Ok, so this isn’t much of a post, but I thought I’d put up the list of books I’ve read since coming to Japan and those I was in the midst of reading. Recently, I’ve reached a point where I read a novel or two about every week or two. So, by next week this will undoubtedly be expanded; though, I by no means intend to come back and add onto it. Anyway, here they be:

Thomas Pynchon’s V.
David Mitchell’s number9dream
Kurt Vonnegut’s Slapstick
Sun Tzu’s The Art of War (Lionel Giles trans.)
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

V. is Pynchon’s first novel, and it is epic and helluva ride. I recommend it highly to anyone, esp. if you’re used to some more difficult reading as this story gets convoluted in a hurry and doesn’t look back. David Mitchell was a welcome find. He taught in Japan as well for awhile and has gone on to write some acclaimed books that are in fact quite fun reads. They mix in Japanese culture very well, while telling an exciting and fast-paced story that also has some clever writerly (not in the Barthes tradition, leave me alone you literary people) approaches. Slapstick was great. It’s really funny in a tongue-in-cheek way, and you can in fact read it pretty quickly. I read it in a few hours where I didn’t have any work at work. I never actually read The Art of War before, always having meant to. The edition I read had a forward by James Clavell, and was fairly interesting to read. I think I’m going to try and tackle as many different translations as I can because it is a lot of information, and it needs to be ingrained a little more thoroughly in my brain, I think. The British version of the first HP book was left me by my apartment’s previous tenant, and at the moment I have embarked on Barthes’ S/Z and need consistent easier reading to keep my mind at peace. I first read the book as a kid in middle school and loved it; however, now it seems much less exciting and enjoyable. It only took me a couple break periods at work to put down, and it was nice to revisit the childhood memory.

In Process:
S/Z by: Roland Barthes
House of Many Ways by: Diana Wynne Jones

S/Z is in fact repeatedly and forcibly raping my mind. It’s not terribly difficult to grasp, but it must be read slowly in order for things to be allowed to actually seep in and take root. I hope to post some initial responses to the early sections of S/Z that seem to better transcend the specific text of Balzac that Barthes is looking at. House of Many Ways is one of two sequels to the novel Howl’s Moving Castle, which I first became aware of because of the Miyazaki movie. The novel seems equally interesting, however, and I do intend to get back to and read the other sequel as well as the first novel in this series. This book is quite good. I think it falls into a similar category as HP, though the overall mood is much more laid back and less hectic, so it’s actually a lot of fun and fairly relaxing to read. It is still a bit of a kid’s fantasy story, but enjoyable nonetheless. I have a feeling the first thing I turn out when I get back to writing may very well be children’s fantasy the way things are going. I am halfway thru House of Many Ways, so that might even be finished this weekend if I get bored. It’s a quick read, but still lengthy enough to make me be involved in the text. S/Z will probably be the work of a month or more. I’m at about page 30 of 200 and some. But it’s well worth it — interspersing 10-20 pages of true literary genius with 200-400 pages of children’s fantasy. Also whatever Firefox or Window’s built in internet spellchecker is doesn’t seem to recognize the word “children’s.” Really?! Come on guys!

Most typos intentional, here’s the nightmare, as I see it, of life and modernism, and presented in what is meant to be a generally unsettling way; just in time for Halloween! Enjoy! (And I know it’s long and meandering, but see it through; it all comes home.)

AND YOUR BIRD CAN SING
(a Modernist Nightmare and Beatles Cover in several parts)

