and take us away.
It was beautiful there and we staggered
around in the trees and bushes until light started.
We were very funny and then
we were lying sprawled in a small meadow
of gentle green grass that was sweet
to the touch of our bodies.
I put my hand on her breast and started kissing
her. She kissed me back and that’s all the love
we made. We didn’t go any further, but it was
perfect in the early light of Meiji Shrine
with the Emperor Meiji
and his consort Empress Shôken
somewhere near us.
Tokyo
June 12, 1976
Meiji Shoes Size 12
For Shiina Takako
I woke up in the middle of the afternoon, alone,
our love-making did not lead to going to bed
together and that was OK, I guess.
Beside the bed were my shoes covered with Meiji
mud. I looked at them and felt very good.
It’s funny what the sight of dried mud can do
to your mind.
Tokyo
June 12, 1976
Starting
Starting just a single world
start (start) v.i. I, begin or enter
upon an action, etc; set out
.
to end with.
Tokyo
June 12, 1976
Passing to Where?
Sometimes I take out my passport,
look at the photograph of myself
(not very good, etc.)
just to see if I exist
Tokyo
June 12, 1976
Tokyo / June 13, 1976
I have sixteen more days left in Japan.
I leave on the 2gth back across the Pacific.
Five days after that I will be in Montana,
sitting in the stands of the Park County
Fairgrounds,
watching the Livingston Roundup
on the Fourth of July,
cheering the cowboys on,
Japan gone.
The Airplane
One
of the bad things about staying at a hotel
is the thin walls. They are a problem
that does not go away. I was trying to get
some sleep this afternoon but the people
in the next room took that opportunity to
fuck their brains out.
Their bed sounded like an old airplane
warming up to take off.
I lay there a few feet away, trying to get
some sleep while their bed taxied down the
runway.
Tokyo
June 14, 1976
Orson Welles
Orson Welles does whisky commercials on
Japanese television. It’s strange to see him
here on television in Tokyo, recommending that the
Japanese people buy G & G Nikka whisky.
I always watch him with total fascination.
Last night I dreamt that I directed one of the
commercials. There were six black horses in the
commercial.
The horses were arranged in such a position
that upon seeing them and Orson Welles
together, people would rush out of their homes
and buy G & G Nikka whisky.
It was not an easy commercial to film. It
had to be perfect. It took many takes. Mr. Welles
was very patient with an understanding sense of
humor.
“Please, Mr. Welles,” I would say. “Stand a
little closer to the horses.”
He would smile and move a little closer
to the horses.
“How’s this?”
“Just fine, Mr. Welles, perfect.”
Tokyo
June 14, 1976
The Red Chair
I saw a decadent gothic Japanese movie
this evening. It went so far beyond any
decadence that I have ever seen before
that I was transformed into a child learning
for the first time
that shadows are not always friendly,
that houses are haunted,
that people sometimes have thoughts
made out of snake skin that crawl
toward the innocence of sleeping babies.
The movie took place in Tokyo
just before the earthquake on September 1, 1923.
In a gothic Japanese house a man was hiding
inside a large stuffed red chair while a beautiful
woman wearing exotic costumes made love
to other men sitting in the chair.
The men did not know that somebody was hiding
inside the chair,
feeling, voyeuring every detail of their passion.
It took a long time in the movie
before I realized that there was a man inside the
chair.
The film went on and on into decadence
after decadence like a rainbow of perversion.
I can’t describe them all.
You would have trouble believing them.
The red chair was only a beginning.
I sat there transfixed
with a hundred Japanese men.
It was as if we were the orgasm
of spiders fucking in dried human
blood.
Tokyo
June 15, 1976
The Silence of Language
I’m
sitting here awkwardly alone in a bar
with a very intelligent Japanese movie director
who can’t speak English and I no Japanese.
We know each other but there is nobody here
to translate for us. We’ve talked before.
Now we pretend to be interested in other things.
He is listening to some music on the phonograph
with his eyes closed. I am writing this down.
It’s time to go home. He leaves first.
Tokyo
June 15, 1976
It’s Time to Wake Up
I set the alarm for 9 A.M.
but it wasn’t necessary.
The earthquake at 7:30 woke
me up.
