May the dead rest eternally in peace, waiting for our arrival.
Pine Creek, Montana
August 6, 1976
Kitty Hawk Kimonos
Watching Japanese television,
two young women in kimonos
are standing beside a biplane.
That’s right:
an old timey airplane.
A man is interviewing them.
They are having a very animated
and happy conversation.
I wish I knew Japanese because
I will never know why they are
standing next
to a biplane,
but they will stand there forever
in my mind, happy pilots
in their kimonos,
waiting to take off.
Tokyo
May 13, 1976
Crow
This morning I was wondering
when I would see my first bird
in Japan.
I was betting my mental money
on a sparrow when I heard
a rooster
crowing
from a backyard in the Shibuya District
of Tokyo
and that took care of that.
Tokyo
May 14, 1976
Japanese Children
I just spent the last half-an-hour
watching a Japanese children’s program
on television.
There are millions of us here in Tokyo.
We know what we like.
Tokyo
May 14, 1976
Cat in Shinjuku
A brown cat lies
in front of a Chinese restaurant
in a very narrow lane
in Shinjuku.*
The window of the restaurant is
filled with plastic models
of Chinese food that look good
enough to eat.
The afternoon sun is pleasantly
warm. The cat
is enjoying it.
People walk by, very close to the cat
but the cat shows absolutely no fear.
It does not move.
I find this unusual.
The cat is happy
in front of plastic Chinese
food with real food
waiting just inside the door.
Tokyo
The middle of May, 1976
*a large district in Tokyo
The Hillary Express
I just ordered my first meal
curry and rice
all by myself in a Japanese restaurant.
What a triumph!
I feel like an infant taking its
first faltering step.
Watch out Mount Everest!
Tokyo
May 16, 1976
Kites
A warm Sunday afternoon rainy
4 o’clock back street Ginza
is closed.
Thousands of napping bars,
their signs are like brightly-colored
kites.
Wound ball-like narrow streets
and lanes are string.
quiet
only a few people
no wind
Tokyo
May 16, 1976
Japanese Model
Tall, slender
dressed in black
perfect features
Egyptianesque
She is the shadow
of another planet
being photographed
in a totally white room
Her face never changes
her page-boy hair
looks as if it were cut
from black surgical jade
Her lips are so red
they make blood
seem dull, a
useless pastime
Tokyo
May ?, 1976
Romance
I just spent fifteen seconds
staring at a Japanese fly:
my first.
He was standing on a red brick
in the Mitsui Building Plaza,
enjoying the sun.
He didn’t care that I was looking at him.
He was cleaning his face. Perhaps he had
a date with a beautiful
lady fly, his bride to be
or maybe just good friends
to have lunch a little later
in Mitsui Plaza
at noon.
Tokyo
May 17 or 18, 1976
Pachinko Samurai
I feel wonderful, exhilarated, child-like,
perfect.
I just won two cans of crab meat*
and a locomotive**
What more could anyone ask for on May 18,
1976 in Tokyo?
I played the game of pachinko
/ vertical pinball /
My blade was sharp.
*real
**toy
Japan
Japan begins and ends
with Japan.
Nobody else knows the
story.
. . .Japanese dust
in the Milky Way.
Tokyo
May 18, 1976
Homage to the
Japanese Haiku Poet Issa
Drunk in a Japanese
bar
I’m
OK
Tokyo
May 18, 1976
Dreams Are like the [the]
Dreams are like the [the]
wind. They blow by. The
small ones are breezes,
but they go by, too.
Tokyo
May 20 or 26, 1976
Strawberry Haiku
• • • • •
• • • • • • •
The twelve red berries
Tokyo
May 22, 1976
A Mystery Story or
Dashiell Hammett a la Mode
Every time I leave my hotel room
here in Tokyo
I do the same four things:
I make sure I have my passport
my notebook
a pen
and my English–
Japanese dictionary.
The rest of life is a total mystery.
Tokyo
May 26, 1976
A Short Study in Gone
When dreams wake
life ends.
Then dreams are gone.
Life is gone.
Tokyo
May 26, 1976
The 12,000,000
I’m depressed,
haunted by melancholy
that does not have a reflection
nor cast a shadow.