PART I
For those of you who never
have the opportunity to read
the cover of the notebook this
was written in I’m penning
it here:
     I’m not sure why you
wouldn’t be able to read the
cover, just flip back right?
But let’s be pragmatic.
So just to be clear I’m not
predicting the future here,
just calling on Discord and
Uncertainty to do –
what they always do.
     I did date a girl
     named
     Cassy
once though, who could see
          the future.
It was like 16 Candles,
but I was 24, and it
sucked.
     I realize my prag-
matism is somewhat
     limited in scope
     here: if
the cover can go missing,
any number of pages
might also go the way of
the dodo, and it seems
as though any individual
page missing would shatter
the ribcage right thru to
the gooshy organs of this
attempt at preemptiveness.
But enough, I’m
getting on my own nerves*
     “Let simple and
old-fashioned myself stay w/ you,
     while ordinary things
     have been disappearing
          in the world.”
Tell me
     you’ve heard every
     song there is.
I’m old-fashioned like
Hansel and Gretel cooking
an old woman for meat pies
– you know they ate the witch.
I knew them when
they grew up: they
turned out pretty alright,
     all things considered.
Tell me
     you’ve heard every
     song there is.
   Old-fashioned
     like
wicked stepsisters cutting off bits of foot to
wedge what remains
into glass;
it’s the man’s place
to backhand the girl
the Woodcutter told
Little Red, when she
doesn’t go down on him.
Keep perspective, she
was like 18 at this
point.
Even though he was like 45.
Is it the ordinary that’s
missing from this world?
It’s the irregular that
we condemn anymore
in our actions.
Everything has a place.
No hollowed out Judas trees
set before Venus,
rising out of the sea.
We have ratchetclanks
and pistonsshses,
where once we had –
I don’t know anymore.
This is just ranting
          anymore; it’s
worthless, I’m done.
And your bird can sing.
But you don’t get me.

[parts II thru VI,
missing or unwritten,
circumstances uncertain]

PART VII
Catch yourself monologuing
like Jack the Ripper
     out on patrol:
     syncopate footsteps
     w/ heartbeats
only to run
          faster and faster;
that’s the long and the hard
of it
like the long and the hard
of him+
consolation prizes for
sheep stirring up
the subtleties, as if
anyone gives
     a big fat fuck
     YOU!
I’m sorry I’m
all out of rhyme scheme,
all out of pride; it’s
just the distance
          between
pen and paper
          for me,
          for this to be:
          literal scrawl.
     But you can’t
     see me!
     W/ the light
     shining so fiercely
overhead.
     And your bird can sing!
     Clear as bluebells, gray
on a cloudy day; certitude
handed out in 3
square meals a day.
     But you can’t
     hear me!
     So la la…
It’s my heretic pride:
hectic and harried,
hopeless yet harrowing –
we never had so much
courage before today,
right now.
I love you.
I couldn’t say it before,
but I think you got it by now.
     Remember that guy at
the Christmas party
who I stared down, yeah
you knew:
     the multitude of us
     flopped back
     in the corner,
your foot on my shoulder.
God,
     how I loved you once.
I still feel it half-a-
decade back, my
past haunting me
when I dare invite it in.
Shore up the crucifixes
above the archways & the doors.
I’m just stirring up
subtleties, sitting
here at work
thoughts
     of you
          outlining my memory.
It’s difficult.
It takes patience.
It takes the spittlekiss
spitless from my perception;
it takes the Charybdis
from my horizon, the
heart from my Scylla.
Treacherous amongst those
lotus eaters, but I’m
just going
to sleep, and not
come to.
I’m lost to the world,
to the words,
words,
world,
words,
lost.
We all trickle down.

PART VIII
Some people must
     waste away this way:
it sounds so feasible
that it must’ve happened
to somebody.
Life being what it is.
You get everything you want,
and your bird can sing!
But you don’t get me–
you don’t get
meeeeeee!

[whether part VIII was
originally longer is
uncertain, rest seems to
be missing, if there was
indeed more]

