8

Hey.
So maybe you're reading this poem
during (to borrow from Irving)
"the breathing fragrance of spring,
the golden pomp of autumn,
the depth of winter when nature
lies despoiled of every charm
and wrapped in her shroud of sheeted snow,"
and if you are you probably
either are looking forward to or missing
"the soft voluptuousness of summer," right?
But do you remember near the end
the droning hum of cicadas
forming a sonic ceiling,
widespread like acacia tops,
and drooping green flora
you could've sworn looked
more luminous, "voluptuous" back in spring
but now are tinged in banana yellow?
How about the smattering of chlorophyll-starved
locust tree leaves lounging in the sere, wiry grass
at your feet, making you think instantly
of autumn, but remembering it wasn't?
BUT YOU THOUGHT ABOUT IT, DIDN'T YOU?!?
THEY REMINDED YOU, DIDN'T THEY?!?
Ah...sorry.
Anyways...
I was gonna go on an armchair visit
to Mount Parnassus and visit Cleo,
Muse of History,
in her lofty domed Palladian hall
stocked with many dusty tomes
piled up all over the place
(seems about apropos, right?)
so she could tell me
some things that happened
in years past.
I'd invite you to come along
unless you already got bored and stopped reading
this poem to go play Fortnite or Pokemon Go
or update Facebook
or watch one or two
out of a gazillion Netflix shows
or what-the-hell-ever you do
that may or may not be entertainment-related,
but if most of you are still hereWHOOSSHH!!!
And here we are.
And there she is
as usual perched at her clerk's table
surrounded by liquor bottles
(and the books, of course)
while she sobs heavily
with her head laid down
over her tunic'd arms,
and for the moment has ceased to write
in her latest account book
while (as usual) drunkenly muttering,
"Not again! Not again! Not goddamn again! Je-sus!"
Hmm...maybe not a good time, yeah?
But, ah! I see you've noticed
the framed portraits on her table-
a historian Who's Who, to be sure.
There's Herodotus, Thucydides,
Suetonius, Josephus,
Gibbon, the Durants, Zinn, Goodwin,
Santayana in a heart-shaped frame (!),
and (yeek!) one of Henry Ford
with a stiletto lodged in his forehead!
Wow! That's...interesting.
O-kay, then!
I guess it's up to me...

There were once whole groups of young men,
so so many young men
smiling, laughing,
chatty, excited,
uniformed, marching in step,
swatting away insects,
mopping their perspiring brows
from the heat of another golden
European summer,
ready to fight and die for a noble cause
but very soon to find out
about getting cold, wet feet,
or having no feet at all,
or arms,
or legs,
or faces,
or sanity,
or lives,
or wealth of innocence,
and to know death can come in a cloud,
or that a single shell can doom men to nil,
or wonder at least once before their
own personal darkness may fall
why the hell men are running about
in a place called No-Man's Land,
or why there seldom is any gain, 
or why that one Christmas
can't happen again,
because it was quite nice,
and many friendships were made then,
and many stories and jokes were told,
and many drinks passed around,
and many football matches played,
and many carols sung off key
about "Peace On Goddamned Earth"
and it...just...why the hell can't it?
(brassholes),
or even a year or so after the outset
find amazement in that the romantic weaponry
of lance and horse of the last century
seems as quaint as the stone hammers and spears
of primitive man.
This globe vomited up mire
and guns
and many,
many,
many shells
(except any undetonated ones buried
on lush European farmlands, of course)
and flesh
and bones
and blood
and souls
like it had the worst hangover ever.
And more's the pity,
the carnage never really ended.
It never has
and
it never will.

Am I being too much of a Daniel Downer so far?
Here's a fun fact:
did you know that 73 years ago
this month
the Japanese grew two of the biggest ever
standalone Enoki mushrooms
two days apart
that grew way way up
through the Troposphere?
It's "true"!
Unfortunately they were totally poisonous.
Some odd people have said
(I have no idea why)
that Alice and the Caterpillar,
a mushroom aficionado, as you know,
could somehow spot them from Wonderland
and that they and everyone in that place
who watched those Enokis grow
instantly turned stone cold sober
and sane
and the 19th century, like its weapons
and whimsy and gentility,
seemed very quaint
indeed.
No fun.

