May 5. When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers. -Walter Lippmann

  • Upcoming events
  • Sunday May 4, Open stage: Poetry and music performances,, the monthly gathering at What the Dickens pub in Ebisu. Read, perform, or just listen and get hammered. Too cool for words. Starts at around 5 and goes til 8:00 . the incredible Big Legs Blues man, Steve Gardner, follows. Come watch the show.
  • New(s) bits: Eastside Story presents Hole in the Wall Theater Saturdays: May 10, 17, 24, 31 Featuring Indie and Documentary films. Show time at 7:30 (www.eastsidetokyo.com).
  • NOMINATION by Wallace Gagne

    Hes promising change. Shes ready to lead.
    Hes on top. Now shes on top. He screwed her in Iowa.
    She licked him in New Hampshire. He wants a tax cut
    to help the middle class. Her husband wants a bj and
    a fresh piece of ass. All agree theres no free lunch,
    especially the nominee from the other party, the one
    who became a hero by getting shot down over the jungles
    of Southeast Asia.
    Its April. Its May. Hes got more delegates. She accuses
    him of inexperience. He calls her callous. She claims his
    health plan wont fly. The incumbent President is a
    lame duck. His father became President after becoming
    a hero by getting shot down over the waters of the South
    Pacific.
    He was raised by a single mother, so hes got street cred.
    Her husband was President, so shes got experience.
    His pastor blames white people for black peoples problems.
    Shes got blue collar whites who blame black people for
    their problems. Would you want one of them sitting in the
    Oval Office?
    Hes talking off the top of his head. She pulling policies
    out of her ass. He says he wants to talk about the issues.
    She says he should have dumped his pastor twenty years
    ago.
    Old time liberals love his progressive patter. Hacks and
    bagmen think shes a winner. Hes attracting idealistic
    young people. Shes got middle-aged white housewives.
    His wife sparkles with womanly energy. Her husbands a
    bad-tempered sleazebag who ate too many cheeseburgers.
    Hes on a roll, sounding full of confidence. Shes out of gas,
    sounding flat and hollow. Hes cleaning up. She refuses
    to throw in the towel.

    www.tokyopoet.com
    Tokyo, Thurs. 05/08/08

    The land away from man (jz)

    I want go
    go to the land
    the land away from man.

    Can you see
    see all the lies?
    People jockying to get to the front of the line
    Trying be the first
    Chasing after
    Chasing after just one more worldly material prize
    I hate to break the news
    But you know?
    You know--we are all gonna die
    die someday.
    We are all gonna die
    Someday
    And then, where you be?
    And what will you think
    About what you did with your life?
    And how does all that fine wine
    and caviar taste now?
    When you are 6 feet
    6 feet under ground.

    So I want go
    go to the land
    the land--the land away from man.

    LUNGING INTO THE TULIPS by Wallace Gagne

    Yesterday morning this guy says to me, a nice guy
    from Australia, who knows Im a poet outside the Mr. Donut
    in Matsubara Danchi, so I suppose youd like to live in the
    country beside the rows of double chocolates and Dutchies
    with wild boars and horse manure and I said
    no goddamned way I hate the country.

    I bet you didnt know its the 25th Anniversary of Tokyo
    Disneyland because its full of tightassed old boohoos rolling
    up the sidewalks at six oclock, another example of cultural
    imperialism just as many claim Tibet is historically part of
    China, which is why I don’t like Shakespeare either.

    I prefer classical jazz, Bill Evans, Miles Davis, guys not
    grandstanding worse than Robert Mugabe or Wayne Newton
    and now the Pope just stepped onto the tarmac at Andrews
    Air Force Base which reminds me of Julie Andrews who
    keeps hanging in like the stock market even though oils
    gone through the roof and food is turning into a regular riot.

    I hope youre not thinking of getting an abortion, he told
    the Presidents oldest daughter, thank God its not raining in
    Tokyo this morning so the Prime Minister can smoothly pave
    the way for more expressways connecting rural voters to
    urban pork barrels even though another Olympic boycotts
    looming on the horizon.

    I wonder if the Pope eats donuts, not like the present Prime
    Minister, another sour apple who really put his foot down
    during Sundays NHK singalong from Niigata where rice
    farmers fiercely lay down the pavement when it comes to
    political road construction because they too speak directly
    from God.