PART IX
Karaoke breaks out
like an infectious disease
across the club, no
one singing what they
want to hear, but
rather what the person
nearest them wants to,
so everyone learns to
endure hardship, cares
and gets what they want.
We all fell in love
w/ one another’s
brilliance, but I don’t
let that happen anymore
because it’s the sort of
circle jerk that breeds
animosity
because eventually someone
will tug too hard.
You get everything you want.
But you don’t get me!
I’m trying to tie this
all together,
everything: explain
     the world
     in a few simple words.
But it all keeps on trickling
               down.
Double-up!
Level up! Double-fist!
So ein Mist.
Zannen desu ne.
It’s just too fuckin’ bad,
isn’t it?
Well, it was. Pretty
sure, it still is.
Anyone checked?
Break siege! Walk outside.
We have answers to find.
Sometimes,
     we get the wrong
     impressions of people
     because there’s nothing
     to be said.
     No room to talk ::
     no room to understand
     one another.
I button the 2nd set of
buttons of my sleeves to
pull the cuffs tight to my
wrists. Don’t want shirt
cuffs or long-sleeves getting
in the way.
     Like some inedible fruit
     dropping from the trees
at roadside
and rotting
blocking out all other smells
w/ acrid vomit that clings
to shoes and bike tires.
And then karaoke breaks out
     like a fight –
saw it coming, didn’t you? –
death metal reverie.
Shockapocalypse:
sardonic salamandersluice slit
up the track, strung out
wasteyeyed on balcony
cocaine, it’s all right,
she’s alright, parrot
flutterfucking sussurusses
hushes of leaves falling in
haybales from the
heavens, heartbeats
retrosyncing in anticipation
to the moment Dylan
drew breath to announce
his harmonica
kettlebrass sass, slashes,
gaping wounds found
wanting soothing salts
to pacify the mind in
pain –
the staples of rape-
victim, sickness with
only symptoms synchronous
and internally rebeats
rehashed with what
it does as what it is,
how it always will
have been, 5 min.
from now.
     Meow
     Meow
     Meow
And we shall have no pie.
Just cold hands.
Can you
     see
          the connection?
Shore up the crucifixes
outlining my memory.
Shuttle bus in the sidecar
freak show — the horror,
the horror,
of childhood –
can you hear it on the wind?
Always there, always beckoning
in the background of our
lives, waiting to be recut
into our lives to grind
between the graininess of
cigarette burns,
signaling
     time to change reels.
     …
          …

PART X
Cassy kisses me,
tasting of ash; it’s
the cigarettes, I tell myself.
She grabs handfuls of sand
off the beach and
trebuchets them into
the sea: the beach is a
transient terror, reminding
me how many the world
has undone.
She silently slips her hand
inside my thigh and pushes my
shorts up into the crease
betwen the inside of my hip
and my groin: she
grabs hold and bites down
on the top of my ear,
whispering — but not
relinquishing my pained
cartilage — she says,
It’s time for that again.
What?
An itch you can scratch,
a man about a dog,
that.
Oh.
It’s the first time I’ve
seen her in years, on
that beach, and I know
it isn’t fate.
Just another story.
But I’ve no doubt she
knew I’d be here, either.
The same way I’ve no doubt
she knows what I’ll say –
or rather what I’ll do.
She’s older now, we both are,
but at least she…
looks as young as ever.

PART XI
Because there’s always
something after,
concomitantly concatenating
the details,
just in case
     the details are lost.
What will the history books read?
And your bird can sing.
Oh my son, my son,
     what’ve you done?:
strung my bow
     and loosed the arrow:
THUD!
sick sickle cycle sycophantic carousel;
roundabout barnraiser crypt caper keeper;
sally struthers strungout on weather;
so much slimmed down seriousness.
A handful of dust for the poor?
A handful of dust for the poor?
Or hatband legends;
this was written for you,
YOU.
You knows who you is.
No more second tries,
Lenny. The Georges of
this world have done
all that they can,
trickling down words
of good favor and fortune.
Oh ye wee timid sheep,
stirring up subtleties;
I did it for you.
All
for
you: sincerious, sinfully
delirious,
tritefully sincerely a myriad
of this –
because
if they get you asking the
wrong questions, then they
don’t have to worry about
you asking the right ones:
(or the answers)
that’s the conspiracy of
retelling,
drudging up old dust, for
the sake of metaphoric
equivalence :: equivocance
to what made you, but
perhaps it all lies
elsewhere;
undermined and undetermined.
Thouse naughty kittens
have lost their mittens, and
now they shall have no pie.
     Tell me
          you’ve heard
          every song
          there is:
it keeps adding up,
and the equation keeps
balancing, but it looks wrong,
like a word problem
gone awry:
if I take two apples
from five, I don’t end up
with $3.17 and a
hamlet in the south of
France, or do I?
We use the old way of
explaining things to
explain things again,
and perhaps it could
never be any other way –
that way lies
acceptance, defeatism
insteadm
     renounce everything!
And even though
THEY
say a lot of things,
THEY’ll
never see it coming.

