August 31, 2011

I and Me--Poem

I and Me


I'm a Feminist,


but I keep an XO elbow-purse

with a magnetic clasp

and a hidden pocket for

extra-personal items

because Aunt Jill gave it to me

for Christmas last year.


I'm an antimaterialist,


even though I save up coins in a

used vitamin water bottle

not because I like counting them

but to defy my spendthrift nature

to defy something others say

is uncontrollable.


I'm afraid of heights,


even when my cat Momo

gets chased up a tree

by the neighbor's yapping—chihuahua

and I have to climb looking up

hands shaking going down

with myeowling claws digging in.


I'm a young adult,


especially to my mom

but not in school because

we need to act adult to be “prolific”

and not with our friends because

we need to act younger

to be “cool.”


I am the only me here,


who can think what I think

before I think anything

because me and I are the same

except when me is the object

and I decide to change me—for a moment

to defy what is said to be

uncontrollable.

January 10, 2011

Going the Distance

Side Note: A lot had been happening to me, but long story short--I'm in Japan.

Traveling to distant lands always has its dangers... Hijackers (thanks to Taken), shootings/bombings/terrorist attacks (thanks to The Tourist), and not being able to get back (thanks to MegaTokyo). It's crazy how life seems to be just another movie... That college just seems to be another bad rerun of high school, except people have more money to do crazier shit.

I've had this feeling, longing, actually, for something. Something more than this mundane re-occuring nightmare. I thought that if I came to Japan, amongst people who were interested in Japanese life as much as me, then it would be totally AWESOME! But...it's not. Instead it's totally lame. I like doing homework, but...there is a point. I also like drinking...but there's a point. U.U I need to get a homestay!!!

I don't know why I'm blogging on my lit blog about this, I have my own travel blog (kyntravels.wordpress.com). But, I hope to make this longing feeling into inspiration for a story, but I'm still observing here. Until I find my groove, I am too unbalanced to write a story. I can't seem to focus. This culture shock has pulled the rug from under my feet, see? I'm even being cliche in describing it, I have no literary edge anymore. ARGH! One day I will start creating something from this chaos I'm in. Right now, my roommate is dying her hair in our room... So I'm stuck outside in the lobby...

Thanks for reading, again. Until next time... I might not write something creative for a while. Ta ta!

December 03, 2010

Seeds

Seeds by Kimani Nakamura

it's an image-poem, and too big to fit here, so click on the link:
Seeds

Here's the text:


I have many sturdy, unbreakable roots
poet author person/woman lover hater giver child
adult one big blight on humanity, my mom
used to joke about. Ive been called
geek freak loser asshole slob
Asian Hawaiian Indian
whatthehell? But
sometimes
American
one trunk
STRONG
holding in
my pain
my furious
ANGER
softly whispers
Mother's
lessons
in my ear
Sways to
Blood's
coercing
breeze
gazing one way
I see possibility stretching upward
reaching higher farther past my eye
love hate passion reasoning desires
who I am what I want to be BE what I can-I can't
??? me? no I am only a single seed
falling swiftly sure not far from "Tree"
seed is all I am all I want--can be
but dazzled I reach I have to
BELIEVE that somewhere anywhere
that seed will grow strong and branch out
one sprout with many roots like this tree
Can a seed do that and still be a seed?
And will the other seeds die, sacrificed?
Is that all I can do? Pick and choose--
'til there is only one seed left, and the rest are...
how can "free" mean always leaving what you cannot have?
To be one seed out of all seeds, next is gone, only now.
No more seeds, no more new life, just this path only
Longer than love but as small and insignificant as a seed
No. One person can be many seeds, so many things, and live
One seed, two seeds, three seeds, four seeds, five seeds, six seeds
I will, I can create new seeds, yes!
And they will grow and blossom into many possibilities
And I will give them away to those without anything, no seeds
I will resurrect dead seeds, kick life back into their shells. Then, perhaps a
single seed will mean something, the seed everyone searches for
A seed that can grow into many branches, not an ordinary seed-seed
but the seed of a strong trunk, the seed
with many roots that cling hard to
the soil and never break, never fail
a seed with many seedlings, softly whispering,
"Wow! So many seeds, so many lives!
I wonder if they're all mine."
To which I will say, "Yes. Seeds
belong to everyone, no one
seed is left alone. Seeds
are precious." And
that seed would smile,
nestle into the dirt,
and grow big like
a tree, with many
seedseed
seeds

October 12, 2010

Propaganda

I.


Believe this to be self-evident:

This ink is blue.

Believe this to be universal law:

Everything written is true.


This ink is blue,

not black, purple, red, or green.

Since everything written is true,

this is and shall be.


Not black, purple, red, or green?

But it's black, I say!

This is and shall be,

who are you to tell me otherwise?


“But it's black, I say” he says—

not thinkin' very clearly in the head!

I'll tell you otherwise, though,

it's because I'm God, written and so.


Not thinking clearly?

Now that's just bigotry!

Because you're God, written and so--”

PSSH! You and whose army?


Now that's just insolence!

To the cell with you and yours

My army and me, HAH!

Believe this to be true:

Tears fall silent in a crematory.


II.


In the cell with mine and ours,

sketching dreams for hours and hours—

In a jail of nightly horrors,

There is only one voice I hear.


Sketching dreams for hours and hours

in shapes of family, life, and lines,

There is only one voice I hear,

“This ink is blue.”


In the shapes of Family, Life, and Lines,

my hand descends, serpentine:

“This ink is blue,” and

“This ink is blue” shines.


