in the moon’s handbag, flashy & overpriced.
All the angels are pinheads, & not even pinheads of light.
Here’s what I know: I am good
at déjà vu but bad at karaoke. I am good
at Magic 8-Ball but bad at bicycle-built-for-two.
Axiom, from the Greek meaning “No rebuttals,” meaning “Whatever I say is true.”
For instance, the heart is shaped like a Hungryman dinner,
indestructible as Styrofoam & always divided.
Somewhere in the cosmos this moment
the ghost of Jack Webb is asking the ghost of Harry Morgan
for “Just the facts,” & Morgan is laughing his ethereal ass off.
Axiom, from the Greek meaning, “No facts, ma’am, only interpretations.”
When the smooth, voluptuous moon falls into the ocean,
like bait on fishing line, I see her for the yo-yo she is,
& God, who is learning to walk the dog.
–Julie Marie Wade
NOTE: In honor of National Poetry Month, each day a person’s birthday will be celebrated with a poem about or by him/her. The poems come from all over the place.
— with Thanks to Akira Kurosawa and the Toho La Brea Theater
Toshiro, you were so much more to me
than your movie star beauty,
though no one but you could look so appealing
in a ragged kimono, days without a bath,
scratching your head as you’d scrutinize the world.
Undeniably the best swordsman in Japan,
you took on single opponents or a gang of forty
with equal aplomb. And with that almost humane
efficiency, your sword moved faster than the eye,
each cut so quick and clean your victims fell
before they could utter a cry.
You were the perfect imperfect hero —
willing to defend a village of poor farmers
who’d repay you with a bowl of hot rice,
or selling yourself to the highest bidder,
you’d play crooked merchants against
conniving officials and noblemen.
It was your unfortunate karma
to be born into the rank of bushido warrior.
Each time you killed I knew you felt no satisfaction.
You were never the first to draw your sword.
All the women who watched you wanted you,
though you were awkward at romance. Not once
did I see you kiss a leading lady. Or lie
naked with her the night before battle.
You’d keep a girl waiting for months,
even years, like the lover who followed you
through the long 3-part saga, “The Legend of Musashi.”
Toshiro, you were my first true film idol,
the Asian hero I could never find on the American screen.
I’ll even admit you blessed those early years of marriage,
when my young husband and I spent Saturday nights
at the Toho La Brea. As the lights flashed back on,
my husband and every other Japanese man in the audience
would go home at least a few inches taller.
No one can forget you, Toshiro, in that brilliant duel
when you shifted your sword to reflect the sun,
the steel blade dazzling your enemy’s eye.
And at the end of the story, as you slowly turned
your back and walked into the horizon,
that slightly bowlegged swagger
in your every step — no one came close.
–Amy Uyematsu
NOTE: In honor of National Poetry Month, each day a person’s birthday will be celebrated with a poem about or by him/her. The poems come from all over the place.
POEM LIFE premieres this Saturday night, March 21, at the VFW in Locust Grove. Here is another post about something you will experience in the show–the chance to have a personalized poem composed on the spot and taken home with you. If you follow ROMP or know the activities I get up to, you already know what poem-in-a-minute is about. You give me 3 words you like or want to see in a poem, and I type up a poem on the spot with those 3 words somewhere in it.
Instead of typing poems during the show, I will have a segment where I cassette-record 2-3 poems for people. Yes, I have moved up in the technology world–from manual typewriter to cassette recorder. It will be quicker to compose the poem and say it straight into a recorder, rather than to type it–though I’m a quick typer . . typist.
Over the years, as a poet, I have discovered my true calling not in the typical poetic endeavors of publishing poems, teaching them and holding poetry readings (all heroic endeavors) but in creating experiences of poetry for other people. That’s the strong teacher side in me coming out. My family has a long history of accomplished educators, and though I occasionally throw in the towel with teaching, I always come back to it in some way.
Poem Life and the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry itself have been ways for me to bring together the celebration of poetry with the facilitation of its practice in the lives of everyday people. Poems-in-a-Minute has been one way I’ve extended this philosophy of poetry as experience–having performed at many festivals and venues. Though I no longer strive to have my poetry published (other than on this website), I cannot not be a poet–a wise woman told me that once. I just want to be a poet for other people.
Come to the show, ya’ll!
There will be a $100 door prize drawing and other fun surprises.
He had meningitis as a baby
And almost died. It came
With horrible headaches
That he relieved by lying
In bed and rolling his head
Back and forth and repeating Uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh
Until he fell asleep.
As children, we often went
With our dad into the woods
And listened to him name
The trees and the fox dens,
The place where moss
Would grow, the unrelieved
Smell of turtle flesh
Rotting in bleached shells.
Once on a trail ride,
My horse slipped and fell
And he jumped off his own
To . . . check on me? Save
Me? He was a tiny, sick baby.
He walked in the world
With me. He is my brother
And nothing will change that.
During my POEM LIFEshow, there will be a segment (a crime) where I offer up a series of poems that are reinterpretations of the Psyche and Eros myth. One of the poems in the cycle is called “The Return,” and in the show, it is the last one. I have two versions of this poem, one I wrote as a regular poem, the other with the thought in mind that it could be a song.
Both the poem and the song are featured in the show; however, I’m not a songwriter, singer or musician, so I managed to find someone who put it to music for me and sang it. That would be Andy Bartosovsky, a friend of a friend from Facebook who lives in Alexandria, Virginia. (Social media is truly good for many things.)
This is the 2nd post about a snippet from my one-woman poetry show POEM LIFE which premieres on Mar. 21.
One segment of the show describes the crime of Receiving Stolen Goods. Part of the segment includes a poem about my cousin. She used to write me long notes and draw mazes for me when we were in junior high. She had a hard life, abandoned by her mother then neglected and worse. She has lived in my psyche all of my life because I regret that I was not kinder to her. She died many years ago in a car accident in Oklahoma City.
This is one stanza from a long poem about her:
She smelled like urine when she was younger. They said there was something wrong with her bladder. She wanted to race me down our grandparents’ hill and she would always win. She wrapped cheap paper dolls in purple tissue for me one Christmas. I was embarrassed, and she gave me things and she was alive.
I still have the 15-page note she wrote me when we were in 7th grade and another shorter one and one that I wrote to her that somehow made it into my grandmother’s things and I got back after she died. In the note, she mentions a Dickinson poem that I told her about and that she wrote out and we taped to the wall of her bedroom once when I stayed overnight with her. That poem always reminds me of her.
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
Psalm in the Spirit of Dragnet
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 