PART XII
Why 12 parts?
seems insignificant:
months, apostles, etc.
But you knew that –
I told you,
as much.
Does it feel tacked on?
It does.
Shit.
Ah well, hope you’re
well and not in Hell –
read that at the funeral.
In reading that, did
you make funeral
rhyme w/ Hell?
Fune-er-rell:
goddamit, thought
we were past all this.
But we never can be,
never will be,
never shall be,
never tally the score,
during the game.
Of course,
we do, or we might
forget — ever watched a
sporting event where
     THEY didn’t?
But it’s discouraging,
isn’t it?
It is.
Shit.
Ah well,
it was only an interim distraction.
This is a night out for
nights out. All night.
Makes me miss the
turning point,
it went by so fast…
Stranded without streetlamps,
I try to describe the
darkness surrounding me,
giving it details, off of
which light can reflect,
reason can inflect, because
details, real or imagined,
are perceived, and for
me to perceive here is
for me to see here,
and those things I
describe, I see.
It’s belligerent, what
has been done to me,
and I know that
without fully comprehending
what it means, and
knowing that I have
never really known what
it has meant+
the jack-o-lantern
flaming-eyed on the
railing running round the
porch: cut and carved
from organic matter and
imagination.
Tell me that you get
everything you want,
and your bird can sing:
but you don’t get me,
you don’t get
meeeee!

This is just a little bit from the start of something. Could be a future short story, maybe even a quick-paced beginning to a novel/novella. Who knows? Not I, at the moment. But there’s actually quite a bit ahead of this that I thought through and took some prewriting notes on, so there is a story after this bit that I just haven’t/didn’t get to that I hope to use sooner or later in something. Anyway, blah blah blah, here ya go:

     At the back of the blackout two children, four and seven, sat hand in hand in hand in hand. Twenty tiny fingers were interlocked to create one entity in the darkness. And then, a child’s whisper, “I’m Millie, what’s your name?” softer than any adult voice and too soft for any adult ears to hear.
     “I’m Gideon.” Their prepubescent voices matched pitch.
     “You’re a boy.” Gideon was already at a loss for words because this casual observation told him that Millie was a girl, and although he wasn’t sure if he should act differently around her, he thought maybe he should. He just didn’t know what to do. The opportunity to do anything was denied him, as a lantern flickered on, and they quickly put the appropriate social distance of a foot and a half between them. As you can no doubt tell, that was the first time Millie encountered Gideon, when their parents happened to meet up one night when lantern oil was burning low. They were destined to become a pair of pretty capable troublemakers.

     It took a few years, but before long they were thick as thieves. And sometimes they were thieves, oblivious to the consequences such activities could carry. Even though she was three years Gideon’s junior, Millie often acted as leader on such endeavors and had proven herself quite capable at thinking around corners, over fences, through hedges, into trees… Presently, there was a series of such thoughts to be had, as they needed to get over Farmer Strawhat’s fence into his orchard and then scale a tree before the dog or the old farmer was alerted. They had done it before, so it was really a meager issue of a repeat performance.

This is a bit of a play on a scene from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. I always wanted to write a film noir/spaghetti western kind of story — probably because of Cowboy Bebop. But anyway, just a short paragraph of prose:

     From beneath a sombrero his gruff voice asks, “Do you know how much you’re worth?” Underneath his fluttering serape dangle soft sandalwood handles, stitched with steel to tiny hammers synced to a series of chambers, each of which is aligned to rotate into position in front of the long dark tunnel of a gunbarrel. The cloth twists in the wind, and the breeze carries the scent from the gunhandles – they smell like prayer beads. And it seems that in every gunbattle there is something of a prayer. That is all the sandalwood is: the sign of what is to come; a symbol of what must be.

