a perfect way to end a multicultural evening.
Isaku plays with minyo musicians tomorrow night Monday, Oct. 12, 2009, at Takanoya in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

Move that poem

Miguel
Rafel
Javier

Today, I got “MoveThatPoem,” one of just five books in the world, created by poets from Spain _ Miguel Jose Aniceto Bardisa, Rafel Llobet Deia, and Fco. Javier Barrera Barcelo (seen in photos reading at the Moon Stomp in Tokyo) _ for an experiment into poetry and mobility, to answer the question of what will happen to this book if it gets passed from poet to poet, crossing national boundaries, language and cultural differences, and to see what the power of connection of poetry does to the problems of physical space: “What has happened to the inner journey of the poet,” the poets ask.
“The goal of the MoveThatPoem initiative is to make the poetic object, as the physical object of the project, travel as an independent entity and be transformed thanks to the individual recipient’s interaction with it …. Why poetry? Because we believe that poetry is a universal concept present in all cultures. For this reason, the ultimate concept of the MoveThatPoem initiative does not include any attempt to deal with language barriers beyond the original work, but merely to create a poetic object capable of being understood above its formal level by any person who may have it in hand, a living object that can break out of the literary circles in which it has, on occasion, remained buried, a living object that is consolidated as a site of free expression for whomever so desires.”
I will write a poem in this book and then pass it on, keeping in mind that the book wants to be set free in its world travels.
The journey the book takes will be documented on a special website called MoveThatPoem, which will be up by Oct. 30,
or through email: routes@movethatpoem.com