Poem Breaking Silence

My poem "Disco Chinatown" is in "Breaking Silence," an anthology of Asian American poetry (1983: Greenfield Review Press) featured in the latest edition of this online magazine "asiacana."

Disco Chinatown
a poem by Yuri Kageyama

street blood throbbing
punk maggots of the slums with fake ID's
smelling British sterling
cover the stink of sweat, car grease and dirt
and the blood from being cut up by a Jo
or is it W.C?
slant eye to slant eye talking
smooth talking or trying,
"hey, baby-
looking nice tonight"
spilling sunrises
margaritas
bourbons with cherries
giddy easy striding to make it to my table
in your own eyes, a ghetto knight,
"wanna drink?"
in a flash and a flick, light my cigarette
the dance floor is dead tonight
linoleum cracked
the Filipino D.J. Berkeley Asian American Studies drop out is stoned
and even the lights look neon sleazy
you want me to move, a wax museum dancing doll, under your macho
gaze,
or in your arms, rocking following your rocks,
layered black hair,
moustache, always, to tickle the quick kisses,
cheap shiny shirt, four buttons open,
a jade pendant swaying against yellow brown flesh,
darker brown leather and long long legs,
you want to take me home
and the grip on my shoulder tightens,
you driving a Camaro Z28?
an Olds 442?
a broken down Malibu?
a Caddy Eldorado?
you want to be rich someday
you want to enjoy life, you say,
cuz it's so so short,
ALL girls want you for their old man,
"in bed, I have a good body,
opium makes me last
and last
I'm ten inches
and, "a smile,
"this thick"
you play the mind games with a too ridiculous seriousness
not another escape out just for kicks
your street male pride can't take no scratches
you'll kick my ass when the number I give you isn't mine
you tell me not to dance with anyone else
when I just met you tonight
and isn't your old lady waiting at your apartment?
hardened hard up
Ricksha stray tiger cat
your life view quite
doesn't
touch mine
and being gang banged isn't my type of thrill
disco steps don't silence sirens
and the skyscraper lights don't touch Grant Avenue on a Friday night
Golden Dragon massacred meat can't ever be pieced back together again
black lights and hanging ferns or Remy sweetness can't hide
spilled out alley fish guts
that tell you and tell you
there just ain't no future
your hands grope
your eyes closed
your tongue dry
your penis limp
poor ChinaMAN-child

wise words

DO YR ART D WAY U WANT
ANYWAY U WANT
ANY WANGOL U WANT
ITS UP TO U/WHAT WILL WORK
FOR U.

_ from "Catechism of d Neoamerican Hoodoo Church," a poem by Ishmael Reed.

taiko vs hip-hop

what does it mean to be Japanese? what does it mean to be American? what is yellow vs. what is black/white? what is Music? what is art? and what does it mean to be human? no easy answers ever but key questions in life and what being an artist is all about.

Taiko with bon odori tune "Hokkai Bon Uta"


Taiko with "Waterfalls" by TLC


Taiko with Snoop Doggy Dogg's "Ain't No Fun"

learning about pride

as a parent, i have always tried to instill in my son pride in one's identity (race, culture, national origin).
but i don't think i was ever truly proud.
somewhere deep inside, there was that feeling of being a second-class citizen because i was not white/Anglo-Saxon/a Westerner/an american.
asserting one's pride is the mirror image of that feeling of inadequacy.
if you were really so proud, you wouldn't need to keep saying it.
the whole idea of having to say it over and over again means you aren't so sure and you aren't so proud.
watching my son grow up to be a taiko drummer has helped me learn what true pride in one's identity is.
because there is more to it than just telling yourself over and over that it's OK not to be white.
it is about seeking meaning in your life, pursuing a way of life, including everyday things like the place where you choose to live, the music you choose to listen to, the artists you emulate as your models.
taiko is all about being Japanese although it is a strong statement that holds appeal to the international audience in the same way that the music of Paganini or Mozart holds appeal to the international audience, including many Asians.
in that sense, i have never really been Japanese because my cultural references are Western _ rock 'n' roll, James Joyce, Biblical Salvation, Claude Monet.
there is nothing really wrong with this because being international is a good thing, and art is about transcending the confines of prejudices and boundaries of consciousness.
but watching my son grow up to pursue a Japanese form of music is helping me come to terms with the incompleteness and imperfections of my pride.
now i know, i was never really proud.
i was always ashamed and felt inadequate, even afraid.
i was never sure of what i was trying to pass on to future generations as pride.
or that was precisely why i was so determined to teach my son that pride.
but when i saw that pride staring back at me in my son and how beautiful and oh so Japanese taiko can be,
i was confronted with pride in its truest and purest that stem so deep from one's soul from someone so close to me that he is a part of me.
and so now that pride is mine.