This starts in the wee hours in the neighboring city of Takamatsu, after a night of drinking, returns to Marugame, and then continues on into the next day in Kanonji — one weekend of craziness:

fucked up beyond repair,
not all repair –
just immediate repair:
last train over an hour
into the past, and first
train still 3 hours into
the future
kicked out of the station
by annoyed caretakers
dressed like officers, but
sent nowhere particular
except out –
out into the cold
a mean habit w/
history perhaps
found way to a
convenience store –
24 hours w/ hope of
a eating/sitting area
to take refuge in
until a way home is
provided
stared down by young
Japanese man in a
               sharp suit
as if the complexities
of him arriving here
drunk at 2am are
a pissing contest,
rivaling the complexities
of us arriving here
drunk at 2am
what a way to look
     to be
40 minutes from here
     by train
          sure
but we live here
     in the grass roots
          the country
               inaka
fickle-faces in the
     early morning for
     foreigners behaving
     badly, but
the only faces to
be seen besides our
own are victims of
similar circumstance
such a curious thing
     this — that
sleeping in a convenience
store, employees re-
treating out of sight
because they already
know we’ve bought
what we’re going to
buy — rice balls &
potato chips — now
we wait for the
trains to come
can’t sleep face down
     on a cafe table,
get up — walk-about,
stroll to the porn, but
remember it’s all
taped up; half-a-
mind to cut it w/
no employees around,
but look-up and
of course: cameras,
my face is too
     memorable here
even tho I look like
everyone not from
here, flip thru a
normal magazine
     instead
return to the table,
friend, Adam, stole my seat –
must’ve seemed better
to sleep in — no
tragedy, couldn’t sleep
there anyway
so it goes.
Later,
     wake friend & check
his watch because
my phone’s dead:
it’s time to head,
get to a real bed
Night’s brisk, try to
keep my balance, and
not fall ass over tits,
sobering up can feel
cold stumbling more like
bumbling — a
haphazard flight
plan
walk past the train
station that goes
to my house to get
to the one that goes
to his; I do a
lot of pointing; it’s
4:30AM and the
street musicians are
closing shop
they come out
around midnight, but
the circumambient
haze of booze,
msg, and nicotine
keep us from hear-
ing them here before
10 minutes into the
future we drop $7
a piece for tickets and
board the train
we will have been
on it for ~ little
over 40min. by
the time we
   arrive at home,
     not my home
     but a home:
   someplace inside,
familiar, and for
sleeping
wake up for lunch:
friend’s made pork-
chops + vegetables:
eggplant, onions, green
peppers, with
some noodles –
delicious!
still worn out though,
spend the day lounging
at his place, playing
video games
come night:
he’s off to see
the girl & there’s a
b-day everyone’s
going to, and I’m
thinking about.
Still worn out,
but RedBull cures
all ills. Buy a fresh
shirt & underwear
at the convenience store.
Buy a towel &
wash face & hair
in the sink.
Some deodorant to
cover up what
little of yesterday
might be lingering.
Strange to have found
myself so often living
out of convenience
               stores.
Such is the convenience
     of living.
Snagged a charger
for the dead phone
too, let it vampire
the life out of some
convenience store
batteries, thanks to a
convenience store
battery vampiring
cell-phone attachment.
Now I wait for
birthday time, a little
over an hour into the
future. No time
like the present,
even though presently
waiting — happy
to be!
Reminds me there’s
time, time to be
          spent, time
doing something, and
     not only
time that has passed.
Too often I am
finding myself awake
in moments where
I’m struggling to keep
up w/ how much has
passed.
One day, I’ll wake
up and be 80,
and soon after,
not wake up at all.
Time moves faster here
than anyplace else on
Earth, I guarantee it.
You’d know what I
mean if you lived here.
Think of movies:
     slow-mo scenes
     w/ 35 frames per
               second (fps)
regular speed at about
     24 fps
and then crap budget
animation shows w/
     14 fps
same # of seconds
but dif # of frames

