a dream

I walked the streets in a city of my own construction, wandering the nameless avenues, looking for landmarks. I spoke to people with no decernable expressions, asking directions. Their answers were nonsensical and nearly impossible to hear. Unsure of my own destination, I found myself in a district of warehouses and grids of criss-crossing railway tracks imbedded in worn blacktop. Every road decends here, in a vast plain of empty buildings and unused electrical circuits.

I went toward the nearest door, thinking, as one does in dreams, that it would lead me somewhere. As I stepped down into the deserted street off the curb, the door opened slowly outward toward me and a figure began to appear. I stopped, aware of the pounding in my chest. As the figure became more solid, my breathing became shallow and irregular. There was something familiar about the shape of the body, something distinctly, unpleasantly, familiar, and I backed away, and tripped and fell over the curb. I was so afraid that once I had connected with the solidity of the cold pavement I couldn't get up. I lay there on my stomach with my face pressed against the street. I felt someone kneel beside me and a warm palm touched my back and stayed there, exerting a gentle pressure, making it impossible for me to get up or even turn over. I squeezed my eyes shut and felt a single tear of terror slide down my face and across the bridge of my nose. While I was trying to find a scream, a face came close to my ear and began to whisper. It was the voice of a woman, soft and melifluous, chanting in my ear,"You know what I am and you know what I can do. "

I struggled to free myself like a cockroach pinned to a countertop by a toothpick. I threw my fist backward toward her face several times in an attempt to make her stop repeating those words, over an over, into my ear, "you know what I am and you know what I can do!" Finally my fist connected with the hated mouth and slipped, as if intended to choke those words down her throat, directly into it. I could feel the warm saliva covering my hand.

Suddenly, I was awake. Sitting upright in my bed, I found the scream!


Pocket change hit the hardwood floor in the room beneath me. I struggled to catch my breath as feet pounded up the stairs and down the hall toward my room. I was holding my fist in front of my face. It was wet with saliva.

1995-untitled

I write now like I used to drink,
turn words up like a bottle,
slam the shotglass down on the bar
like a curse word, shit or fuck,
whiskey or tequila, and all
in anger.

It's the same disease, brother,
the same function or dysfunction,
the same kind of disassociation,
like some sweet grenadine thing
that makes you puke that night
and have a headache the next day,

and I cannot scream,
though that is how I feel,
and I cannot cry, though the tears
wait on the rims of my lids,
I cannot eat because what I am
hungry for is not on the shelf at Safeway,

so I write like I used to drink,
throw back syntax like it was Wild Turkey,
mix metaphors and tenses like
vodka and vermouth,
tap whatever keg I can
to get it out of my body and
into the toilet,

I write like I used to drink,
like a madwoman who can't get a buzz,
like a sailor who's been out at sea too long,
like my heart is breaking,
because if I don't,

I might need a cocktail.

inuendo

now i understand the coyote,
rockets on his roller skates,
tenacious and appealing.
you toss explosives onto my desert floor
and i am easily done in.
there is a wide place in the road
and you are there
and i am on the verge
like some kind of hitchiker.
i turn the signs around
and send you in my direction,
i stand dancing as you
race toward me, your arms
reaching out in front of you,
my skin tingling
and itching to be caught up.
i am talking and laughing in circles,
ear to the ground,
listening for the sound
of your acme truck.

Periodic Visitations

Dispatch from JD
30 October 2005


Dawn comes, and we part ways once again.

My dreams becoming distant apparitions.
I turn to the warm wind for help, the wind I felt every time you held me...
As I was bathed in the light that followed on your heels

Spring is announced when the wild plants break out in a dance.
Summer comes to Uji, and in the fields are patterns of grass set out to dry
The autumn moon rises, let's celebrate its fullness.
Winter passes by, and I count off all the days and months again.

I can still see the too-distant blue sky when I close my eyes. (it was so warm.)
As I reminisce, I take your hand as I pluck the flowers and sing (there is no clue.)
Within the memories that are now coming back to me.
I'm setting out to find my way back to you.

Spring is announced when the mountain leaves break out in a dance.
Summer comes to Uji, and in the fields are patterns of grass set out to dry
The autumn moon rises, let's celebrate its fullness.
Winter passes by, and I count off all the days and months again.

Dawn comes, and we part ways once again.

My dreams becoming distant apparitions.
I turn to the warm wind for help, the wind I felt every time you held me...
As I was bathed in the light that followed on your heels

author unknown

Blues For Jeff

Last time I saw Jeff was back in '58. Or it it could have been '59. I can't remember anymore. He was sitting in his dusty, gray '51 Chevy two-door Streamline, parked in the red zone across the street from the Jazz Workshop, with his gig bag and a roughed up copy of Finnegan's Wake on the dash, his alto sax in his lap, and a bottle of wine between his feet. Dago Red, he called it. And then he smiled, like he was smiling to himself, and passed the bottle.

"Just 'cause it's cheap," he said, "don't mean it ain't no good."

Jeff was sucking on a new reed and fingering some kind of figure around the circle of fifths on his alto, without blowing in it. So he could play it in any key, he said. So his fingers would know what to do, and he wouldn't have to think about it. And the pads would open and close against the key holes in a rythm, with a soft, percussive sound, making their own kind of music.

