June 4, 1976
On the Elevator Going Down
A Caucasian gets on at
the 17th floor.
He is old, fat and expensively
dressed.
I say hello / I’m friendly.
He says, “Hi.”
Then he looks very carefully at
my clothes.
I’m not expensively dressed.
I think his left shoe costs more
than everything I am wearing.
He doesn’t want to talk to me
any more.
I think that he is not totally aware
that we are really going down
and there are no clothes after you have
been dead for a few thousand years.
He thinks as we silently travel
down and get off at the bottom
floor
that we are going separate
ways.
Tokyo
June 4, 1976
A Young Japanese Woman Playing a
Grand Piano in an Expensive and Very
Fancy Cocktail Lounge
Everything shines like black jade:
The piano (invented
Her long hair (severe
Her obvious disinterest (in the music
she is playing.
Her mind, distant from her fingers,
is a million miles away shining
like black
jade
Tokyo
June 4, 1976
A Small Boat on the Voyage of
Archaeology
A warm thunder and lightning storm
tonight in Tokyo with lots of rain and umbrellas
around 10 P.M.
This is a small detail right now
but it could be very important
a million years from now when archaeologists
sift through our ruins, trying to figure us
out.
Tokyo
June 5, 1976
American Bar in Tokyo
I’m here in a bar filled with
young conservative snobbish
American men,
drinking and trying to pick up
Japanese women
who want to sleep with the likes
of these men.
It is very hard to find any poetry
here
as this poem bears witness.
Tokyo
June 5, 1976
Ego Orgy on a Rainy Night in Tokyo
with Nobody to Make Love to
The night is now
Half-gone; youth
goes; I am
in bed alone
—Sappho
My books have been translated
into
Norwegian, French, Danish, Romanian,
Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish,
Italian, German, Finnish, Hebrew
and published in England
but
I will sleep alone tonight in Tokyo
raining.
Tokyo
June 5, 1976
Worms
The distances of loneliness
make the fourth dimension
seem like three hungry crows
looking at a worm in a famine.
Tokyo
June 6, 1976
Things to Do on a Boring Tokyo
Night in a Hotel
1.
Have dinner by yourself.
That’s always a lot of fun.
2.
Wander aimlessly around the hotel.
This is a huge hotel, so there’s lots of space
to wander aimlessly around.
3.
Go up and down the elevator for no reason
at all.
The people going up are going to their rooms.
I’m not.
Those going down are going out.
I’m not.
4.
I seriously think about the house phone
and calling my room 3003 and letting it ring
for a very long time. Then wondering where
I’m at and when I will return. Should I leave
a message at the desk saying that when I return
I should call myself?
Tokyo
June 6, 1976
Travelling toward Osaka
on the Freeway from Tokyo
I look out the car window
at 100 kilometers an hour
(62 miles)
and see a man peddling
a bicycle very carefully
down a narrow path between
rice paddies.
He’s gone in a few seconds.
I have only his memory now.
He has been changed into
a 100 kilometer-an-hour
memory ink rubbing.
Hamamatsu
June 7, 1976
After the Performance of the
Black Tent Theater Group on the Shores
of the Nagara River
The actresses without their make-up,
their costumes, their roles
are returned to being mortals.
I watch them eat quietly in a small inn.
They have no illusions, almost plain
like saints,
perfect in their
re-entry.
Gifu
June 7, 1976
Fragment #1
Speaking is speaking
when you
( The next word is unintelligible,
written on a drunken scrap of paper. )
speak any more.
Tokyo
Perhaps a day in early
June
Lazarus on the Bullet Train
For Tagawa Tadasu
The Bullet Train is the famous Japanese express
train that travels 120 miles an hour. Lazarus is an
old stand-by
.
You listened to the ranting and raving drunken
American writer on the Bullet Train from Nagoya
as I blamed you for everything that ever went
wrong in this world, including the grotesque
event that occurred that night in Gifu while
you slept.
Of course, you had done nothing but be my good
friend. At one point I told you to consider me
dead, that I was dead for you from that moment on.
I took your hand and touched my hand with it.
I told you that my flesh was now cold to you:
dead.
You silently nodded your head, eyes filled
with sadness. I even forbid you to ever read
one of my books again because I knew how much
you loved them and again you nodded your head
eyes did all the speaking.
The Bullet Train continued travelling at 120
miles an hour back to Tokyo as I ranted and raved
at you.
You didn’t say a word.
Your sadness filled the Bullet Train
with two hundred extra passengers.
