Saving Goldfish

Kingyo sukui
Saving Private Goldfish.

They give you a paper net 
Meant to break and tell you 
Save a few as one or two 
Always die in the bag 
On the way home. Helluva life.

Japanese Lessons

Japanese roads have taught me

To take the lead or stand aside

On the subways and morning trains

I learnt to dance and twirl and slide

Japanese fat cats have forgotten this

As they take their limousines for a ride

That’s why their katana shatter

Against the rising dragon’s hide

And if they cannot remember

To whom they sold their pride

This lovely castle their fathers built

Will be washed out with the tide

Osaka H & M Store

Distressed Robocop T-shirts

Made in Bangladesh

Gorillaz, ironic sayings

Foreign retro cool

In small sizes no foreigner could wear

I joke to the clerk

“Even if I dieted I couldn’t fit into this”

“Nope” he replies and keeps folding shirts

Osaka Garuzu

These Osaka garuzu sure look grand

But it’s all smoke and mirrors, my man

Go down to Shinsaibashi shops and listen in

“Wear this coat if you want to look slim

That skirts hides, that one reveals your thighs

This powder shrinks your nose, that one accentuates your eyes”

You’ll see the shapechanging sorceresses

Who beguile the boys with their dresses

But see that mousey girl in uniform

Who seems the image of the norm?

Selling pork cutlets in the lunchtime light

That is her! The Venus from last night

Ten times realer in white socks and flats

Than wobbling in pin heels and fishnets

To avoid a shock when in bed you wake up

Make sure you see your angel without makeup

For a love to last throughout your age

Love the person not just the image

Animals Incorporated

Living in the city

The only animals I see

Live in cages at Animals Incorporated

Alligators and crocodiles asleep in tubs

Warmed through winter by electric heaters

Lesser pandas in wire cages

Who’d escape in a day

If their feeders stopped coming

In 20 years we’ll all be asking

If they’re real or cloned

Silent coelacanth, perch and tropic nematodes

Gap mouth guppies in coffee table aquariums

Living lives in small boxes far from nature

To rent nature to people living in small boxes

Shame Full Self

To the Osaka homeless man on his cane

Who approached me as I held my new $100 leather coat

I responded in French and shuffled away

Just as I responded in Japanese

To the bum in the Paris Metro

Before I felt bad and went back

He told me to go fuck myself

And disappeared down the echoing corridor

I am not perfect

I am good when I drop a few coins

Or buy a copy of The Big Issue and chat

But sometimes, scared or startled

I turn my back on the man

Who I could one day be

Ode to the Neckbeard

O hairy mantle of the neck

Woolly growth of my gorget

In winter’s grip best worn

In sticky summer best shorn

Shorthand for unrepentant geeks

Whose itchy beard of Cheetos reeks

Look at Gilgamesh and Nut

Who did Sumerian throatlocks strut

And know that though it may seem odd

The neckbeard is the beard of gods

Weekday Mornin Train Haiku

Sleek Salarymen

Slipping their legs into seats

Before women sit

Ode to the Muzak Makers

Hello, Ted here. I've been busy as hell shuttling back and forth to Osaka, so you may have noticed a slowdown. The good news is I am back with a ton of poetry scribbled while on trains and subways, poetry I feel  has some new bite to it inspired by the big city. Enjoy:

Ode to the Muzak Makers

Do you feel any pride

That my airplane ride

Is made melancholy by your clarinet cover

Of Charles Aznevour’s ‘La Mer’?

Or that your strains drift in and out of mind

As my mind drifts in and out of consciousness

Did you work hard I’d like to know

To master Spanish guitar and violin

To make your interpretation

Of ‘A Groovy Kind of Love’

That filters through the fertility clinic

Where we wait miserably

With only your music to console us

Kill Road

Cat’s eyes widen

Headlights lead

Long lighted corridor

Instant of breath

Eternal second

Façade of nothingness

Pitterpat

Purr the redline

Utter stillness

Ode to Fearless Young People

Young people I know

Lend me your ear

Believe me when I say

You got to fight that fear

That grows on you year by year

Fear of strangers

A child would wave to anyone

The old fear they will be undone

But keep your heart and hand open

And hands and hearts will be open to you

Learn quickly who is worth friending

Then you’ll enjoy bonds unending

Fear of failure

A child will try to do anything

The old excuse themselves by lying

Create in themselves a fear of flying

Shake fears off like water drops

Never forget to try the new

Before deciding what you cannot do

Young people I know

Banish fear from your door

Be cautious of injury and risk, for sure

But don’t let fear make your life poor

Be rich in spirit and in step secure

Young people I have known

I thank you all for sharing with me

The joy of everyday life

The courage that keeps me free

The young eyes that let me see

Ode to a Blind Shanghai Masseur

A Shanghai friend

Recommended your healing hands

So we traveled to the city’s west

My wife and I waiting on twin tables

While the interpreter lead you and your colleague in

Your hands worked out my kinks

The strained shoulder

The displaced vertebrae

Until you asked me to roll over

And your hand grazed my unruly Canadian beard

Your gay laugh echoed

Naïve and high pitched

Like a frightened bird

The interpreter told us

You were shocked to feel such alien, animal hair

Your eyes could not see

My curly red chin cover

Like steel wool or pubes

You had touched a chimera

Of Scottish and Irish and Inuit and French

And so we laughed

Two blind Chinese masseurs

One Chinese interpreter

My Japanese wife

And mixed Inuit French Irish Scot Canadian me

Five people laughing together