"Sometimes they call up a tune in some weird key," he said. "Just to see if you can cut it. And you gotta be ready to blow, or else just go right on back to the woodshed." And then he said he was just hanging around, killing time, resting up for a jam session at Bop City.

"I might be blowing all night," he said. "Maybe I can line up a nice gig. Or maybe something else. You dig? I don't know if I'll get to sit in though. Too many names in town."

"I just caught Rollins at the Workshop," he said. "Sure sounds rough, man. Like he's playin' half an idea, an' then just leaves it hangin', like takin' fours with himself. Rollins oughta quit playin' in public," he said, "til he gets it together." That was before he found himself On the Bridge.

Jeff asked if I ever read Finnegan's Wake. I told him I started reading it once, but then put it down. "Because I have a hard time reading stuff I don't understand," I said. Jeff said I should just read it, and don't try to understand it.

"Just read it, man," he said, "and absorb the words. Like the way you listen to music." And then he passed the bottle, and then reached back into the back seat and started digging through the pile of clothes and books, and old newspapers, and Downbeat magazines and fakebooks, and manuscript paper, and old, broken reeds, and Tick-Tock hamburger wrappers, and empty wine bottles, and empty beer bottles, and pulled out a brand new Brew Moore record. You know, the one with the weird, purple, snaky, elephant trunk-looking thing on the cover. And then he said I could keep it. Because Brew was an old partner of his, he said, and he had a whole box of them.

"Man, I gotta get my tenor back," said Jeff. "I shoulda hocked the alto instead. I guess I shoulda known better. You get more Jobs with a tenor. You dig?"

"An' I just blew a job across the Bay," he said. "Like I'm tryin' to show the piano man the right changes to some tune, you know, an' he gets all pissed off, "cause he's the leader, an' he don't like to look stupid. So I tell him, man, like some tunes got more than three chords in 'em, an' he says if I'm such a great fuckin' genius, what am I playin' in his band for, and I should take my axe and hit the road."

"So I might be takin' off down the coast," said Jeff. "Get my tenor back and go to L.A. There's more jobs down there. I gotta get a good gig, man. Like maybe a nice studio job. Like I'm gettin' tired of just playin' rock 'n' roll blues. You dig? don't knock it though, if that's all you can get. If you don't mind gettin' paid for takin' your solos all on one note."

We laughed and sang a few one-note chourses, and finished off the wine, and then Jeff said he had to get some sleep.

"I gotta rest up for the session," he said. "I might be blowin' all night."

And that was the last time I saw Jeff. Like I say, I think it was back in '58. Or it could have been '59. I can't remember anymore. But then about a year later, I heard they found him down the Coast, sittin' in his Chevy, and there was bloody glass all over the place, and his horns were missing, and there was an empty gig bag and a book on the dash, and an empty wine bottle next to his feet.

I don't know if that's what really happened. That's all I heard, and that's all I know. But sometimes, even now, I like to get a jug of red wine and listen to that Brew Moore record he gave me. I still have it. You know, the one with the weird, purple, snaky, elephant trunk-looking thing on the cover.

And some day I'm going to try and read Finnegan's Wake once again, the way he said: "Just read it man, and absorb the words. Like the way you listen to music."

And sometimes, when I'm not thinking about anything, I find myself singing a few one-note chouruses, like a blues for Jeff.

Kenneth Leroy Hill (KL)

16 March 1939 - 20 Sept 2001

Photo Cee

Yesterday a morning came, a smile upon your face. Caesar's palace, morning glory, silly human, silly human race. On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place, if the summers change to winters, yours is no, yours is no disgrace.

-jon anderson

Terry and Cyn (The Projects), circa 1964

Trailer Park Cyn, Christmas 1969

Cyn and Steve, Winter 1977

and sometime later...Cyn & Ger, June 1, 2001

Musee D'Orsay, June 2001

Paris, Pere Lachaise, Morrison's Stone

Father Jerry and the Pilgram, at Morrison's Stone

Morrison's Stone

Sightings II

Douglas Ray Tucker stands before me
in ballcap and grin, hair nappy,
clothes lurched all to one side,
holding a cup, and says
jus' cause you have a CUP
don't mean nuthin',
I'm a man!
I'm tryin' to make some PROgress here.
I'm from Florida.
People different here.
People don't see nuthin' but the CUP.
Butchoo a different kinda woman, he says.
I got a sister who wears glasses, he says.
You might wear glasses, butchoo see better than most!
There is a God, he says.
We might meet each other
another time down the road!
Faith before reason, he says,
and keeps on grinnin',
faith
before
reason.

dixie's war

oh the battleground's littered
and the cold light is coming
and i can't help wond'ring
and you can't say why
oh i am the only
soldier worth fighting
and you keep on wand'ring
away from the sky

here now, we are not wise enough
and we go on wanting
but the battle is killing us
and the kitchen is haunted

and the hill where i found you
burying your dead
has followed us here
and lives in your head
oh i'm not a prophet
and i can't read your signs
and you keep on wand'ring
away from the sky

oh the day is not long enough
and the night will be falling
and there's no use resisting
when the allies are calling

oh the battleground's littered
and the cold light is coming
and i can't help wond'ring
and you won't say why
oh i am the only
soldier worth fighting
and you keep on wand'ring
away from the sky

hAve U hEarD tHe oNe aBOut tHe bRowN pApeR bAg?