there are fewer frames
     here; time
appears to be in the
same quantity,
and the same events
occur in logical amounts,
but there’re fewer
frames, and from the
inside looking out, time
flies –
about an hour into
the future now,
the party waits, while
I wait here at the
convenience store.
Cute girls come in,
cell phones w/
fluttering fingertips
short jeans and clothes
painted in New
Modernism w/ indecipherable
English — have trouble
guessing how old they are,
but they’re w/ a group
of guys in suits I
think, or at least
they know each other.
I defer conversation,
as they talk to
one another, not
looking for any
sidequests, splits-off
from plans in motion:
my premeditated motions.
Sometimes,
     I enjoy drinking
tea and keeping to
               myself.
I realize I could
understand their
conversation, as I
pluck bits and pieces
from the air like a
magician: sore wa,
yabai, dekinai, but the
details get drowned
in swift, soft, subtle
speech, and the
music blaring over the
convenience store
speakers — could
use some speakers.
No hope for
eavesdropping in the
noise.
Wish I’d brought the
gameboy or PSP, just
flickers of light &
sound in an irrelevant
reality to bide
my time.
Problem w/ packing light.
Boys leave, girls stay –
weren’t w/ them, I guess.
Cell Nick about his
party in 45, get
the details.
All set.
Waitin’ it out w/ my
own music.
“Sugoi na!”
Damn right, cutie.
Enchiladas & pinyatas
make for a birthday bash.
A crowd crowded into
an apt, sipping at
margaritas — walking,
talking, sitting, shouting.
Japanese girl slaps
my ass for no real
reason, and I get my
first drink. She’s had a
bit much, and she
can’t keep her mouth
closed or her tongue
from dancing across her
teeth. Two drunk ones
are the two who
don’t drink — s’like
high school watching their
melodrama move thru
their sentences, like a
man drowning in quick-
sand, those stages of
denial, anger, bargaining,
          depression,
acceptance. After
everyone else leaves,
3 of us go to grab
chicken & beer around
midnight. At the back
of my thoughts rest the
multitude of conversations
from the night, the
verbal casualties, the
friendliness of friends,
and this marvelous feeling
of family half-a-world
from where I was
brought up: what it
must be like for 2 girls to
scissor, the comedic but
decidedly uninventive drinking
game of touch my penis –
not that it was actually
played, only the rules
     disputed — the conversation
I couldn’t manage w/
cute Japanese girl,
Halloween costumes, future
               parties,
life in the past, life in
the future, calming the
drunks, wouldn’t it be
funny if? yeah it would.
Dan & Nick mix damn
good margaritas — no
premade mixes here, just
handfuls of freshly squeezed
limes. Chicken & beer is
good — hit on waitresses in
Japanese, say good &
               bike home.
Phone call next morning –
time for airsoft, for
action movie actions
amidst the pines:
unter dem Pines. Like
storming Berlin, or at least
a forest w/ bunkers.
Hustle to train, winded,
just make it. On train,
music to get pumped-up.
I can’t help but smile,
     almost laughing, as
dad holds boy aloft,
and boy tries to dangle
from the standing
handholds on the train.
His older sister runs
over and tickles his
exposed belly, as dad
stares around the crowd
w/ tired eyes and mom
smiles. Too adorable.
I wait for last stop
w/ my music, cute girls on
               the train
get off at the stop beside
the shopping district –
oh well, no time now
anyway. I get to the
station a little early
and wait for comrades
before heading on.
Some tea to tide me
over, besides I can
still taste the extra
RedBulls I used to get
home last night.
Two trains and a taxi
to get from A to B;
not cheap, and only 3
of us playing.
Airsoft mp5 makes
things better — we’ve
taken over a temple site
and will battle it out
in the surrounding
woodland trails.
Leaves scattered
across the forest floor
steal away silence.
Careful steps to obscure
presence but presently
double-checking crossroads,
too pivotal to relinquish but
too dangerous to stay.
Advance & reposition.
Go off trail, split-up,
draw fire to offer flanking
and then…
     shots fired.
3 rounds in 3 spots
– sometimes a car goes
by, down nearer the road
I can hear them, and I have to wonder.
Had a great time,
now covered in scuffs &
scratches from
diving thru bushes
and spiders’ webs.
Time to go home: only
been in my house 7
hours this weekend: to
sleep.
But this is not unusual
for me, here.
My far sight seems to
be growing worse,
words at a pace
sometimes scramble
themselves — bastards.
Back to work Monday:
studying Japanese w/
what little free time I
have; already teaching
3 classes w/ a 5-
period, shortened, day, and
a teacher asks so nicely
if I can do 1 more.
I say yes.
So it goes again,
all too often.
Lunch is fried fish
w/ teriyaki sauce,
rice, and some sort of
stew, w/ 3.5% milk
– drank the super-thin
stuff at home, still
surprises me everytime,
and I know, as I
put in the straw, that
soon,
I will be surprised:
odd thing this.
Saying goodbye to the
weekend, I’m in
the — – — > future
now. Had to happen
sometime.
Just wish it’d stop
happening
so quickly.
Students
are
ridiculous.