Still being a downer, huh?
Well, another thing
or rather another someone
to consider
this time of year
is Mother Ceres,
who I'm telling you right now
is reclining lumpily on an Adirondack chair
and gazing sullenly at the shimmering Kaatskills
while sipping a Long Island Iced Tea
(wait, where are we?).
The brittle, wilting awns of her wheat crown
nearly obscure her puffy red eyes
irritated by the perspiration
dampening her cheeks...
but of course it's not that;
she's really a bit weepy
thinking of and missing
her daughter Persephone
who'd rather spend her last
few summer days
sipping Vin Mariani,
finishing her trashy beach reads
and regaling her classmates
from the, oh, let's call it...
"The Arcadia Young Women's
Finishing School for Girls"
with stories of her and Hades'
tawdry sex life.
*sigh*
What's a mother to do?
She needs some cheering up.
Sayyy, I've an idea!
Anybody who's still here
sit in your armchairs
if you haven't already 
or if you haven't got those
a recliner (which can be different from an armchair),
a computer chair (most likely where you are now),
a footstool (meh!),
a BDSM chair (the safe word is "Rosicrucian")
or whatever you've got
and let's pretend to have a nice big
end-of-summer picnic
(you can bring any imaginary food you want)
in oh, let's say, the Adirondacks!
(oui, Kaycie?)
and invite Ceres and Clio
and even Persephone
(if she's sober/not high and not tootoo chatty)
and all the historians
who have pictures on Clio's desk
and *sigh* I guess that also includes
good ol' Henry Ford, too.
(Sorry, Clio.)
But wait, it's okay!
We can just give him bad directions
so he'll end up at *snicker*
the Poconos!!
MWAA-HA-HA!!

Dejeuner dans les montagnes.
Luncheon in the mountains.

Try not to consider all the leaves
ready to switch their colors
or the heat morphing
from tickling cool to gnawing cold.
You'll find anon, I think,
some appreciation for it.
I do.
It all goes around
and swings back anyway,
as you know.

Got drinks?
Raise 'em high!
For health
and happiness
and all four
of our wonderfully crazy seasons.

Through the years
we all...ought to be
together.

Even thru the tragic density,
the solstitial finality felt
in Number 8.

Salud!


DB/8.2018


Hope you all had a great summer! Thanks for reading! Stay tuned!

Hikikomori

(Note: There's a glossary at the bottom of this page for translations of any Japanese words you come across in this poem.)




boxes

I love boxes

when I was a kid
a farm girl about my age
from Hokkaido
whose family moved
into the same apartment block as mine
used to push me down
short flights of stairs
as I sat in a huge Sony TV cardboard box.
I fell out many times
and almost badly injured myself
but it was as fun and awesome
as if I sledded down a snowy hill
or even Mount Fuji
if that were possible
(probably not).
she was a loud laugher and kind of stupid,
had frayed, dirty pigtails
and a weird gap-toothed smile,
and I didn't like her much
at first
but yes,
of course I soon loved her
and wanted to tell her my feelings,
even give her my special
maneki-neko,
but then one morning
my okaasan told me
she and her family
swept out of the building
in the dead of night
because they were very late with their rent.
and when I asked
she couldn't even tell me
if they went back to Hokkaido
so that I could at least
maybe look for her there someday,
and tell her my feelings,
maybe ask her to marry me,
and give her my cat maneki-neko
and my love.