I am not a part of your dying,

pace yourself and BREATHE.

There is a blue place in the night

like a brown paper bag over my head.

Your kiss is like multiplication tables

and eight parts of speech.

Don't crowd me into your spine,

that heated pool is YOUR place of worship.

I am sleepwalking on your thin ice.

Keep your eye on the ball and BREATHE,

and don't COMBUST if you can keep from it.

The blue place is lit by candles, but they don't flicker,

they absolutely DO NOT go dancing, so why would I?

If i talked like GOD, who would know me?

Who would believe tha I am not SANE,

that I have squandered EONS on the likes of you,

paid DEARLY to be here watching you writhe,

just to put my nuts in THAT bag, that STUPID brown paper bag,

BREATHE,

BREATHE!

The blue place in the night in NOT my heart,

is not an echo or a reverberation.

You MADE it with your MOANING and your INDIFFERENCE

and your EAGER grimace.

Open the window an take it in,

and take the brown paper bag, too,

and see if you can feel me then,

and remember what if felt like

to touch air.

A Rattler Hollingsworth Sighting

He nodded and blew smoke rings, picking his way throught the crowd with his talons hidden beneath a worn piece of leather jacket. Head down, eyes narrowed, he tried not to provoke greetings and positioned himself, unobtrusively, in a corner, and began to hum. It was a glacial thaw of a song that hit the ear burning and caused scars on accidental listeners. Like the jacket, it belonged solely to him. In a different kind of light, he would have been easily noticed, but here he was camoflaged in oddity and unrecognizable.

"You're gonna give us all some kind of conSUMPtion if you keep on whistling like that." she glittered at him. "Anyway, that song's been dead for 50 years,...it's startin' to STINK."

He took a breath and continued as if she hadn't spoken but she could tell he knew who she was. She'd seen the camping equipment in his room. She knew how to put up a tent. She couldn't remember how to make a fire with two sticks but she knew his song as well as she knew ones and zeros.

"How many lives have you got left?" she asked him sagely, narrowing her eyes to match his.

"Snakes don't have lives." he mumbled and continued hum-whistling.

"Neither do dogs." she said and put her hand out to touch the top of his small head.

"Oh no! Don't do that, don't DO that, that's how it starts, that's always how it starts." he whimpered in mock disgust as he stood still as a rock and allowed her fingers to fumble through his hair.

"You don't even know what you're whistling." she said, shivering, and turned to walk away. "It's Colder Than A Well-Digger's Ass," she said. "I oughta know, I WROTE it." and disappeared into the undertow of the dim river dream rain.

He stood on the street watching her fade.

"Was that Levitt Tate?" somebody asked him.

"I don't remember." he answered into the fog. "Now I gotta drink alone." he thought to himself and glided off down the wet night sidewalk, not touching the ground. "Colder than a well-digger's ass and I gotta drink alone."

Coat in a Boat

For years I went wearing
a coat that I borrowed
and would not return it
for fear of exposing
that no one could see me,
made out like a bandit,
disguised and intriguing,
I lay where I landed,

but, now and again
I would listen for something,
a fin in the wake of a boat
I remembered,
and sank like a shadow
whenever it neared me,
clear and distinctive,
like a name I was given,

sewn into the collar,
hemmed into the lining,
and time was deceiving,
the coat growing thinner,
I entered the mainstream
without ever knowing
there were rats in the galley
and no one was rowing,
there were rats in the galley
and no one was rowing.

For years I belonged
to that moth-eaten stranger,
my hair full of tangles
and no comb to pull
through the fury that gnawed
at the crumbs I let fall
from the cake I was eating
and kept on repeating
there’s a vessel afloat underneath all that coat!
there’s a vessel afloat underneath all that coat!

Choosing Sushi

the question here is

a piece at a time

or a whole ROLL-A-RAMA?

and how do you pick

when you don't know the language?

you may order MILKTOAST

if you don't know the name.

and how do you learn

to avoid the sea urchin,

the slimey, bad-textured, inedible kind?

MEN are like sushi,

they all look so pretty,

but how do you tell

if they're fresh or GONE BAD?

some are quite raw

and some cooked to excess,

and some are leftovers

that someone else had!

do you sit at a bar

or get served at a table?

can you eat with your fingers,

or is it SAFER with sticks?

futomaki or yellowtail,

tuna or mackerel,

it all smells the same,

and it all HOOKS like fish!

Playing Pool with a Stranger

I wait for him to pick up the cue.
I cannot hit hard enough to make the break.
I am a girl.
I watch as he bends his body over the table to line up the shot.
His hand goes down to that vast plane of green felt in slow motion,
and he rests the stick in the curve of his long forefinger.
He loosens his grip and swings it back and forth to make sure
it will strike the white ball in just the right spot,
swings his hair to one side, and then,

the music begins; the smack of the break
and the clackclackclack of the balls spreading
out in ripples, two, four, six all dropping with
quiet thunks into the side, corner, and middle pockets.
He runs the table.
I am not even allowed a poor attempt at competition.
This is a man's game and he plays it with grace.
He makes every shot with a mathematical certainty
that I do not possess.
I have seen this before, this quiet, electric superiority.
I have passed in and out of his field of vision a thousand times,
joking about my incompetence,
making sly comments on his prowess,
trying, half-heartedly, to pull his attention
from this game to mine
and always without success.

