From Yuri To Yuri


From Yuri To Yuri _ Japanese Womanhood Across Borders Of Time
A Contemporary Renku Poem (a work in progress)
By Yuri Matsueda and Yuri Kageyama.

(15)
take this knife
lay it down on a round table of
rotting wood
a child trapped in a body with
big pale breasts
a lipstick mouth
listen to the end
coming
in silence
a frog with a tadpole tail
a tadpole with frog legs
too much
hope isn’t good
you know what
to do
when things never change

neoteny
neoteny

^___< (16)
hot roses vapored
became instant ash
left their reflection on his bones
highlighted in green
he is
as they say clean
pristine

^___< (17)
to yuri from yuri
my solitary audience in blindness
i speak to you
our world sighs breathing in poem
a wilting whimper
a stabbing flash of sunflower
don’t cry, don’t die, don’t lie
no one listens in deafness
but you speak to me
you are my solitary audience

preceding sections:
(14)

(13)

(7-12)

(1-6) _ where it all started, and which goes to show sometimes all you need is one person to connect with in a special way to create poetry.
Yuri and I are both women bilingual/bicultural poets/writers with what we feel is a special sensitivity.
It goes without saying we realize we are creating for a niche market. Just kidding.
It makes sense to us and that’s what counts.

Haiku (compiled)

From Yuri to Yuri _ Japanese Womanhood Across Borders of Time
A Contemporary Renku Poem (a work in progress)
(13)

HAIKU

ステンドグラス
ひかりを染める
妻のゆび

stained glass
nudging color into light
my wife’s fingers

春の朝
ピンクが爆発
シフォン舞う

spring morning
pink explodes
chiffon whirls

なき孫が
小皺に霞む
化粧水

dead grandchild
a blurring thought lost in wrinkles
skin lotion’s smell

田んぼにも
見える砂漠の
地平線

rice paddies
you can see it
a desert horizon

浜名湖に
沈め忘れる
父の虐待

at Hamanako
forgetting burying
beatings by my father

桜ちり
ここにいます!と
どぶによむ

sakura petals
falling, write “I am here!”
into the ditch

So I’ve put all the haiku together that I wrote recently. In two parts, they are my segments for the work-in-progress poem “From Yuri To Yuri,” a collaboration with Yuri Matsueda.
The first part of the series.

From Yuri To Yuri (continued)

From Yuri To Yuri _ Japanese Womanhood Across Borders Of Time
A Contemporary Renku Poem (a work in progress) continued from previous:
By Yuri Matsueda and Yuri Kageyama

(7)

i finally know / why being young hurts more / it’s not just we feel everything more clearly/ we don’t have as many memories / everything isn’t yet a blur/ you haven’t felt this anguish, have you, this same pain / babies/ wanted unwanted/ Cesareans, abortions, stillbirths, breech births, miscarriage/ that little baby who never was / we’re harassed on the job, molested on the train, date-raped and then raped by that stranger that criminal you despise but can barely remember his face / we lose weight and self-confidence and dreams / we can’t find a job/ we are vulnerable / hungering for love, respect, understanding / when we know better / really / that no one understands/ we watch them die, hobbled, losing their minds, decaying with cancer, bed-ridden, speechless / we stand alone when they leave / face to face/ the hole / a dirt-filled grave/ we no longer bear the waiting of that fetus growing within us / wanted unwanted / no longer thirst for love / reaching for that partner / for babies/ wanted unwanted/ we don’t remember / in/ our own death/ we can’t forget /

(8)

死は容赦なく前触れもなく

楽で
退屈しのぎに
乱暴に
消費した
時間の先に
唐突な
死があって
立ち止まると

静かな愛があった

(9)

you are my daughter
the little girl i never had
that woman asleep in my son’s arms
nursing a new life that has yet to be

but i see you are gone
leaving behind nothing
but a deep passage of time
and a shaking pool of tears

(10)

駆け上った
階段
廊下の窓をこじ開ける
煙突探して
目を凝らすも
ただ白い雲が過ぎてゆく

カラカラ積もる
珊瑚礁のよう
吹けばたちまち塵となる
風に乗ってどこへ行く
あおい空へ伸びてゆく

(11)

sky
scattered
clouds
dreams
dissipate

i fly

without wings
sky

swooping
endless

***

(12)

throw me in the seven seas
where my young breasts freeze

in the black waters

my hair

they gleam

and I float

lost in time

I am so lost in time

From Yuri To Yuri: A Contemporary Renku Poem

From Yuri To Yuri: Japanese Womanhood Across Borders of Time
A Contemporary Renku Poem (A Work in Progress).
By Yuri Matsueda and Yuri Kageyama
Read at What the Dickens in Tokyo Oct. 5, 2008.

(1)

20年後あるいは30年後かの自分と対峙し
瞳の深淵をそっと覗き見る
睫毛の長さ
目元の影
声の艶
足首の締まり
それらは注意深く観察される

わずかな欲望はざらついた嫉妬へ
嫉妬は称賛
安堵へ
その移ろいをゆっくりと舌先で転がす昼下がり
私たちは松檮を歩いていた

(2)

pale hands folded over silken robes
music tangled like wind among pine trees
she waits, waits, waits for her daimyo lover

i can’t love a man i can’t respect
i fall for men who’re no good for me
i won’t love a man who might destroy me

her breasts grow fuller with each breath
she knows he will return in the darkness
her tongue is dry and sallow

i can’t resist a man who means danger
his cocky sneer, his sword, his dreams,
his probing lips and fingertips

(3)

月に照らされ

家族を忘れ
あなたを忘れ
過去を忘れ
大気を切り抜け
時間を走り
窓はふさがれ
耳はふさがれ
体はしめられ
心翔る

自由である

夜間飛行

(4)

walking
the path of time of generations of memories of ignorance

all the forgotten women
all the forgotten lovers
all the forgotten babies

walking
past Shibuya cobblestones of footprints of dreams of death

fading love hotels
gleaming boutiques
salesmen passing tissue to no one

walking
faceless voices blend with sirens and cicadas

overheard giggles
sheer wisps of thoughts
too lazy to speak the truth or lies

at dusk

(5)

一本先へ
一本奥へ
円山町を背にして
蝉の声に誘われ
さまよう
女二人
不意に途切れた
鳴き声の間に
白い腹をみせた
亡骸をまたいで
羽を散らした体を尻目に
松涛求めて
喘ぎ歩くも
跡なくあてなく
日、翳る

(6)

dot and line, dot and line
like marching ants spilling
from score sheets to table to equator to nightmares
black notations of silent thoughts of music
muted ramblings of an obscure composer
puttering notes only he and i can hear
fragments of jazz rhythms
broken crazed despised

did you know Ingmar Bergman was terrified of death
but as he grew older, as he approached that dreadful moment,
he was no longer afraid

did you know life is forever
when death comes
there will be no life to feel

i was lost when i was your age
you will help me find myself
at your age
with this poem