ego and egoism

Art is all about ego.
Even if you are the kind of artist who believes that only amateurish art is about self-expression and true art is about something else entirely, no one disagrees that art can stem only from the self that is the artist.
Most forms of selfishness as they play out in society are negative, often evil.
People want to save their own asses and want more money, status, privileges, at the cost of others, and so place themselves in career/society/hierarchy to feed that ego and that egotistical need.
This is the reality that is 99.99999 percent of reality.
This is the reality that I don't understand and never have understood.
It is not particularly interesting and certainly not satisfying.
Unfortunately, if we want to survive as human beings until death and support our family, we must deal with this torturous but undeniable 99.99999 percent of reality, since it IS 99.99999 percent _ if we count all the people who choose to be involved in this pursuit of career, money, status, etc. as valid values and goals vs. those who are interested in and satisfied by something else and become poets.
Poetry is a form of art that is as divorced from the worldly pursuits that make up 99.99999 percent of reality as things can get.
The ego takes center stage but in a way that is irrelevant from politicking, career advancement and mundane unbecoming unpoetic competition.
A poet is ego pure and simple and total and unafraid.
A poet exercises selfishness with a free conscience.

"My Eyes Tokyo" interviews Isaku Kageyama

Photo by Naokazu Oinuma.

A podcast interview with Isaku Kageyama and his music by "My Eyes Tokyo," from Isao Tokuhashi.

"If I didn't play taiko, I don't know where I would be. I don't know what I would be doing right now. I might not be alive. I might be in jail."

Assumptions

Assumptions
a poem by Yuri Kageyama

when people bad-mouth us
sneering in French
assumptions are being made of us
a yellow face is non-literati,
good at math, grunts only pidgin
assumptions are being made of us
we are followers, never leaders,
happy to be hired
assumptions are being made of us
sidekick in "Heroes," never the hero
Kato like Tonto
assumptions are being made of us
we do dishes
we do blow-jobs
assumptions are being made of us
trying hard to be liked, blend in,
do better than the best
assumptions are being made of us
digging with a scalpel
make our slant eyes round
assumptions are being made of us
sneaky and un-scru-pu-lous
prove our loyalty by "going for broke"
assumptions are being made of us

poem RE poet

poem Re poet
a poem by Yuri Kageyama

ninja lost in the commuter train
the voice in the urban wilderness
shaman moaning an improvised chant
the word that kills
the thought that heals
being a poet is being told to take a bungee jump
and the rope is "Made in Japan-town"
feeling that fetal taiko-drum beat vibrating from deep within
all the way from my shuddering lips
to my dew-dropping labia folds _ majora and minora
the word that kills
the thought that heals
i don't feel safe:
will the music survive?
standing and sitting and walking and jogging
no different from anybody else
but transforming the everyday into the eternal
adding meaning to the meaningless
connecting with the dead like a radio show
seeing outer space
in the here and now
there is no choice
everywhere
but alone
being a poet
it just happens
the word that kills
the thought that heals

Vertigo

my head is swaying though it's deadly still
red blood plasma swimming wildly
my brain rotting like miso
around and around
my feet don't touch the ground
the walls swoop sideways
in time to a Satie piano
the pale ceiling darkens
turning upside down
i must be having a stroke
i must have a brain tumor
hormones going berserk
vagina drying
bad breath stale body odor of fungus
graying hair thinning
even eyelashes thinning
but your fat getting fatter
you gotta be kidding
dizzy biological clock ticks to the grave
reproductive function grinds to a halt
fossils of dinosaurs sleeping inside the earth
no more monthly blood
no more monthly mood swings
just permanent depression and deprivation
instinct of species preservation
menopause, people say,
marks a step into a more spiritual stage in life
the best years
the final
best years
but the top of my head is filled with air
and deep down, the fiery hotness,
where the flashes come,
that spot where the root of the umbilical cord
a tiny amputated limb
awaits
inside
makes me masturbate in my bed

Little Yellow Slut "live" version

Poetry reading at What the Dickens in Tokyo Sunday April 6.
Little Yellow Slut (previous studio version)

Poetry by Yuri Kageyama.
Music composition/arrangement, djembe, percussions by Teruyuki Kawabata (Cigarette She Was).
Kplango by Haruna Shimizu.
Didgeridoo by Keiji Kubo.