Written during a trip to a sake festival near Hiroshima and a subsequent visit to the island of Miwojima:

back in the world
I don’t see anyone back in the world
with the world so often at large–
disappointing, that
everything out there:
hence, everything; though,
I keep trying to bring it home with me,
or keep trying to bring home with me.
why should I remain?
strange how waves from a ferry
always look more real
than waves from a beach,
like filmed w/ handicam, or
modern movies+
high resolution television
too closely resembling what’s in front of
my own eyes.

Fucking BIZARRE!
deer walking the streets
like curious children, following
people w/ food;
completely disinterested in being afraid
of the 100’s of people that encircle
them daily –
this could never happen in America,
cute Japanese kids petting deer
like it’s a zoo, more
likely to scurry than the critters.

back in the world
vs.
out in the world
– wheresoever, I happen to see you

time passes more quickly here than any
other place on earth, inexplicably
I find myself,
     finding myself
          moments later–
               the moment already past.
Not sure how long this can go on,
but not very long, I’d imagine.

I’ve added a new section to the blog with the intent of reviving my online writing life/presence/what-have-you. The section is under Poetry>Japan Journal. I don’t have the patience for standard journal entries, and oftentimes scribble down my daily doings in poetic form. Sometimes there’s a good idea worked in, and sometimes there’s just some of whatevers happening. This new section will not be the only thing updated on the blog; however, it is sort of a way to jumpstart the heart of Here She Be, again.

I’m back bitches! Sort of. I’m actually the farthest from home I’ve ever been — something like 9500 miles. But the writing is coming back. Got a couple of novel ideas cooked up — one brewing, and the other I was working on well before I took an interim of not posting here. I can’t say I’ll be updating regularly, but perhaps sporadic moments of banging the gong to make you all aware that I still draw breath. Let my enemies exhaust themselves getting here, only to realize that the woodcutter has been hunting wolves ever since.

And a quick bit of froth:

You rolled that rock out to sea,
and sat there ready to float out on adventure,
but I was running behind,
so you had it wait for me there at the shore.

There are a number of questions I have no answers for,
and now I know that there is virtue
in not asking many of them.

I know much hasn’t happened here in awhile, and I can’t say how much will. I’m heading out into the world, and while I am continuing my writing, many of those projects are to be conducted in private — yes, there is still poetry and novel writing going on.

I also have started a new chess blog with a friend of mine, and if anyone is interested, you can find it at Wrong Rook Pawn.

Just thought I’d take care of this while I was doing some bookkeeping, so to speak –

It was mentioned some time back that there was a final determinant yet to be written for the TBD series, and lo and behold it has yet to be written. I would like to announce that this final determinant is not going to be written. TBD will remain eternally incomplete, but it seems as though that is something completely in sync with the process involved with the rest of the project. It is meant to be open-ended in many ways, and by acknowledging the work’s incompleteness, I think the gesture comes full circle — or rather it opens up in a way that it was meant to. I doubt anyone was holding their breath for the conclusion of this series, but in case anyone ever started wonder what happened to the end of TBD, now you know.