I might as well be ten years old, sitting at the bar,
drinking seven ounce returnables, watching my father,
instead of thirty-six watching Frank.
They are both strangers to me.
They are both immersed in a culture and camaraderie
that I do not understand,
indifferent to any female who is not
one of the guys.

For years I played pool with strangers like Frank and my father,
trying to gain access to the arithmetic of cool,
genderless and depressed because
I could never improve my game.
But tonight, I will not put my name on the board again,
tonight I will not stain my fingers with blue chalk,
and tonight I will not let Frank beat me.
I will play out the table until only the eight remains
and then, I will scratch
and take away his smug sense of self-importance.
I no longer care to be admitted into this silent, pre-arranged loss.

I will not go into this bar with you again, Daddy.

More Adventures with Rich (Japan, 2005)

I found a job in Sendai. It is about two hundred miles north of Tokyo. It has one million people so its a proper city unlike Kawagoe, which feels like Daly City. I travelled there this weekend to take care of some business and to satisfy my curiosity about what the city's vibe was. It is great. And the job I have is exactly what I am looking for. The school is very organized, it has a set curriculum and it is very laid back compared with the school I am working at now. For instance I am not allowed to fraternize with my students now. This new job has monthly BBQ with student. And the little things that are hard to convey through writing aren't present. For instance I am not allowed to drink while walking around campus. I cannot smoke on campus. I cannot sit on a desk nor lean on a desk or against the wall. This new job seems more Americanized. Also this new job is following the governments new energy saving policy of no ties for men during summer. Japan has a very strong code of conduct and no one wants to rock the boat and change a policy or habit for fear of looking different and stepping out of line in a strict hierarchical society. conformity and consensus rule. So it took PM Koizumi to allow a no tie policy. Also the last 48 hours has produced many many strange and exciting stories. Most of which only resonate within me so I will only share a few of the more bizarre moments that I am still trying to catogize.

1. Satoshi an 18 year old rambuctious student of mine wept in front of 45 fellow students becasue I am leaving. He bawled for at least ten to fifteen minutes. It may have been alcohol induced. The students invited me for a dinner party and I oblidged since technically they are not my students after the last teaching day so I would not be breaking the no socializing clause of the contract

2. Karaoke is fun and exciting even when you have not idea what is being sung because it is in Japanese

3. Japanese people put a lot of machismo pressure on each other when it comes to drinking. I was forced to chug chug chug from the pitcher of beer until I was literally on the brink of puking. After that I refused the continued offers through out the night--losing a little face with my students but retaining my own dignity.

4. Money does not equal happiness. I am here in Japan for many reasons. One of which is to save some cash. Most teaching jobs offer a furnished apartment--essentials like refridgerator, washing machine and bed. This new job I am forced to aquire these items myself and find my own apartment. AND I have to pay the key money to the landlord. Key money is like a deposit but sometimes you don't get the money back. Suffice it to say I am shelling out a lot of money, which is going against my money saving plan but for some strange reason it is not bothering me because I feel Sendai, the school and my collegues will provide me with a lot of happiness. sorry for the sappy ending

5. I first learned that the japanese love to take pictures when I was in Machu Pichu. I saw some Japs snapping shots of every damn rock there. With the advent of cameras in cell phones pictures are everywhere. And I noted this when after my first few beers at the dinner party with my students. I decided to take off my tie. My studetnts said I am like a japanese business man and should tie the tie around my head. Because I was a few beers in it took zero amount of time for me to tie that tie around my head. The next thing I know 45 cell phones being wipped out and shoved in my face. Snap. Snap. Snap. If a student emails me the picture I will send it to you

6. Bullet trains are cool and should be developed in the united states

rich

I dont exactly remember which student this is but it is similar to the almost dozen messages I have recieved from my students at TDU Hatoyama.

hi, Richard.

do you remember me??I'm sorry that mail becames late.I was very busy. because my graduation research is verybusy.I'll send you 2 picture.Richard'photo and "Omatsuri picture".....today is"Omatsuri" in Kawagoe.In English..."Festival".The festival of Japan is traditional and very happy.and, fireworks of Japan are very beautiful!!have you ever seen??It is necessary to see it.

good bye

your student and friend,

yasuko

My extraordinarily beautiful neice, Emma

August 20th, 1958 / Mercer County

On a long, still, heavy day
when a kiss tasted of salt
and sweat and the low sun
pressed the cotton to their backs and breasts
and ran in rivulets down their necks,
I filled my lungs with dog days
and sang my first breath,
raised by the smack of
a well-intentioned Baptist hand.

I came up out of the tobacco fields covered
in small red welts like chiggers under my skin,
tiny bugs of fear and paranoia that itched
for the calamine lotion of Ebenezer Baptist Church,
and I shouted out the hymns
(would you be free from the burden of sin)
while the ladies of the congregation
gave each other permanent waves
and stitched together patchwork pieces
of Vacation Bible School and come-to-jesus fabric,
biscuit-making, jam-canning women who won prizes
at fairs for their ability to produce perfect pie crusts,
while their men traded feed secrets
and hunted with howling coon dogs.