They were all reading newspapers
that had no words printed on them,
only the dried tears of the dead.
By the time the train reached Tokyo Station,
my anger had turned slowly and was headed in all
directions toward a deserved oblivion.
I took your hand and touched my hand again.
“I’m alive for you,” I said. “The warmth has
returned to my flesh.”
You nodded silently again,
never having said a word.
The two hundred extra passengers
remained on the train,
though it was the end of the line.
They will stay there forever riding
back and forth until they are dust.
We step
ped out into the early Tokyo morning
friends again.
Oh, thank you, Tagawa Tadasu,
O beautiful human being for sharing
and understanding my death
and return from the dead
on the Bullet Train between Nagoya
and Tokyo the morning of June 8, 1976.
Later in the evening I called you
on the telephone. Your first
words were: “Are you fine?”
“Yes, I am fine.”
Tokyo
June 9, 1976
Visiting a Friend at the Hospital
I just visited Kazuko at the hospital.
She seemed tired. She was operated on
six days ago.
She ate her dinner slowly, painfully.
It was sad to watch her eat. She was
very tired. I wish that I could have
eaten in her place and she to receive
the nutriment.
Tokyo
June 9, 1976
Eternal Lag
Before flying to Japan
I was worried about jet lag.
“My” airplane would leave
San Francisco at 1 P.M.
Wednesday
and 10 hours and 45 minutes later
would land in Tokyo at 4 P.M.
the next day:
Thursday.
I was worried about that,
forgetting that because I suffer
from severe insomnia I have
eternal jet lag.
Tokyo
June 9, 1976
The American in Tokyo with
a Broken Clock
For Shiina Takako
People stare at me—
There are millions of them.
Why is this strange American
walking the streets of early night
carrying a broken clock
in his hands?
Is he for real or is he just an illusion?
How the clock got broken is not important.
Clocks break.
Everything breaks.
People stare at me and the broken clock
that I carry like a dream
in my hands.
Tokyo
June 10, 1976
The American Fool
A few weeks ago a middle-aged taxi driver
started talking to me in English. His English
was very good.
Wordlessly, poignantly he made a motion
with his hand that was not driving the streets
of Tokyo
at his face that suddenly looked very sad.
The gesture meant that he was a poor man
and would never be able to afford to go to America.
We didn’t talk much after that.
Tokyo
June 11, 1976
The American Carrying a Broken Clock
in Tokyo Again
For Shiina Takako
It is amazing how many people
you meet when you are carrying
a broken clock around in Tokyo.
Today I was carrying the broken clock
around again, trying to get an exact
replacement for it.
The clock was far beyond repair.
All sorts of people were interested
in the clock. Total strangers came up to me
and inquired about the clock in Japanese
of course
and I nodded my head: Yes, I have a broken clock.
I took it to a restaurant and people gathered
around. I recommend carrying a broken clock
with you at all times if you want to meet new
friends. I think it would work anyplace in the
world.
If you want to go to Iceland
and meet the people, take
a broken clock with you.
They will gather around like flies.
Tokyo
June 11, 1976
The Nagara, the Yellowstone
Fish rise in the early summer evenings
on the Nagara River at Gifu. I am back in Tokyo.
I will never fish the Nagara. The fish
will rise there forever but the Yellowstone River
south of Livingston, Montana, that is another
story.
Tokyo
June 11, 1976
Writing Poetry in Public Places, Cafes,
Bars, Etc.
Alone in a place full of strangers
I sing as if I’m in the center
of a heavenly choir
—my tongue a cloud of honey—
Sometimes I think I’m weird.
Tokyo
June 11, 1976
Cashier
The young Japanese woman cashier,
who doesn’t like me
I don’t know why
I’ve done nothing to her except exist,
uses a calculator to add up the checks
at a speed that approaches light—
clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick
she adds up her dislike
for me.
Tokyo
June 11, 1976
Tokyo / June 11, 1976
I have the five poems
that I wrote earlier today
in a notebook
in the same pocket that
I carry my passport. They
are the same thing.
Meiji Comedians
For Shiina Tahaho
Meiji Shrine is Japan’s most famous shrine.
Emperor Meiji and his consort Empress Shôken are
enshrined there. The grounds occupy 175 acres of
gardens, museums and stadiums
.
Meiji Shrine was closed.
We snuck in the hour before dawn.
We were drunk like comedians
climbing over stone walls and falling down.
We were funny to watch.
Fortunately, the police did not discover us