Sunday, April 25 – Wednesday, April 28, 2010-

I’ve been staying out of trouble lately, which directly translates into not having anything very blog-worthy to report. It’s absolutely pouring rain right now, the same as yesterday, so I have been stuck indoors trying to find ways to pass the time. I actually found a few pages of work I had written last fall during my free time. I dusted them off this afternoon and figured I’d share a couple with you. Hope you enjoy them.

Tokyo

It’s like a fire in the rain

It’s like a favorite kind of pain

From my empty penthouse suite,

Count the trains beneath my feet.

Staring far across the sea

Is that you who’s watching me?

Tonight you’re on my mind

Still it’s you I’ve yet to find

Count the days until my last

Hash marks tell a lonely past.

For I guard this distant shore

As our cultures wage their war

Take a dream and twist it round

Above this city’s tired ground

A silent earthquake shakes the moon

Leaves my scared, young heart in ruin

~

[Written the night of Saturday, December 5th in the Yokohama penthouse suite of my first host family's son. I sat up late at night overlooking the distant lights of Tokyo, the coming ships in the harbor below, and counting the passing trains as they faded and flickered far beneath my feet. I was quite homesick at the time, wishing I had a host family I could relate to, pondering what exactly I was doing with my exchange]

~

Sun

Of Tokyo,

My steel spear buildings

Pierce through Fortune’s paradise

And I weep for I raised this city,

I sparked an ancient fire

That I watch smolder

On this dark

Night

Tomorrow

I will have left this,

The land of the raising sun,

I pray that from these city ashes

Sea sent winds breathe golden flames

Who dare flare skyward

Once more to

Me

~

[Begun that same night, December 5th, I remember looking across the jagged skyline, wondering what forests, rivers, creeks, and hills had been sacrificed in the name of Civilization, in the name of Tokyo. This poem was meant to be a haiku, 5-7-5, but it soon grew, becoming a complex: 1-3-5-7-9-7-5-3-1-3-5-7-9-7-5-3-1 style poem. Haha =) Once more proving that I can't do anything small]

~

The Color

Heart pounding in a bed that smells like dust,

My body shivers, yet it isn’t from lust,

I rest my young bones in a cot old as time,

On a pillow whose dreams all billow in rhyme

Like the flecks and specks that erupt in the air

My imagination flies upward, shot like a flare.

Colors far brighter than ought to be in this room

Race over the bedspread with a zip and a zoom

They tangle the curtains, the dye the walls limitless

I see the whole universe on this midnight of vigilance

There are flames in the heavens and clouds down in hell,

Much more to this planet than she would let tell,

Such are the secrets I stole from the night,

Truth sung like warm quilts, all bundled up tight,

It’s a cold house, this dark place, without any light,

But a dreamer with vision can make it shine bright.

~

[Written towards the beginning of January, 2010. I remember lying in a cold, dark bed, wondering what inspires a person's dreams. I slowly dozed off, but it seemed to me that as sleep pressed itself down upon me I had a sense of warmth and color, knowing that that night, just as every other, I would be free to roam the unlimited possibility of my imagination once more]