3 mirror poems
by kenshiro dan
(a tokyo psychiatrist, who "records" his cases in a mad, poetic form)
(i)
gone
lost forever
leaving me behind,
forever lost
(ii)
unchanging
he wrote her, saying:
"now that we're no longer together,
i find that i'm more with you
than i ever was..."
she replied:
"now that we're no longer together,
i find that i'm no less with you
than i ever was..."
(iii)
distorted faces
staring strangely
at the girl
strangely staring
- Norbert Luciano
(featured in the poetry forum 10.18.09)
wasabi: poems with a bite
by kenshiro dan
(i)
an appealing, familiar thought
having failed so miserably,
again,
he contemplated suicide,
again,
in the freezing cold;
but he thought the better of it,
deciding to take his life
when it got warmer –
more comfortable then
(ii)
lovers’ pact
the pair, holding hands,
unhesitatingly stepped forward,
into the void –
discovering, too late,
that each was with the wrong partner
(iii)
cost-effective
nothing like a bowl of hot,
steaming noodles
with a generous sprinkling of scallions,
raw,
freshly cut!
oh, but the smell of it,
(the day after)
in your nostrils,
when you breathe or hum,
and in your mouth,
when you talk or yawn –
awful!
enough for her,
suddenly,
to want to visit her mother
(iv)
a recipe that didn’t quite work out
not to my taste at all:
she desperately wanted me
out of her life;
i wished to remain --
a bitter-sweet scenario
that ended sourly,
salty tears and all –
mine
(v)
got to do it right
humiliated,
she knew it was time to leave –
by way of the knife…
but it had better be sharp:
she’d ever been one for neat and tidy
- Norbert Luciano
(featured in the poetry forum 09.17.09)
YO!
(message found in a bottle washed-up on some beach)
Yo!
…I’ve been two years on this island somewhere in the Pacific… Nothing on it. Just coconut trees… Been here so long I now converse with the coconuts that have fallen to the ground… They talk back, of course, but with an accent I couldn’t place (English, yet with the first and last letter drop with most words – and spoken in a husky, whispery, whimpery voice); and full of complaints, as if cast out from Eden. Getting to be so lonely I wouldn’t in the least mind an oyster keeping its pearl, if it could at least sing…
(Lots of wild pearls here, but of a low grade, and all as speckled and crooked, like very bad teeth)
…Didn’t mean to come here, much less stay… crashed here… don’t know what happened to Jin Pawley, the pilot, who was my flight instructor… one moment he was saying we gotta go back (to Fiji) and the next he was swearing a blue streak… I woke up in a storm, lightning flashing like crazy, and no Jin Pawley anywhere around
Talk about panic!
One of the coconuts hoarsely whispered to me that, maybe, the guy was eaten by sharks (“etan ba ‘arks”) … The plane had nose-dived into water not far from shore, but still deep enough for the ugly-snouted predators to think they were invited to a buffet)
Awful!
So I thought I’d send out this message to whoever you are to ask for help
I so want out of here!
Will you help me?
I’m even willing to convert to any religion whose god would get me out of here!
Oh, I’m an a-thee-ist, if you must know, though, lately, I’ve gotten myself involved in some sort of religion: “koka-kai-nee-ka” (pronounced, ’okah-i-ee-ah), a mystical endeavor on the part of the coconut to will itself to sprout legs, so that it doesn’t have to roll itself around to get from here to there, but walk… Those with “highlights” on their rough, mat-like hair have “attained” this ability, I’m told, although I’ve not met or even seen any… I guess, with legs, they’d all run off somewhere
…If you can’t get help to me, however, could you get someone to speak to me telepathically? – you know, send me thought-messages?... can you?... I know I can receive, but I can’t yet transmit… The big guy here (with the biggest, hairiest head you ever saw) is optimistic, though: he thinks that in just a few more months, at most, I’ll be able to freely zing my thoughts out there, across the sea… I tried it once or twice but was sorely frustrated; it was yet too early for me to think I could… Hit a barracuda in the eye that one time and got it going wild some; the other time it somehow boomaranged, right back at my head and started a tsunami of a migraine…
I also don’t mind telling you that I’m tired eating nothing but sea food here… have started devouring coconuts -- the ones that can’t talk, of course. I’m no cannibal!
Billy Beau Ruark
- Norbert Luciano
(featured in the poetry forum 07.23.09)
An Ad to Sell , “No-Fuss Recipes – For the Guy On His Own”
[The spin: the come’on, for the guy (any guy) to shell out a few bucks for his very own cookbook!]
You know it. Your way to cooking is shameful: toward the nearest take-out; or even more conveniently, speed-dialing your pizzeria for an order -- a pizza, two toppings, to be delivered, if you please… You’re not going to sweat over a complicated situation that involves planning, preparing, cooking, like that seen on the Food Channel, notwithstanding Rachel Ray.
[Admit it: you watch her show only because of her! Don’t try the “I love the way she zips through the kale.” Hey, you wouldn’t know kale from rhurbarb!]
But this cookbook is for you, a guy who can’t be bothered. No fuss to it because there’s none in it. None whatsoever. The fuss was left out. Completely. So you should be encouraged to attempt the recipes featured -- to prepare meals you never thought you could, and in no time at all. Cooking? You’ll say: “What’s the big shooshoomakooba about it? ” You’ll seriously want to know. Each and every recipe in this cookbook is so simple that even yawning you could follow it. Even with one eye shut. Even yawning and one eye shut! A snap, really. Get this: you’ll soon be frying whiskered fish and slivered ginger in sesame oil; simmering Boston baked beans in duck sauce; and steaming an egg custard into which turkey ground meat, scallion bits, currants have been tossed -- whenever, for whomsoever. Spaghetti and meatballs? Let’s not get condescending here…
Hey, whatever it is that you’ll choose to come up with, you’ll be doing it with imagination and daring, with utmost simplicity and ease and -- get this -- with total disregard toward those ( patronizing, or skeptical, or fearful) in your presence. They will choke, sputter and spew -- out of sheer surprise and admiration at your culinary triumph!
Cross my heart and hope to die, they will.
With these recipes, you’ll not just be pushing the envelope, but going where no guy like you has gone before – to a culinary frontier beyond the chopping board, the pots and pans, the kitchen sink, and all the zippety-doo-dahs that so often leave nothing but shredded lettuce for your fangs to sink into.
So flip open the book and choose yourself a recipe.
Any recipe.
Start, with confidence.
Take off, with elan.
Soar!
[But first things first: ORDER the damn cookbook, Bobo! Its just $12.99]
- Norbert Luciano
(added 07.23.09)
soul mates meeting
in the very heart of night,
two quivering lights hesitatingly fuse,
igniting a star burst,
revealing a secret so long kept:
fireflies can't come together like that!
- Norbert Luciano
(added 04.05.09)
the jumper and the jump
(in a forest fire, a leap of fate)
frogs,
a plague of them,
croaking,
leaping from rock to rock,
along a river bank in flames,
vanish,
with the fire, the smoke, the day --
a disastrous lesson to be learned:
even the jumper can only jump so far
- Norbert Luciano
(added 04.05.09)
going out in a burst of fury
furious anguish of discovery:
it can burn!
the dusty moth found out
too late
that she was but a pretty flame,
flirty, beckoning, irresistible --
insatiable!
- Norbert Luciano
(featured in the poetry forum 04.05.09) |