many years ago 
back when I was about 10 or 11
on Saturday afternoons
my otousan would drive
me and okaasan
in our cool boxy silver Honda
and we would do a little shopping
at our local Don Quijote
(I would always get the new Shonen Jump
and some candy and an occasional toy)
and after we dropped okaasan
off at her favorite boutique or salon
we both would, depending on our plans,
go to Club Sega, or the batting cages,
or even to McDonalds for a sundae,
among other cool places.
those were some of the happiest Saturdays
of my life,
spending quality time with otousan,
but any day I didn't need to wear a
fucking school uniform
was okay by me!
eventually, though, otousan got a new promotion
at his company, the-what was it?-
the 'Sureibu-Manufacturing-
Conglomerate-Concern-
Something-or-Other'
and so our Saturdays officially
belonged to them from now on.
okaasan still could and does do things
with any of her girlfriends,
though she's been spending more time at home
because she'd rather keep hovering
and fussing over me
because I, well, I began to stay
in my most favorite box of all.
eventually otousan would notice
and sometimes knock forcefully on my door
and order me to go outside
to get some fresh air
(fresh air? in Tokyo? really?
and by the way, why do grown-up always insist
we do these recreational things
that they would rarely do themselves
(just like you see in American comic strips)
unless they were natural athletes or something?
I mean, jeez,
is their grown-upness just
chiseled in stone forever?
they couldn't play? run? skip? hop? jump?
or just act silly or goofy
which a lot of them seem to be very good at anyway?
nope.
they'd probably need a lot of sake first
just to unclench,
but otherwise they stand firmly
on their own dignity
and their rigid work ethic.
ugh!)
but of course I wouldn't go outside
(I rarely do)
and lately I've noticed his knocking seems...
half-hearted, tired even.
he sounds like he's giving up.
strange to say
but I wonder if he ever envies me.
poor otousan.
sureibu is right.
hope he doesn't wind up in...never mind.


I like to keep all of my manga comics
stored neatly in plastic boxes
and all my hentai 
underneath my bed (shhh!).
I've got a PS3&4, a Wii and an XBox One
and they keep me busy a lot nowadays.
a lot!
ooh! I almost forgot about the bento boxes!
those are some of my very favorite ones!
wait a minute...okaasan!
okaasan! bento onegaishimasu!
BENTO!!
WITH SOME ICED MUGICHA!!
hai, hai, arigatau!
while I'm waiting
I may as well mention
that yet another "rental sister"
visited here the other day.
this one was really pretty,
with shining brown eyes,
a big smile that threatened
to swallow up her whole face,
and lustrous, straight cocoa-colored hair.
if I didn't know any better
I'd have sworn she was
that girl from Hokkaido
totally made over (it wasn't).
she was nice enough
but I made all my points to her
before she'd finish speaking
(rude, I know, but there it is).
so:
her: it's a very nice night out tonight!
(she could sound a little inane sometimes)
why not go o-
me: have you seen Tokyo at night, Mizuki,
really looked at it?
it's as bad as in daytime.
I mean, I love boxes-
her: boxes?
me:-as much as the next guy,
but most of them look just awful
in those neon signs,
like gaudy strings of tinsel
hanging off of the most blah Christmas trees ever.
ugh, who needs it?
her: but there are lots of things to do-
me: and I've done them, plenty of them,
some even with my oya
but not anymore.
I'm happy here.
her: but-but don't you have friends you could-?
me: sure. Pikachu, Ash, Kazuma Kiriyu and Haruka, Donkey Kong,
Sonic the Hedgehog, Laura Croft, Mario and Luigi,
Shuya Nanahara, Noriko Nakagawa, Shogo Kawada
and the other 39 gakusei no, Son Goku, Kuririn, Bulma,Yamcha
and everyone else in the DB/DBZ multiverse,
Yugi Mutou, Sailor Moon (nope! gotcha!)...
her: hee hee!-but they're not real, you know!
me: real enough for me,
and they're all the friends
that I need or want.
next question.
her: okay, okay, but what about getting a job
and being indepen-?
me: Mizuki, let me tell you a story,
one I've never told the others:
there was a bachelor in his late forties
who used to live
a few doors down from here-
Mister Fukou.
he was tall and gaunt,
hunched-over with thinning grey hair,
went to work in the morning looking tired,
came home at night looking exactly the same way,
acting almost like a soulless zombie,
growling and snarling and moaning.
nobody really wanted to greet
or even chat with him,
let knew anything about him,
not that he noticed or cared much
for other people either.
so very early one happy happy
sunny Tokyo morning
Mister Fukou left zombily
(and yes, I know that's not a word)
for his job as usual
and never returned home.
I think it was a day later
when some rich young baka gaijin American
wearing a Pikachu hoodie
was visiting Aokigahara with his idiot posse
and nearly stumbled over Mister Fukou's body
that had a tanto stuck in his belly
and its bloody intestines spilling out all over.
apparently it wasn't until they all felt
they'd taken enough selfies with the body
that gee, maybe the police ought to know about this.
long story short, Mister Fukou
had been an overworked, upper-level employee,
the best in his field, 
until he made one eensy-teensy accounting error
that cost his company millions of yen.
he wasn't fired, though, but was severely demoted
to inventorying everything in his building,
from tea pots to tempura dishes,
hand soap to hard drives,
much to his undying shame.
his co-workers shunned him
but to his credit he finished out his workday
and went straight to Aokigahara,
his great-great-grandfather samurai warrior's
blood-kissed tanto
always hidden in a secret compartment
in his briefcase.
guess all he needed was a reason
to be a modern samurai.
save face.
escape (I mutter).
her: I-I think I read about that...poor man! very sad!
he: yeah,
so, no,
I don't feel the need to get a job
or be independent.
I don't need the grief
or the money (much)
but like I said before,
I'm fine here
with my oya,
unless of course
you know of any job openings
for samurai, ninja,
ronin, shogun,
cowboy, astronaut,
billionaire,
a Jedi or a Transformer,
God,
a Colossus
from the Forbidden Lands,
something cool like that
then sure, I might change
my thinking on that.
her: uh, o-okay...one more-
me: wow, whatever happened to that big smile, Mizuki?
(a bit too smug there)
I miss it already.
her: uh?...o-one more question...d-don't you want
a girlfr-?
me: sure. wanna go out with me?
like right now?
her: uh?
me: like you said, it's a nice night out tonight.
maybe we can find something fun to do!
her: I...I have a boyfriend.
me: ah-ha...heh, I'm sure you do...
pretty girl like you...
well, what about any of your girlfr-
her: they have boyfriends too.
me: ah-ha...yeah, of course they do...
Mizuki?
I'm tired.
please go away now
and never come back...
and let your other fucking
"sisters"
know I'm done talking.
her: uh?
me: go.
her: but-
me: OKAASAN!!!
her: a-alright, I'll go. s-sayonara. 
me (barely audible): yehsynaraMzki.
that was that.
haven't see another "sister"
since then,
much to my oya's dismay.


