I was channel-surfing some stupid tv crap:
Home Shopping, K-1, CSI Detroit – cant
remember exactly: lesbian serial killer,
Bolivian corn holders, headbashing
mayhem – all good fun. Anyway money
markets are easing and banks are starting
to loan.

Meanwhile rainy season is clouding up
again. Through half the winter then the spring:
black smoke in dead skies, royal jelly in capsules,
bulldozed bodies, Heidegger and the credit crunch.
I should get a smart phone, try to engage
the whole human being, pay close attention
to mercury, x-rays, gross miscalculation.
Maybe watch more reality tv, email my personal
story to I-Report.

But I dont. Because I dont wannabe just
another niche-specific mediated nerd. Another
Blodnik. Mr. Technoslot. The virtual co-author,
everyday hero You Tubing my own mental
breakdown, heart bypass, Reagan-style funeral
in real time to a global audience that loves and
cares about me as much as I love and care about
myself.

Because I want to be real. Authentic. Genuine.
I want to do real things in real time with real
people. I want to get up later and later, experience
the blues, contract a spiritual malady, smell live
flowers, feel a failure of will, an actual puppy, fear
and separation anxiety.

Because virtual reality isnt good enough. I feel like
I shouldnt watch cable news just to make fun of
corporate media. Shouldnt read the papers just
to see how bare-assed stupid the writers are.

Ive got to eat in bad restaurants, stay in second-rate
hotels, talk to homeless guys, listen to pop music
(some of it must be ok), have lunch with my students,
for the Actuality, the Authenticity of it, to keep
in touch, connected, see how the other half lives.

Busy. Busy. Busy. Thats me. A real person, in real
time, doing real things.

www.tokyopoet.com
Tokyo, Tuesday, 06/23/09

Photo: Japanese girl in Asagaya, Tokyo. June 7 (jz)

Photo: man with sunglasses Asagaya, Tokyo. June 7 (jz)

Im doing all my best, giving 100%, trying as hard as I can
to find the real Japan.
Because I know somewhere beneath the transistors and bad
hairpieces lies genuine Nippon, the real thing,
ware ware authenticity just waiting to be discovered.
Somewhere under the mindless playstations, terrible television
and justintime production lurks the true Japan,
the deep rich culture Gary Snyder lured us into forty years
earlier – enlightened serene land of Zen mountain vegetables
tea gongs happy husbandmen resolutely working mystical
mistshrouded rice paddies.

Because I know behind the No masks hiding those dull frozen
exteriors inside of which lie dull frozen interiors, somewhere
resides genuine Japan,
sun rising over nondual one-pointed Be Here Now cosmic bliss.
No. Japan isnt just zombie salarymen grogging jammed
morning trains lurching along buttcovered sidewalks chilling
in front of imbecilic dorks shouting dumbass crap while
airhead yahoo gals giggle-shriek fake astonishment on totally
witless wide shows.
Japan isnt just the worlds worst political dirtbags sucking
nicotine teeth promising to do their best after getting elected
on the Im running for office because I want to be Prime
Minister ticket.

Japan is more. Much more.
The elusive frog jumps into silent pond – kerplunk Japan.
The Zen master keeps filling the chattering European
professors tea cup until it floods the tatami mats, Japan.
Snowcapped elegant Mount Fuji Japan of thundering
cataracts, cedar scented meditation temples, mind body spirit
harmoniously united with the one vast rolling on forever
fantastic universe.

www.tokyopoet.com
Tokyo, Sunday, 05/31/09

Photo: memory from the top of the WTC, New York City. jz

Photo: memory. New York City. jz

Photo: Japanese spirit. Tokyo. May 16 jz

Photo: Revellers carrying mikoshi on neighborhood streets in Shitamachi, Tokyo. May 16 jz

I should be doing more than teaching English in Tokyo
and getting sloshed on Niigata sake. After all, how many
more chances have I got to really understand life, to make
a difference, to give back?

At my age I should be reading serious books, broadening
my perspective by visiting destination locations, pondering
the important questions. Not just sitting around watching
CSI Miami, shelling pistachios and cursing Wall Street
sonsofbitches for wrecking the economy.

At my age I should forget the bad memories of teaching
Political Science in Canadian universities – the filthy insane
theories that elected the religious right, my nasty miserable
colleagues, the stupid a-hole administrators, the sad two-
faced excuses for students. Time to forgive and forget.

Stop wishing those dickheads bad luck, hoping theyre in
unendurable pain, divorced, alienated from their children,
hosed out of their retirement money by Bernie Madoff and
Citibank.

At my age I should be mellowing out, kicking back. Forget
the flaming nightmare called the last 65 years. Accept the
myth theres a way out. Believe natural law and justice dont
operate in this Universe because even by following the wrong
path we can end up in the right place.

At my age I should forget about Barbara Bush Pope Benedict
Mylie Cyrus Plutonium and AIG. Having healthy respectable
personalities leading us isnt the be all and end all of intelligent
living.

Amy Winehouse The Burma Generals Benjamin Netanyahu
Mel Gibson Marketing Ronald McDonald. Lets face it. Theres
plenty of highly destructive fools and idiots running around
out there. At 65 its time to stop worrying whos next to destroy
forty acres of rain forest, bomb a defenseless city, or launch
a frothing anti-Semitic tirade.

www.tokyopoet.com
Tokyo, Sunday, 05/10/09