    I know policemen love donuts with sailors and hot coffee
    but so far theyve barely penetrated Chinas booming fastfood
    market even though the Chinese have plenty of policemen
    with chocolate icing and strawberry sprinkles just like the
    Dalai Lama with his permanent equanimity and Mr. Smiley
    happy face.

    Tokyo, Tuesday, 04/15/08

    Morning Monster

    8am 2-24-08 Reta Lorraine Bowen Taylor

    His terrifying roar yanks me from my bed long before
    any normal human time for getting up should occur—
    his long cold fingers prying like jagged knives
    at the once sturdy edges of the shingles above my head—
    I listen (trying not to) as he looses yet another rectangle
    and flings it into the madness that envelopes his angry lust;
    I imagine it swirl, cutting sharp angles, one-winged,
    as the curious & terrified birds watch from their hiding places
    hoping against hope that they are safe from this wrath.

    The sharp fingers pry continuously
    and the shingles give way
    one after the other
    and go
    splitting the icy air,
    flinging miniscule particles of tiny ancient rock
    hazardously from off their surfaces
    (just in case someone were crazy enough to poke their eye
    outside the safety of their abode for a better look).

    The roar crescendos now and then, orchestrated like
    the great Leonard Bernstein himself were waving the baton—
    and the frigid fingers continue on to a nearby tree
    and rake stiffly over each already barren grey branch
    to scrape off whatever remains of leaves may yet cling there.

    Old and weathered plastic bags
    which snap viciously from their tangled branches
    twisting against themselves
    until wrought into unrecognizable white globs
    finally give way now in the force of these ice fingers
    which come to hack them loose
    and send them plummeting to further doom unknown,
    as yet more of them are snatched loose from the open dumpsters nearby —
    they hurl themselves in frantic circles of white plastic tornados
    itching for a tree, any tree…to cling to desperately in the cold—
    they snap loudly against the winds, the force hitting the thin plastic
    with a slapping non-stop punishment of power and superiority.

    Now and then blasts of water pellets too big to be raindrops
    careen like BB’s into my windows at just the precise moment—
    (oh, Leonard is good!) and the glass rattles back loudly in protest,
    threatens to crack, as the double-paned sliding windows
    shake and moan from their worn-down aluminum slots.
    The birds are all in hiding, and I don’t blame them one little bit.
    I would open my door and invite them in to perch in warmth—
    offer them a stale piece of bread of two,
    if they would believe me my offered safety.
    My voice would (of course) be snatched and obliterated the moment
    I would make the offer into the devious and treacherous winds
    and truthfully
    the only thing I would wind up REALLY hosting, I’m sure
    would be a living room full of tangled plastic bag refugees
    rattling and quivering from their horrible experience
    and probably too
    shaking their empty noisy selves for bread.

    What It Is

    10pm 4-11-08 Reta loraine Bowen Taylor

    Black “Times new Roman” 12 point
    aligned left
    it spills from the unseen grey microscopic cells
    and travels
    blue nerve highways
    red blood freeways
    yellow fat alleys
    brown-blotched -no name for this color skin -pavement

    It comes and it comes
    without invite
    or vacation
    and never brings desert (let alone a glass of wine)

    It tip-toes
    it hops
    it bangs drums
    it whispers rudely in your ear in the night
    it comes in dreams

    It is sinew
    it is twine
    it is seashell half buried in glittering beige sand
    it is rubber
    it is flower petal soft
    and it coats the back of your tongue
    like cherry cough syrup

    It has limbs
    leaves
    padded toes and suction cups
    broken toenails painted purple with silver stars
    it tastes like chocolate mint
    it burbles
    rings
    hums
    even as you blink—
    and it is warm as a puppy’s breath

    It comes
    it does
    without a name
    and yells a fresh one in your ear
    that you have never heard before
    and you will swear you hear it sing then
    as it jumps there
    just left
    12 pointed—
    traveled oh so far meticulously
    and without blunder along the blue nerve
    —and from where
    to be YOUR poem?