From the middle of a dream
I was suddenly lying there
feeling the hotel shake,
wondering if room 3003
would soon be a Shinjuku
intersection
30 floors below.
It sure beats the hell
out of an alarm clock.
Tokyo
June 16, 1976
Fragment #2 / Having
I found the word
having
written sideways,
all by itself
on a piece of notebook paper.
I have no idea why I wrote it
or what its ultimate destination was,
but I wrote the word
having
very carefully
and then stopped
writing.
Tokyo
June perhaps, 1976
Looking at My Bed / 3 A.M.
Sleep without sleep,
then to sleep again
without
sleeping.
Tokyo
June 17, 1976
Taxi Driver
I like this taxi driver,
racing through the dark streets
of Tokyo
as if life had no meaning.
I feel the same way.
Tokyo
June 17, 1976
10 P.M.
Taking No Chances
I am a part of it. No,
I am the total but there
is also a possibility
that I am only a fraction
of it.
I
am that which begins
but has no beginning.
I am also full of shit
right up to my ears.
Tokyo
June 17, 1976
Tokyo / June 24, 1976
As these poems progress
can you guess June 24, 1976?
I was born January 30, 1935
in Tacoma, Washington.
What will happen next?
If only I could see June 24,
1976.
Tokyo
June 18, 1976
What Makes Reality Real
Waiting for her . . .
Nothing to do but write a poem.
She is now 5 minutes late.
I have a feeling that she will be at least
15 minutes late.
It is now 6 minutes after 9 P.M.
in Tokyo.
—NOW exactly NOW—
the doorbell rang.
She is at the door:
6 minutes after 9 P.M.
in Tokyo
nothing has changed
except that she is here.
Tokyo
June 19, 1976
Unrequited Love
Stop in /
write a morose poem /
leave / if only
life were that easy
Tokyo
June 19, 1976
The Past Cannot Be Returned
The umbilical cord
cannot be refastened
and life flow through it
again.
Our tears never totally
dry.
Our first kiss is now a ghost,
haunting our mouths as they
fade toward
oblivion.
Tokyo
June 19, 1976
with a few words
added in Montana
July 12, 1976
Fragment #3
speaking is speaking
We repeat
what we speak
and then we are
speaking again and that
speaking is speaking.
Tokyo
June sometime, 1976
Two Women
/ 1
Travelling along
a freeway in Tokyo
I saw a woman’s face
reflected back to us
from a small circular mirror
on the passenger side
of the car in front of us.
The car had a regular
rearview mirror in the center
of the front window.
I wondered what the
circular mirror was doing
on the passenger side of the car.
Her face was in it. She was directly
in front of us. She had a beautiful
face, floating in an
freeway.
Her face stayed there for a while
and then floated off
forever in the changing traffic.
/ 2
She moves like a ghost.
She is not alive any more.
She must be in her late sixties.
She is short and squat
like a Japanese stereotype.
She takes care of the lobby
of the hotel. She empties
the ashtrays. She dusts
and mops things. She moves
like a ghost. She has no human
expression.
A few days ago I was standing
beside three Japanese businessmen
peeing in the lavatory.
We each had our own urinal.
She walked in like a ghost and started
mopping the toilet floor around us.
She was totally unaware of us,
standing there urinating.
She was truly a ghost
and we were suddenly ghost pee-ers
as she mopped on
by.
Tokyo
June 21, 1976
Fragment #4
in a garden of
500 mossy, lichen
greenBuddhas
a sunny day
theseBuddhas
know the answer
to all five
hundred other Buddhas
Never finished
Outside of Tokyo
June 23, 1976
except for the word
other added at
Pine Creek, Montana,
On July 23, 1976
Illicit Love
We did not play the game.
We played the rules perfectly,
no violations, no penalties.
The game is over
or is it just
beginning?
Tokyo
June 28, 1976
Age: 41
Playing games
playing games, I
guess I never
really stopped
being a child
playing games
playing games
Tokyo
June 28, 1976
Two Versions of the Same Poem
Love / 1
The water
in the river
flows over
and under
itself.
It knows
what to do,
flowing on.
Love / 2
The water
in the river
Hows over
and under
itself.
It knows
what to do,
flowing on.
The bed never
touches bottom.
Tokyo
June 28, 1976
Stone (real
I guess I moved to Texas: