A song about love with Words written by Yuri Kageyama and Music and song by Ryu Miho
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?
what do you think?
Lovers are always asking each other: “What do you think?” and getting upset if their lover doesn’t quite get it, or answers he or she felt something about an artwork or a film they just saw together in a different way from what you’re feeling, or thought the feeling should be, or whatever. It’s really a fruitless game, but it’s one all lovers play, all the time, throughout history, wherever they are, any nation, any culture. Because ultimately you’re just asking: Do you love me? And there is no right answer or a wrong one. Just that moment you share, you are both here, alive but together on this little beautiful planet, lost in the cosmos, and we never know what to think anyway.
And this version as arranged and performed by Toshiyuki Turner Tanahashi.
We presented “What Do You Think” at a Tokyo bar together May 3, 2026. A man came up and told us his wife always asks him that, too, and he never has the right answer so he’s given up. And so: What do you think?
At What the Dickens in Tokyo June 2, 2024. Haniya Osaki, Yuri Kageyama and Toshiyuki Turner Tanahashi. Photo by On Lim Wong.
CONTINUOUSLY POETRY a bilingual collaboration by Osaki HANIYA (all even entries) and Yuri Kageyama (odd entries) with Toshiyuki “Turner” Tanahashi (on bass). Tokyo. April 13, 2024.
1
Abortions, still births, defects at birth
Violent parents, cheating partners
Children who leave and never look back,
Cancer, dementia, the funeral wake.
Family of Errors
Betrayal, Psychosis:
If God created people perfect,
We would just miss them too much,
When they die
2
木漏れ日がさらさらと揺れて
靴の紐を固く締め上げる指先を撫で回す
1922年、T.S.Eliotは書いた
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land
越冬用の木の実とともに今も
シマリスは瓦礫の下に横たわっている
3
ファミレスとはよくいったもんだ
愛おしい家族よ
ジョナサン、デニーズ
サイゼリア
虐待のスパゲティ
Sexual abuse ice cream
痣だらけのお子様ランチ
4
十字路を渡りかけて振り返ると
見知らぬ小さな人が 呟く
missing link
5
Searched for the names of
Isaku’s Granpa and Granma;
Made sure they were there:
Their names,
Years of birth 1923 and 1924,
And Minidoka
Then shed a quiet tear.
Ireizo-dot-com
125,179 Persons of Japanese Ancestry are known to have been incarcerated by the U.S. Government during WWII.
We vow to remember them all.
_ written Feb. 19, 2024
Remembering Executive Order 9066 on This Day.
6
山雪〈老梅〉の
四面の狂い
反対色
描きとどめ
回り続ける歳月の二針を
焼き付けても
ひと枝の花
金箔の首筋に熱
記憶というのは幾つくらいから始まるのだろう
白衣の老人が顔を寄せ合ってこちらを覗き込んでいる
見上げると茫洋とした灯りが
ゆっくりゆっくり旋回している
自転車に乗れるようになった頃
朝早くに母の使いで近くの寺へ行った帰り
停車中のトラックに自転車もろとも突っ込んだ
左膝にめり込んだ小石が私そっくりに笑っていた
剥落しているところがあるかもしれない
溢れた塩酸の夢
過度の奏上
エクスタシス排斥し
＊ 狩野山雪〈老梅〉
7(an English translation of sorts of 6)
Sansetsu’s “Old Plum”
Madness across the surface,
Opposite colors
He’s painted.
Two switches from a spinning full moon
Scalding
Sole flower on a branch
Turns to fever on a nape gilded with gold.
How old are we when memories begin?
Huddled old figures wearing white peer toward us;
A vast light above
Slowly, so slowly, spinning.
When I first learned how to ride a bicycle,
On my way back from the temple, running a morning errand for my mother,
I slam into a parked truck, bicycle and all,
The pebble stuck in my left knee laughs, looking just like me.