    Footsteps Fall

    6pm 4-8-08 Reta Lorraine Bowen Taylor

    Her voice—
    soft
    like fleece
    reminds one of the blankets surely she must
    cower beneath—
    young and pale
    blonde thin hair askew between the sheets
    as she listens
    to the familiar sound
    of her father—
    nearing
    from
    down the hall

    She
    is matter of factly
    calm—
    now

    It’s all only just a fact of life
    God’s wishes (according to her Pa)

    The footsteps echo off the walls of her memory now
    boomerang inside her frail new strength
    as they draw nearer —nearer
    the steps of her father
    coming to pray over her this night like always
    and she’ll go inside again
    shut her private screen door without letting it bang
    (it’s her only safety, that door,
    even tho it exists to function merely in the darkness behind her eyelids)

    And down the hall the shoes land
    planted firmly and with insistence and longing and righteous timing
    coming
    they are
    bringing
    they are
    Pa
    and prayers
    when she hasn’t nary a one—
    footsteps in the hall
    when Nighttime Pa calls
    comes a pray’n
    over her sinnin’ needs to be cleansed cotton folds
    as the sheets even caress her carelessly in foreplay
    and she dare not move
    or cry out
    for her mouth has no purpose here for her
    it betrays her in its silence—
    this is not her time to pray
    but to listen
    and to learn
    to know the ways of the father
    and all the fathers before
    and such is the story—
    as
    the
    foot
    steps
    fall
    along
    the
    hall
    and
    in
    his
    way
    she’ll
    lay.

    For the 416+ young girls & women rescued
    from a polygamist “cult” in Texas in April 2008.
    One woman spoke of her father’s frequent nightly visits
    to rape her, as “footsteps in the hall” which would signal
    her impending rape in the name of the Lord.
    The raid was sparked by a phone call from a 16 year old girl
    claiming to be held and abused and raped,
    while scores of young girls were forced to “marry” older men
    against their will or after lifetimes of brainwashing to “want” the lifestyle.

    "Spring is here and there is 'potential' in the air" contributed by Genevieve Barr

    Beautiful Things

    faint hints,
    vague touches
    quiet looks.

    Eyes drip with understanding.
    Bodies heave with conversation.

    sweet breath,
    whispered scent
    on pink magnolia wings.

    Kissed silence

    Beautiful things.

    Makes me wanna spit (jz)

    Don't tell me that you are like the rest of the peanut gallery who loves to see big fish like NY Governor Spitzer crash and burn after his being nabbed for his habit of enjoying the company of call girls. Truthfully, would you rather see his hanging around with ego-testical men the likes of Dick Cheney?

    The only reason I'm pissed off at all, is that these ladies were $1,000 bucks an hour. But then again I think, the CEO of Exxon is paid some $15,000 an hour or more while we all take it up the keester—oil at $110 bucks a barrel—and no grease.

    Back to the $1000 an hour? You know, I could get pretty creative for that kind of dough, At least I'd do my best to get my money's worth. That's the kind of guy I am.

    While discussing Spitzer with somebody yesterday, the guy boasted, "I never paid for pussy." Well, I looked at the guy and thought to myself, "You cheap bastard."

    The way I look at it, Spitzer was caught after supposedly spending some $80,000 for services from prostitutes. And Americans seemed shocked over what is really a meager amount. What is that $80,000? Less than the money taken in for a fund raising luncheon for any of the three remaining presidential candydates. And all one gets is a friggin' lunch and a lot of bullshit. Meanwhile, the American population is more concerned with their own wallets than the war in Iraq." Shame on you!

    Well, I believe ex-Govenor Spitzer was doing his patriotic duty—he was spending. In fact, he was injecting a direct financial surge. One of the prostitutes claimed to have been broke and homeless. So Spitzer in fact was helping the disadvantaged. What a guy!

    I'm no economist, but I do believe in "Trickle Down" economics. First, a prostitute should keep an ample supplies of tissues at her disposal at all times. And with remainder of the hard earned cash she has has earned off the sweat on her back, she then goes shopping at the mall--stopping in Victoria Secrets to purchase some crotchless panties. The cashier, working part-time behind the counter, is a college student working her way through school so she won't wind up selling her body to pay for tuition. Then patrolling through the mall, to make sure we are all safe while shopping, is the black security guard. He/she is able to keep his/her job because there are in fact shoppers at the mall even when times are tight. Even the Spanish-speaking maintenance worker is able to have job--cleaning the mall toilets where faggots hang out. And that's how money flows in America.

    In this US Presidential election year, where RACE has become an campaign issue, my question is "Was Govenor Spitzer an equal opportunity employer? Cuz, you know, once you go Barack, you never go back.

    From booze to blues (jz)

    woody23.jpg
    photo: Danny Woody performing at JZ Club, Shanghai, PRC. March 5. jz
    Danny has sung on stage with The Doors and Janis Joplin. He hasn't touched a drink in 28 years.

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