In the pitch-black country night
I lay under those redemption quilts chanting
the Twenty-third Psalm while all around me
the evangelical crickets jumped and sang,

and even they, it seemed, knew God.

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.


Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

W. B. Yeats

More Dispatches from Kawagoe: Fuji Achieved

Due to exhaustion, lack of trail signs and the momentum (both physical and mental) of descending mount fuji, I climbed mount fuji more than once... My collegue and I decided to start at the first station instead of the fifth station. We are two men who wanted to massage our egos by saying we took the long route. However, the long route takes you through the forest whereas the short route starts at about 5000 feet, which is at the tree line for fuji. So we got to see some beautifuly forested areas before the barren mountain scenery took over. At first we were really dusting the guide books suggested amount of time it takes to ascend the mountain. Sometimes we walked the numerous legs in about half the time, others shaving off about a third of the time suggested. But we realized we were taking the long route and by the time the altitude and exhaustion set in we would need the extra time. Indeed we did. So before we left the forested part of the climb night had set in. But we were confident and kept our pace. Then the rugged mountainous part slowly began to appear. By the time we hit 9000 feet both of us were tired but we still had enough energy. Then at about 10,000 feet I hit a wall. It took me two hours to go a distance I was covering in one hour. The altitude and exhaustion was huge. I had been climbing for seven hours and I know the sunrise would not wait for me so I kept going, taking many many breaks. Finally I reached the top at about 4:00am sunday morning after nine hours of climbing. It was thrilling to be able to sit down and watch dawn turn into daylight at just under 12,000 feet. The top is not all that exciting. It has a crater and that is about it. So with out much to do we decided to leave, knowing that a long descend and a three hour train ride back to kawagoe where in our future. So we were walking and walking and walking when we noticed that the seventh station did not look the same as the seventh station that we had seen when we climbed up the mountain. So we asked some people and sure enough we took a wrong trail. We looked up the mountain and saw the station that we needed to be at to transfer to the correct trail and gasped. We needed to backtrack about 90 minutes and 2000 feet (from about 7500-9500feet). Neither of us was in any shape to re-climb a portion of the mountain but if we didn't we would seriously jeopardise our ability to get back to kawagoe. So begrudgingly we backtracked, found the right trail and quickly left the mountian. So I climbed mount fuji and I will probably never, ever ever do it again because it is two days later and I still feel tired, sore, exhausted, dehydrated, bruised, blistered, and sunburned. rich

Flight to New Orleans

Imagine seeing the heart clearly,
(when it used to be a ghost town)
like light,
moving through two panes
of unmarred airplane glass.


Before I knew of air travel
I could sense a flight plan forming,
could smell it, like a weather pattern
building up against the banks of my southern river;
cold fronts in my father's house, runways inlaid
with pieces of my mother's broken heart,
tornado warnings in my brother's eyes,
and when the storm hit
I flew up,
without license,
without instruction,
into the crowded night streets,
looking for lovers and strangers
to reflect me in the wet pavement,
to postition me in the blackness,
tethered, as I was, by invisible threads
of nothing,
to nothing.

I saw life beyond me, the shape of it,
the perfect cinematography of steam
whistling from a boiling kettle,
the heavy pulse of taxicab traffic,
the mottled flesh of a blood orange,
and I craved what I could not touch in myself
like a ghost who does not know she has died,
and the geography beneath me never changed,
never moved me,
and I was twisted into thin lines like neon,
colored only by the fragile glass around me.

I filled the log book with names
and kept track as best I could but
whole pages turned brittle and yellow,
and I tired of the plot, thickening,
like a forgotten stew on a cold stove,
and more's the pity, I found I was hungry
and could not,
as my ectoplasmic self,
consume enough vice to forget
how to breathe.

I dropped altitude and banked
over New Orleans, a parish that was used
to inclement weather, living below sea level,
and beautiful decay.
I re-entered my body at thirty-three thousand feet,
over the Atchafaylaya Basin, when I saw
the golden risingsun ribbon of the Mississippi,
winding its way toward the delta,
and as my heart settled back in between my ribs
I was aware
that I was no longer
afraid of landing.

Kentucky Is Not The South

Kentucky is not The South,
is not the red-clay drawl of the sweet magnolia
blossom-watered down home.
It is the dogwood and mountain laurel
copper-tubing neutral recluse up home,
who had slaves but treated them well
and let them go,
who coined the phrase brother against brother,
split right down the middle,
and we don't take sides,
and we don't refuse the fight, but
Kentucky is not The South.

Our consonants are hard and our vowels
are not quite lawng eenuff.
We are in a borderland with our own resolutions,
lungs heavy with coal, at the head of the holler,
hemp-growing, bible-loving Baptists and Christians,
and we did not vote for The Catholic President,
and we did not cripple George Wallace,
we make no noise and hold no malice
and, Kentucky is nowhere near the Mason-Dixon line, folks.