My hand descends again!

“This ink is blue, it must be true”

"This ink is blue” shines,

While “it must be true” darkens red.


This ink is blue, it must be true

No such horror have I ever seen!

While “it must be true” darkens red,

This ink is blue is blue is blue.


No such horror have I ever seen!

Freed, I could clearly say to Him

“This ink is blue is blue is BLUE!”

And believe this to be true:

He smiled, and his teeth were blue.

August 23, 2010

Things

The ticket was a ripped, instant internet deal for twenty-percent off one entree from Chinatown with the purchase of another for equal or lesser value. Lying in the parking lot of a backwater Chinese Restaurant with the yellow roof peeling, it was bent in three places, covered with cigarette ash, and completely unusable. Because Chinatown has closed, torn down to be the lot for a new clothing store: Rickmann's Menwear Outlet.

"Too bad." Mr. Michael DeVry, a regular for ten years now said, "I know all good things come to an end, but Chinatown was already in business for 35 years when I was in college. I never would have thought ten years later, it would close."

35 years of cheap fried rice, inflation, booming and crumbling economy, Chinese, Mexican, Thai, Vietnamese, and American workers, The Honeymooner that featured the city's only noodle basket, and Health Department battles. In an instant gone.

The owner had been a Taiwan native, coming from a family of seven children. As the middle child he felt compelled to do something great like his older brother, Taiwan's #1 genius at the Abacus. Slick-backed jet black hair and business suit, he sold vacuums to start. He progressed to get his master's in mathematics and married a woman he knew from his friend's friend. They went to a mutual friend's wedding together. Had two kids, they left, and he began shuffling around, cooking lo mein, and making orders to other more successful Chinese restaurants.

He always loved to watch the international news, though, until the day he died--the day Chinatown was no more.


A pink Casio point-and-shoot camera lay discarded in a dumpster. It was raining, but the camera didn't turn on anyway. With a few bumps and bruises, it could be sold back for thirty bucks, if it worked. However, no one really cared on this busy Tokyo street. Occasionally, a punk kid or curious college student would see if it worked, but they would throw it back in.

The memory card was still intact, though. It was the storage of almost a hundred photos of Osaka, Tokyo, the Imperial Palace walls and garden, Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, even Akihabara. Over fifty of these photos featured a big-boned college student smiling and posing with a peace-sign gesture. She wore glasses for half of the pictures, and contacts for the others. She was tall, taller than all of the Japanese around her, except one person, a guy. She wore jeans in one picture, a skirt in some, but always leaning towards the conservative side.

"In Japan, girls don't wear, what is it?" The girl's Japanese professor had said in Sophomore year, "The skinny sturap and tight--Yeah! Tan...tanku top?"

So, she had not packed anything sleeveless or tight. Not that she had much. A tomboy and an oddball, Kimani Nakamura was going to Japan to find her roots, learn Japanese, and experience the world. Born and raised in America, all she knew most of her life was Americanized food, American culture, and American techniques. She realized after graduating high school, that college was great, but the world was even better. In college, she didn't feel like she was in the real world, living life to the fullest. She felt like she was in purgatory, going through grueling soul-redeeming tasks to get into heaven. When she graduated, the first thing she did was go to Japan.

The pink camera had been hers since Junior year of college, the camera she had bought for her Study Abroad trip to Japan. It didn't work because she accidentally dropped it from the balcony of her bedroom and it landed in a sewer drain below. She had thought the memory card was destroyed.

That's the way she was, though, air-headed and wasteful.


"Here, have this." The blond man said, handing the homeless guy a hotdog, "I don't like hotdogs very much anyway."

Piled with onions, pickles, diced tomatoes, and mustard, the homeless guy felt his stomach grumble. Thanks. He whispered. The hotdog was the holy grail, the epitome of American hospitality. One hotdog was a dollar, or now with inflation $1.35. Any man, even homeless, could scrap enough money for a hotdog. Fully processed with the remains of all the meat that can't be sold at the butchers goes into the hotdog, so it was like a delicacy or sorts. To the homeless guy, Roberto Romero, anyway.

Roberto stared at the glob of condiments for a few seconds, feeling his mouth water. Dressed in a dirty white tank, brown belt, and khaki shorts, the cold Boston fall gave him goosebumps. Hairy arms and legs, he had traveled all the way from Michigan--hiking, hitch-hiking, "borrowing" cars from stupid owners who left the keys in the ignition at a busy gas station. He had been young then, twenty-something, he wasn't sure. But now he was around forty-something, and bad nutrition and lack of hygienic facilities made him look much older. Like his father, who was still alive, retired in Mexico. That's why he had come to Boston. Roberto kept forgetting and remembering again. He had come to find his father's old restaurant. But he didn't know the name. He could only ask each Mexican restaurant owner if they had ever known a Rico Romero before. Unfortunately, there were a lot of Mexican restaurants... And a lot of Rico's.

What he wouldn't give to be back at work in Michigan, working for a Chinese place.


The belated Alex Lin's wife, Alice Lin, kept records of every worker in her restaurant. The file cabinet half-hidden behind the office door, which was covered completely with receipts and business cards, contained every tax form, every social security copy, legal ID, pay stub, and schedule sheet or every person who was paid something. Romero had been a cook thirty years ago, Ben a delivery driver fifteen after graduating from college, Kimani was a hostess twenty years ago, and Alex was dead. Chinatown died with him.

Now, all that remains are the Things.