12,000,000 people live here in Tokyo.
I know I’m not alone.
Others must feel the way
I do.
Tokyo
May 26, 1976
Shoes, Bicycle
Listening to the Japanese night,
the window is closed and the curtain pulled,
I think it is raining outside.
It’s comforting. I love the rain.
I am in a city that I have never been before:
Tokyo.
I think it is raining. Then I hear a storm begin.
I’m slightly drunk:
people walking by in the street,
a bicycle.
Tokyo
May 26, 1976
A Study in Roads
All the possibilities of life,
all roads led here.
I was never going anyplace else,
41 years of life:
Tacoma, Washington
Great Falls, Montana
Oaxaca, Mexico
London, England
Bee Caves, Texas
Victoria, British Columbia
Key West, Florida
San Francisco, California
Boulder, Colorado
; all led here:
Having a drink by myself
in a bar in Tokyo before
lunch,
wishing there was somebody to talk
to.
Tokyo
May 28, 1976
Floating Chandeliers
Sand is crystal
like the soul.
The wind blows
it away.
Tokyo
May 28, 1976
Japanese Women
If there are any unattractive
Japanese women
they must drown them at birth.
Tokyo
May 28, 1976
Taxi Drivers Look Different from
Their Photographs
There is no difference
between Tokyo and New York.
These men do not look
like their photographs.
These are different men.
I’m not being fooled in the
least. Complete strangers drive
these cabs.
Tokyo
May 28, 1976
Sunglasses Worn at Night in Japan
A Japanese woman
age: 28
lives seeing darkness
from eyes
that should see light
at night.
Tokyo
May 30, 1976
Japanese Pop Music Concert
Don’t
ever ever
forget
the flowers
that were rejected, made
fools of.
A very shy girl gives the
budding boy pop star a bouquet
of beautiful
flowers
between songs. What courage
it took for her to walk up to
the stage and hand him the
flowers.
He puts them garbage-like down
on the floor. They lie there.
She returns to her seat and watches
her flowers lying there.
Then she can’t take it any longer.
She flees.
She is gone
but the music
plays on.
I promise.
You promise, too
Tokyo
May 31, 1976
Future
12:01 A.M.
All those who live
after we are dead
We knew this moment
we were here
Tokyo
June 1, 1976
12:01 A.M.
Talking
I am the only American in this bar.
Everybody else is Japanese.
(reasonable / Tokyo)
I speak English.
They speak Japanese.
(of course)
They try to speak English. It’s hard.
I can’t speak any Japanese. I can’t help.
We talk for a while, trying.
Then they switch totally to Japanese
for ten minutes.
They laugh. They are serious.
They pause between words.
I am alone again. I’ve been there before
in Japan, America, everywhere when you
don’t understand what somebody is
talking about.
Tokyo
June 1, 1976
Chainsaw
A beautiful Japanese woman
/ age 42
the energy that separates
spring from summer
(depending on June)
20 or 21
—so they say—
Her voice singing sounds
just like an angelic chainsaw
cutting through
honey.
Tokyo
June 1, 1976
Day for Night
The cab takes me home
through the Tokyo dawn.
I have been awake all night.
I will be asleep before the sun
rises.
I will sleep all day.
The cab is a pillow,
the streets are blankets,
the dawn is my bed.
The cab rests my head.
I’m on my way to dreams.
Tokyo
June 1, 1976
Cobalt Necessity
It’s just one of those things.
When you need cobalt
nothing else will
suffice.
Tokyo
June 2, 1976
Real Estate
I have emotions
that are like newspapers that
read themselves.
I go for days at a time
trapped in the want ads.
I feel as if I am an ad
for the sale of a haunted house:
18 rooms
$37,000
I’m yours
ghosts and all.
Tokyo
June 2, 1976
The Alps
One word
waiting . . .
leads to an
avalanche
of other words
if you are
waiting . . .
for a woman
Tokyo
June 2, 1976
Japan Minus Frogs
For Guy de la Valdene
Looking casually
through my English–Japanese dictionary
I can’t find the word frog.
It’s not there.
Does that mean that Japan has no frogs?
Tokyo