We do not stomach that sweet Tennesee sour mash
gonna-do-it-again, gonna-rise-again whiskey.
We sent our sons both ways, tobacco-grown
mine-blackened bootleggers' sons, no cultural guilt here.
Our bourbon-candied aristocracy is not old money, not English loyal,
but dirty money, got by hard work and smart gambling,
got by gun-running to the Cherokee,
and we never agreed to secession,
and we never committed to the union,
and Kentucky is not The South.


for Jay Davis

Excavations

Hard pressed to conjure artifacts,
evidence to validate existence,
I pushed my fingers into the dirt,
down through the layers of the lost,
and brought up fistfulls,
ceremonial masks which have
hidden too many faces,
pieces of broken pottery,
domestic rubble,
arrowheads and buckshot,
most of which missed their marks.

And where were you when I was digging?
On some far point, gauging the wind velocity
between the things I said to you then
and who I might be now?
Were you expecting ruins?

I am bound to these old things
but no longer of them.
They are the remains of a
dead civilization, pictures
drawn on the walls of caves,
you on a repelling rope,
me in a ravine,
and time has settled it's dust on us,
evolved and unrecognizable.

We are fossil hunters,
studying our own lives,
trying to make sense
of the bits and pieces,
trying to find patterns
and putting forth theories
which we cannot prove
or disprove.
There are no quiet rooms
to hold this history,
no one walks the halls
of this museum but us.
We are alone in our re-search,
our desperate compulsion
to unearth things better left buried.

Put down your tools,
your brushes and trowels,
and I will abandon mine.
The evidence of existence
cannot be found
in what we were then,
but in who we are now.

for Stokes

Dispatches from Rich K. in Kawagoe, Japan

As some of you may know, our friend Rich went off to Japan a couple of months ago to teach English, (he's nice like that!). The following is an email transaction between he and I.


dear richie-san,

i have relayed all messages.
meanwhile, some of us were wondering;

how's the movie rental thing done in japan? do you have a blockbuster nearby? do all the movies have dubbed japanese dialog? what do you have for breakfast? do you wear your shoes in your apartment? what is the weather like in kawagoe? are you taller than everyone in the country? have you been to any temples? do they have baptist churches? catholic churches? does it in any way resemble Bladerunner? what are the names of the days of the week in japan? do they have seven days in a week? do they give you forks and runcible spoons or do you always have to eat with chop sticks? is the sushi better? do they have pidgeons? what season is it there now? have you watched any japanese game shows? do you have cable? do you get the BBC? what kind of uniforms do the policmen wear? do they have hats? do they have a chinatown in kawagoe? do they have coffee? cappucino? how many days of the week do you work? what time do you go to work? have you seen any geishas? samurais? do the grocery stores have american foodstuffs? can you get captain crunch? what do the vaccum cleaners look like? do they have a lot of robots running around? do the billboards really talk? are all the cars japanese-make or do they have a plethora? have you been to the countryside? seen any peasants? do all the women really wear Lillaz? do people give you gifts everywhere you go? are there homeless people on the street? what do the graveyards look like? do they have round door knobs?
well, that is a sampling of some of the things we were all wondering.answer what you can! (or not!)
big hugs from all of us.
cyndi


Cyndi and other questioners

Your questions made me laugh. I hope some of my answers make you laugh It seems you all would like to know my day to day life. It is not so different from yours. I spend the majority of my time here in Kawagoe. I surf the internet and I read. I tackled the first half of Clintons autobiography. I just purchased an interesting book edited by two University TEFL engish instructors. They had there most advanced students write essays about the many unique cultural things that go on in Japanese life. I also go out for a beer or two on occation with the other american I am here with. On sunday I go get a coffee and cake at my favorite place and I study Japanese. I bought a really nice wind chime a few weeks ago. I cook. I clean. I teach english and I commute to work. I also started to jog.

how's the movie rental thing done in japan?
I have not seen a blockbuster but I have seen a tower records in Tokyo. Furthermore, I have not rented a movie. To due so requires my alien registration card. I filed for one at the municipal office as required by law but I have not actually picked it up. I should have picked it up a month ago but I didn’t. So there does exist video and dvd rental places her in Kawagoe but I have not rented anything.

do you have a blockbuster nearby? do all the movies have dubbed japanese dialog?
Read above for answer. When Star Wars comes out here in Japan (July 9 I think) I will go to it. And I am sure just like Slovakia and in Romania (where I saw a movie to kill time before catching a night train) the movie will be heard in English and subtitled in Japanese. I hope.

what do you have for breakfast?
Well, Star Wars cereal boxes have been popping up at my local super market. But what I have been eating for years is either oatmeal or granola. Here I eat granola. It’s a bit expensive but I gotta be me.

do you wear your shoes in your apartment?
I don’t’ where my shoes in my apartment. I am not really sure why I don’t wear my shoes

what is the weather like in kawagoe?
It is about 75 degrees and usually over casty. Since the monsoon season kicked in it has rained about three or four times a week. And it is very very very very very very humid. I take a train about ten or so miles to where I teach and once it was so clear that Mt Fuji was visible.

are you taller than everyone in the country?
Yes

have you been to any temples?
Yes

do they have baptist churches? catholic churches?
There is a Christian church near my house but I don’t know what denomination.

