POEM: Naruto Ramen, Brooklyn

Posted 4 April, 2012 in Brooklyn, Food, Japan, My poems, New York City, Poetry

Naruto Ramen, Brooklyn

where the cooks speak a mixture
of Japanese and Spanish
“Irashaimase!” they call
as people come in off 5th Ave
hang their coats and backpacks
on the wall hooks
those who know sit at the bar
because the bar is a sacred place
where devotion is paid
to the sprout, the noodle,
the bean pod, the tofu square,
the white pepper garnish
the sweat on the brow
the cold Sapporo or Asahi
the cheap balsa wood hashi
that you break at the end
scraping the sticks against
one another to remove splinters
order the extra noodles because
they’re generous with the broth
slurp loud enough to pay respect
to the hachimaki-sporting men
flinging pots on the six-burner stove
like Barishnikovs with ladles
for some, the nostalgia is as thick
as the steam rising off the broth pots
it’s a bit of a surprise to leave
and find yourself in Brooklyn
not in any of a thousand thousand shops
just like this one, tucked around a corner
of a narrow street, in every town in Japan

4 April 2012
Brooklyn, NY

/ / /

It’s National Poetry Writing Month! A poem a day, each day in April.

POEM: natsukashii

Posted 2 December, 2011 in Japan, My poems, Poetry

Listen to this poem using the player above.

/ / /

This poem is a combination of images from my past and images from the present.

natsukashii

genmaicha leaves
in a clay pot

Tokyo sounds
subway travels

tatami mats
against our legs

tangy curry
from little cubes

Tonari no
Totoro &

a cat who steps
on his belly

maybe you should
kiss me again

POEM: Tohoku

Posted 6 November, 2011 in Japan, My poems, Poetry

Listen to this poem using the player above.

Tohoku
(for TR)

there’s a woman on this bus
who looks just like you did
when we met twenty years ago

it’s hard to look at her
without losing my grip on this world
arriving back in Tohoku

where we ate soba noodles
until one of our friends threw up
trying to prove his strength

you were so beautiful
not like a painting
on the wall of a museum

forcing the viewer
to stand behind the rope
or risk damaging its brittle surface

no, you were like a field
of pale cherry blossoms
under the sun of northern Japan

inviting us all closer with a warm smile
as we orbited like honey bees
entranced and attentive

two decades later
the young woman on this bus
could almost be your daughter

for the last few hours
every time she’s smiled
I’ve been back there again

remembering that first taste of freedom
those cold winter days
in the mountains of Tohoku

stone #41

Posted 10 February, 2011 in aros, Japan, My poems, Poetry, Stones

the heater’s fan clicks off
the room is a field of silence
I am imagining Mt. Fuji
I am becoming a mountain

haiku (stone #40)

Posted 9 February, 2011 in Food, Haiku, Japan, My poems, Poetry, Stones

This haiku is largely an inside joke. Sorry about that.

/ / /

warm miso soup
cold soba & the taste of avocado
way better than Chipotle (TM)

stone #33

Posted 2 February, 2011 in aros, Japan, My poems, Poetry, Stones

Listen to this poem using the player above.

/ / /

Kinkaku-ji glows golden on my computer screen
illuminates a Japan-shaped hole in my heart

a class full of boys who’d never talked to girls
all but one fell in love with our tour guide

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