Little YELLOW Slut

You know her:
That Little YELLOW Slut, proudly gleefully
YELLOW-ly hanging on Big Master's arm,
War bride, geisha,
GI's home away from home,
Whore for last samurai,
Hula dancer with seaweed hair,
Yoko Ohno,
Akihabara cafe maid,
Hi-Hi Puffy Ami/Yumi,
Kawaiiii like keitai,
Back-up dancer for Gwen Stefani,
Your real-life Second Life avatar
Eager to deliver your freakiest fetish fantasies,
Disco queen, skirt up the crotch,
Fish-net stockings, bow-legged, anorexic, raisin nipples, tip-
Toeing Roppongi on
Stiletto heels.

Yessu, i spikku ingrishhu, i raikku gaijeeen, they kiss you,
hold your hand, open doors for me,
open legs for you, giggling pidgin, covering mouth,
so happy to be
Little YELLOW Slut.

Everybody's seen her:
That Little YELLOW Slut, waiting at
Home, cooking rice, the Japanese
Condoleezza Rice,
Smelling of sushi,
Breath and vagina,
Fish and vinegar,
Fermented rice,
Honored to be
Cleaning lady,
Flight attendant for Singapore Airlines,
Nurse maid, gardener,
Japan-expert's wife,
Mochi manga face,
Yodeling minyo,
Growling enka,
Sex toy, slant-eyes closed, licking, tasting, swallowing STD semen,
Every drop.

Yessu, i wanna baby who looohkuh gaijeen, double-fold eye, translucent skin, international school PTA,
maybe grow up to be fashion model, even joshi-ana,
not-not-not happy to be
Little YELLOW Slut.

I recognize her:
That Little YELLOW Slut, rejecting
Japanese, rejected by Japanese,
Ashamed,
Empty inside,
They all look alike,
Faceless, hoping to forget, escape
To America,
Slant-eyed clitoris,
Adopted orphan,
Dream come true for pedophiles,
Serving sake, pouring tea, spilling honey,
Naturalized citizen,
Buying Gucci,
Docile doll,
Rag-doll, Miss Universe, manic harakiri depressive, rape victim, she is
You, she is me.

Hai, hai, eigo wakarimasen, worship Big Master for mind, matter, muscle, money, body size correlates to penis size,
waiting to be sexually harassed, so sorry, so many,
so sad to be
Little YELLOW Slut.

One Thousand Drummers 2

Music critic and Billboard correspondent Steve McClure's article on 1,000 Taiko Drummers in Brazil ran in The Daily Yomiuri.
One of the drummers will be my son, Isaku Kageyama.

Wow! Busy!

Evidence of hard work:

newsvine.com

Being Big in Japan

Some famous Americans are embarrassed to Be Big in Japan.
Read lack of taste, intelligence and technical finesse taken for granted with Being Big Elsewhere like Europe and the US of A.
Asians wear mousey dark suits, part their oily hair at the side, have buck teeth and dark glasses and sing karaoke and fight each other at bargains for designer items and stand in long lines for Broadway musicals, Sting concerts and Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
So Being Big in Japan is really Nowhere at all, except for the money obviously.
But Being Big Somewhere gets complex if you aren't part of the mainstream and must place yourself in such a way to get to the funding/reputation/Crumbs of the Pie that make those outside the mainstream acceptable to the mainstream under its standards.
Not caring about Being Big Anywhere is to be free of all that nonsense.
And then Japan _ like the California desert or what Europe was for Dexter Gordon or the bottom of the sea where dolphins play _ can offer relief.
I'm earning an honest living fortunately in a way that has something to do with writing and the public good.
And I do the right thing in my responsibilities to my family, my conscience and society.
When I have free time, I write poems.
I'm spending what time I have on Earth in a way that makes sense to me.
Wanting to Be Big is Very Small.

Abnormalities

It was with a chuckle shaking his brawny body that Kenji Nakagami told me _ as though he was letting me in on a good secret _ writers aren't "normal" ("futsu") people.
"Don't you believe what he says," he said of another writer, Haruki Murakami. "He is a writer _ not a normal person."
The idea that writers may not be "normal" wasn't something I had thought about until then.
And he said it with a conviction that also had not occurred to me: That it's better to be abnormal.
Normalcy wasn't desirable.
It was boring.
It was ordinary.
Perhaps in the West, standing out from the crowd is considered a virtue.
But in Japan, being different is a stigma.
I had never wanted to be different, and I was always sad I could never blend in anywhere _ not being white in the U.S., being too Americanized among Japanese.
Abnormality is a special place to be, Nakagami was saying, waving his big glove-like hand in a Tokyo alley after our interview, smiling, totally not normal, totally unique, totally disarming, totally convincing, forever caught in that photo-shot moment, in my mind, more than 15 years after his death.
Hailing from the proud Buraku, his works have more in common with the multicultural works of America in an intense and mysterious way than with what we are accustomed to identifying with Japanese fiction.
If we were happily normal, maybe we would never have become writers.
And maybe we aren't really writers at all.
Just rejected because of our abnormalities, doomed to the darkness that makes us crazy and furious in crawling out to that blinding ideal with our writing.