does it in any way resemble Bladerunner?
Only when you are really drunk

what are the names of the days of the week in japan?
Sunday= Nichiyoobi
Monday= Getsuyoobi
Tuesday= kayoobi
Wednesday= suiyoobi
Thursday= mokuyoobi
Friday= kinyoobi
Saturday=doyoobi

do they have seven days in a week?
The earth spins slightly slower over here. The japanese decided not to add an extra day but to simply give each day more time. So we have 27 hour days here in japan

do they give you forks and runcible spoons or do you always have to eat with chop sticks?
I always eat lunch in the university cafeteria. And to my amazement about half the students use a fork/spoon/knife. I always use chopsticks. I think I impressed the old women who serve the food but that is all who took notice

is the sushi better?
Yes. It is so fresh. I sometimes go to a cheap sushi boat place in the train station to have me some sushi. And god damn it is the freshest sushi I have ever eaten. Last Friday I went to a traditional Japanese bar/restaurant with my boss. He ordered us some octopus. It came with the suction cups and all still on the arms. Delicious

do they have pidgeons?
Flying rats I am afraid these creatures somehow populate the entire world.

what season is it there now?
It is the dawning of the age of Aquarius

have you watched any japanese game shows? do you have cable? do you get the BBC?
I have TV and I have some form of cable but I unplugged my TV and put it in the closet.

what kind of uniforms do the policmen wear? do thaey have hats?
A lighter blue than SFPD. I don’t think they were hats. there are also police women and they wear the same thing.

do they have a chinatown in kawagoe?
No but in one of the malls there is a store called San Francisco Chinatown Dough Nuts.

do they have coffee? cappucino?
There are three starbucks in Kawagoe, and a bunch of other coffee places not to mention the countless vending machines that have coffee of all sorts.

how many days of the week do you work? what time do you go to work?

Monday through Friday 10:20 – 6:20. I have seven forty minute lessons throughout the day. I usually get to work at about 9:00. I prefer to prepare for my lessons in the morning.

have you seen any geishas? samurais?
Yes a few women in Kimonos; no samurai. But I saw some really cool samurai costumes on display in a temple. I was thinking that a five foot tall warrior is not so scary even when decked out in swords. However, he could still kick my ass. I am still hoping to catch a glimpse of a ninja

do the grocery stores have american foodstuffs?
No twinkies or any other american brand. but plenty of other sweet and salty Japanese treats. Yes Coke and Pepsi and grape Fanta. Budweiser beer. And of course meats, fruits and vegetables. But fruits and vegetable are super expensive. like 50 US cents for one onion. Or about a dollar for one apple.

can you get captain crunch?
Haven’t seen the captain

what do the vaccum cleaners look like?
Well women look very much the same as they do in San Francisco

do they have a lot of robots running around?
Havent seen a robot.

do the billboards really talk?
A few trains have announcements in Japanese and English. Some billboard talk but it all Japanese to me. I bank at the postal bank and the ATM near my house speaks english if you press the "english" button. Its a very sexy voice

are all the cars japanese-make or do they have a plethora?
Plethora

have you been to the countryside?
Not really but I see a lot of farms on my way to work.

seen any peasants?
I guess but this is Japan. Even peasants live in nice houses.

do all the women really wear Lillaz?
Of course. And they bought them from ABS

do people give you gifts everywhere you go?
No. I have received exactly 0 gifts. Except for a box of cookies from Ohio. One of my students went to Ohio with his professor to give a lecture on some bio electrical technical stuff

are there homeless people on the street?
Not as much as san Francisco. In fact not in the street. I have only seen the homeless in the train station.I haven't been to enough places in Tokyo to answer. But the few times I have been there I have not seen any homeless.

what do the graveyards look like?
Every temple and shrine has one. Lots of buddhas.

do they have round door knobs?
Back in 1983 Japan made the switch to door bars. Apparently its more effecient to pull a door bar down than to twist and door knob. Something about the wrist and its muscles and tedons explain the reasoning. that is all the guidebook said.

end of dispatch.

Nympheas

In the gallery I was not alone.
I was touched deep, deep,
had water lilies laid upon my new eyes,
had portions of my soul set aside
in brilliant corners.
Dark, darkwhiskey neat,
that burns in the belly,
that makes light in a cold train,
that goes on for miles,
talking to a waitress,
fingering the mouthpiece,
straight, no chaser,
like Mingus Bird, smooth,
smooth, those green dolphin shades
of shorter saxaphones
and fountains of clarinets.
Easy does it, easy,
like a Divine One
on a scat dive in the Five Spot.

I was not alone,
I was out there, elsewhere
with a monk who danced in brilliant corners,
with melting clocks and golden tramps
in Parrish blue, mathematical ribbons of faces,
a jungle flower behind my ear,
playing with tigers, playing with matches,
playing in 6/8 time until
the sunlight left a certain leaf,
so I could believe in the Lost One,
Perdido, I could believe in Spain,
in lettered subways
and poplars in a row
on the banks of the Epte.

