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(After) Mourning (After)

I can't write a missive to someone I don't grieve
for I always grieve
                   for everything they cd've seen
for the taste of their words in my ear 

     cinnamon or cardamom over war & terror
     turmeric or chili powder in your murder \ error

        I still grieve for everyone
killed by missiles  health insurers  guns
video games soldiers               are knives the real ones?

I can't write a letter to someone I forgot to grieve for
today   the ads went up   for father's day

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Written in response to read write prompt #117: create a hinge, by zachary schomburg. Hinges have been an important part of my poetic style for many years now, though perhaps on a smaller scale than what this prompt suggests.

Last night, I went to see Jun Ichikawa’s penultimate film, How to Become Myself, a coming-of-age story about two girls trying to navigate the social cliques and rules of late elementary school, junior high, and the beginning of senior high in Japan. Despite having been in the same class, the two only bond on the day of their sixth-grade graduation when both retreat into the library; they sit parallel to each other separated by low bookshelves. Kanako, once the class rep but now bullied, tells Juri that she feels as if her true self is hiding because a quieter self is good enough for the people for whom she plays the role of the bullied girl. Juri empathizes, explaining that she too feels like she isn’t herself.

The two lose touch as they go to different schools, and Kanako continues to be bullied. In tenth grade, however, when Kanako is about to start at a new school, Juri discovers her email and contacts her.  In what follows, fiction becomes both girl’s salvation. When Kanako seems not to remember their conversation in the library, Juri takes on a false identity, calling herself Kotori and telling stories about her friend Hina which serve as a sort of how-to-be-popular guide. Meanwhile, she writes up Kotori’s story for her Modern Literature club; the club’s teacher is impressed with the tale which leads to Juri being nominated to give a speech at the school’s anniversary assembly.

At first, Juri is mortified. After Kanako tracks down her phone number and calls her, however, she gains the strength to give her speech. During the conversation, Kanako thanks her and tells her that, though she eventually ran away from her new popular persona, it was through Juri’s stories that she was able to discover that every person she has been has in fact been part of herself. Understanding this means that both girls can go forward instead of searching for some more genuine way of acting. For Juri in particular, this means bringing out who she wants to be despite her fears: accepting the challenge of giving an address and inviting her father (her parents have divorced) to the assembly.

There is something very postmodern about Kanako’s epiphany. The way the film is made, however, would seem to defy that classification. The plot is straightforward with flashbacks only showing quick images of past events the audience has already seen, mostly to visually emphasize the way things have changed. Many of the most important parts of the film are shot with the girls speaking directly to the camera and the background either simple or eliminated entirely. On the other hand, the way the story depends on technology, particularly keitai (mobile phones), means that it could belong to no other period.

I also have to admit that I felt quite a bit of nostalgia for my time in Japan while watching this film. The scenes shot in the hallways and classrooms of the elementary school brought me back to the schools where I taught.

Time’s Clergy

   she didn't believe in time  until it was too late
    to know if she believed
                             until she walked into the sun
clocks were ancient secrets
                                     (they had be that old
                                      to be worth to decode
telling us how the sun lives  she forgot
Sun dies too & walking
backwards can't erase five hundred miles
                                     (& I would walk 500 more
she didn't walk into the sun
she wouldn't stop moving
                         as Earth turned in
    for its novular kiss
                                     (I'm still sleeping on the gun
                                      shot the unbelievers & I
                                        shot her
                                     death means nothing more to do

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written in response to read write prompt 116: the time of your life

Sonnet

I don't believe I spilled the beer again
getting out of bed: I was too tired
to get out of bed                   again
and somehow here I am     tapping on the window

I don't believe divides
me from outside
the people who walk
the people who love

                      listen I sing & talk
even if I seem to stand above
the sidewalk
when I'm only on the floor     above

I don't believe
height or sleep's the real  these

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written in response to read write prompt 115: what do you believe?

:Route: 66 Kicks

o glorious southwest
 o tulsa   o albuquerque   o motel six
eggshells patter your freeway fiction
    well, I hacksawed that —— the fiction of your free
      way to panic & decay    (or litter or slow pedestrian dinners
                           she muttered under crown
         of red dirt frog
    these (now) frosted lanes in summer (floor it to then)
  become another footlocker
for roadkill & Arby's & McD's
                               lubricious in their juicy beef
posters & blood would be offensive
when you can have ketchup
  or semifresh, tomatoes , instead

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written in response to read write prompt 114: all over the map