Why We Write

Even before I wrote those stories in fourth grade, now I remember: There was that essay in second grade about what we wanted to be when we grew up. Career orientation at a tender age. My essay was about how I wanted to be just like my mother when I grew up. I would look like her, cook and clean like her, and have a child just like me. Oppressed and devoid of ambition. But my teacher was moved. She took it as a statement of my filial love and respect. I got to skip third grade.

Getting interviewed

I was on the other end of the interviewing table the other day with Mr. Isao Tokuhashi, who has a Web page, and Podcast.
What a learning experience.
"You know..." "Hmmm" "...like..." "Whatever..."
A sophisticated speaker I am not.
Whatever!
I learned it's nerve-wracking to be interviewed.
And I developed a newly found sympathy for those I interview.
But it's also fun to prattle about yourself.
And to hear the sound of your own voice.
Isao Tokuhashi also taught me that interviews are to be enjoyed.
He is a special kind of person who genuinely likes interviews.
I'm not exactly sure what this means.
But we sometimes forget to enjoy the interview process as much as we should because we get caught up with trying to get something for a story out of the interview.
An interview is, after all, about getting to know someone.
It's a pretty fundamental form of human communication.
And that's an important thing to remember.
Mr. Tokuhashi also translated the interview into Japanese and posted photos of the AP office.
I got to know Mr. Tokuhashi after he visited our bureau with a clip of my AP article from the Fresno Bee.

Story of Miu 2

More from Miu: What I remember about him is the smell of his breath, like candy gone sour, when he said, putting his lips close to my ear: "I found another girlfriend where I moved. She is Japanese. But I don't like her the way I like you." I was still in elementary school, and so I didn't quite analyze what it was about Asian women or about that boy that could be behind this penchant for the yellow race. He was too young to have seen old G.I. World War II movies, or looked up books on geisha or Suzy Wong. But I was the symbol of beauty for this person. He followed me home from school, offering me a bouquet of buttercups he'd picked from the lawn. He caught my arm and we tumble together on the grass in simulated intercourse, male body on top of female body, his breath over my breath. Secretly I hated him. This tall lanky male of sweet-and-sour breath, Dennis the Menace, straw hair, pale freckles, blue of his eyes that seem to connect to the sky above the buttercups _ the markings of the race that's so Dick and Spot, Hollywood, Marvel Comics, the evening news, rock 'n' roll. I told him to stay away. But he wouldn't stop as though he couldn't believe an Asian he had picked could possibly not like him. I was a target, a thing, not allowed to have thoughts on my own.

Story of Miu 1.

Story of Miu

Miu, 16, likes living in Tokyo because as a Japanese American she never felt she fit in her surroundings quite as well when she was growing up in the Washington D.C. suburbs, the only Asian in her class, although there were a few other Asians in her school whom she avoided the best she could, so embarrassing was it to be reminded of how she looked, how she stuck out _ the straight black hair, the almond slant gook eyes, dark, not blue and airy like the others. And the pale yellow sallowness of her skin, almost a khaki tone, sand of the desert, dried fruit rinds, not translucent and crystalline like a Botticelli painting, like the others. Miu used to sit in the foggy mist of the bathroom, scrubbing her arms in the tub, hoping/praying to turn white. Here in Tokyo, her skin turns suddenly a normal color. It caught even herself by surprise. If she wears her Ne-net clothes, and sits crossing a frail booted leg on the sidewalk-railing of Harajuku, lazily watching the street peddlers and Costume-Play teen-agers, she knows she blends in. So perfectly. She doesn't even need to keep her mouth shut. She studied Japanese in high school so actually she can speak Japanese quite well, as long as she keeps her sentences short and simple. Boys even try to pick her up, as though she is any other Japanese girl waiting for such advances, honey milling inside sweet, pungent but colorless. Back in the U.S., the boys who bothered to desire her were those with a fetish for Asian women. It was sadly obvious. They were the ones with a string of Asian girlfriends, one after the other, and in her neighborhood that required some searching. When for whatever reason, they broke up, she'd find out he had hooked up with yet another Asian girl. Being Asian was a brand. A categorization you could never escape, especially in how you attracted the opposite sex. Dating Asians was out of the question, Miu says, because there were only two or three Asian males for miles on around, and they were always fat or ugly, or had a white girlfriend. Miu made a point to come out to Tokyo just to get away. Her story continues....