In the gallery I was not alone.
I was lost in a garden in Giverny,
had water lilies laid upon my new eyes,
had portions of my soul set aside
in brilliant corners,
brilliant.

for K.L. Hill

Dim River

I

The long awaited rain arrived

spun me down

into some river dream,

some water wheel spoke of a girl,

some slipstream velvet calm

where I muddied up and floated,

muddied up,

no thunderstruck, no lightening fire,

just a mindful mist, eddying out,

dew mist, unbreathable and slick

under my bare feet,

felt like wet clover,

felt like some lost summer,

some goneby where the leaves turn over

backside up to the tears, to the gray blanket

and I put my toes in

and tried to walk the dams the kids built on the curbs,

tried to make branches and tributaries,

tried to get in up to my chin

so I could hear the leaves change color,

but the downpour downpulled at my wet dress

and I slid forward into a public pool,

smelling like Coppertone and hard cold Hershey Bars,

and smelling like the way my Mother laughed

when I launched myself off the deepend,

and I sputtered and coughed and spit chlorine,

into the breakwater,

into the dim undertow

of the dim river dream rain.

Diplomystus


I come, everyday, to this garden
where the stones sing ancient biographies
and clinging vines grapple
with desirous flower trees.
I always find, in the pond,
one pale fish, turning endlessly
in the murky water of words.
I always hear the wind of your vowels
poured over straight bourbon
and blown through too many Salems.
The sound of your swimming
back and forth calms me.
You have come before me
and hacked a path throught the tangle
and purchased the map
by which I am to travel.
I cannot shut windows against the sirens,
cannot recusitate and hold you,
cannot ask you to be more alive
than the recorded message you have left me,

so I count the syllables
and meter the lines of my own demons
and dip my fingers in the water
to touch you.

for Anne Sexton, circa 1993

excerpt from Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts: The Woman Warrior

My aunt haunts me--her ghost drawn to me because now, after fifty years of neglect, I alone devote pages of paper to her, thought not origamied into houses and clothes. I do not think she always means me well. I am telling on her, and she was a spite suicide, drowning herself in the drinking water. The Chinese are always very frightened of the drowned one, whose weeping ghost, wet hair hanging and skin bloated, waits silently by the water to pull down a substitute.

Maxine Hong Kingston

San Francisco Nightsong, circa 1998

Night, fog sings
erasing rooftops and distance
like a mute on a whole tone.
Night,
Night, it whispers
contrapuntal to the choiring
of internal combustion and
the clicktap, clicktap of high heels on asphalt.

Niiiiight, hums neon and halogen,
fluorescent and filament,
illuminating hooker, commuter, consumer,
consumed.
Night, beg the hungry cockroach
and the dizzy moth,
nightnight, coo the gulls and pigeons.

Oh...night, sigh shops and warehouses,
closing yawning doors and
dropping shades like eyelids.
Night now,
Night.

Beauty and the Shoe Sluts

Mother kneels at her closet of dancing shoes
to see which ones I fit--sherbet green
taffeta and crimson crocodile, pumps

in Easter pink, plus a dozen black heels
with bows or aglisten with rhinestones,
all wicked run down. Likewise,

she's gnarled as a tree root, her spine's
warped her shorter than me, over whom
she once towered with red hair

brushed back into flame points.
Seeing her handle those scarred leather hides, I quote
the maenads' sad lament from The Bacchae.

After they've chased down
the fleeing god, fucked him dead, sucked
all flesh from his bones, dawn spills light

on their blood-sticky mouths,
and it's like every party you ever stayed
too late at. In chorus they sing and grieve:

"Will they come to me ever again,
the long, long dances?"
And Mother holding a black patent ankle strap

like a shackle on a spike heel
(it must have been teetering hell to wear) glances
sidewise from her cloudy hazel eyes and says "No,

praise God and menopause, they won't."

Mary Karr
from Viper Rum, 1998

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Dylan Thomas

Notes to Sexton, 2005

I'm older than you now, Anne.
odd to think that I might have something to tell you.
The ciggarettes in the plant were a good gesture;
as a mostly life-long smoker,
I can appreciate the finality of it.
Just so you know,
we all talk to our dead,
KL, Dead Rick, Bob Kaufman, Bob Kaufman, Bob Kaufman.
But my dark girls have all shucked their habits, Anne,
They're all busy trying to change something,
the speed of light, the Ph of the native soil,
the nature of the work, the heart of a child,
their lives.
That's why i like 'em.
That's why i'm hear to tell
whoever will listen, and you, Anne,
that there's more after 45.
There is more.
In fact, it seems to get better, and listen,
just between you and me,
I'm really glad you didn't take
any body with you,
wild woman.
Oh yeah, and thanks for the map.

Zeleya, Velez, Monet, and me, circa 1995

In the soft glow of blue neon, in an alley
lined with garbage bags and dumpsters,
Velez dangles a cigarette between his lips
and mumbles smooth at the camera.
when i take the photograph
you and Velez stand apart
so the Keroac sign can be seen.
Nobody smiles. All that cool.

I see you through the lens
hanging against the wall
like a painting through 13 doors.
Monet whispers in my ear
that I am a sly and nasty fox.
See how the light plays across the water
and the lillies float in and out
of it's embrace like children, you say.
Dip, I answer. Light bulb.

It is more than all that.
It is the genius that makes me cry.
Velez is as beautiful as waterlillies
and you are the light, impressionistic and brilliant.
Monet strolls off down Colombus,
a book of poetry under his arm
and a burrito dangling from the end of his finger.