I think the only box
that I don't love
is the kind
they put Mister Fukou
and will one day
lay my oya to rest in.
death doesn't become me,
so I plan on staying young,
having fun
and living forever.
so I'll be fine.
no, I am fine!
really.

really.

ahh, okaasan,
my bento and mugicha!
mmm, it looks
and smells wonderful!
arigatou, arigatou!

you can close the door now.



DB/8.2018



                  Dan B.'s I-Looked-Them-Up-So-You-Don't-Have-To
                                    Glossary of Japanese Words
                                  
arigatou=thank you
baka gaijin=stupid foreigner
bento=an ornate lunchbox or the healthy lunch
            of rice, vegetables and raw fish packed in it
fukou=sorrow, unhappiness, misfortune, etc.
gakusei no=student(s)
hai=yes
hentai=sexually explicit manga and anime
hikikomori=lit. "withdrawing inward", or an adolescent or young adult who isolates themselves from the outside world and refrains from any socialization
manga=Japanese comics and graphic novels
meneki-neko=lit."beckoning cat" (a good luck charm)
mugicha=barley tea (I drink it cold too)
okaasan=mother
onegaishimasu=please
otousan=father
oya=parent(s)
"rental sister"=a girl or young woman hired to persuade the (usually) male hikikomori to be active outside of their homes
sake=alcoholic drink made of fermented rice
sayonara=good-bye
sureibu=slave
tanto=a short sword worn by samurai warriors in feudal Japan


However I'll let you all suss out the pop culture references. Good luck!