I think in Japanese,
write down my thoughts in English,
then twist it all back into sushi:
a tasty bite to eat.

My mind is like origami
folding thoughts into meditation;
meditation unfolds
into a crisp sheet of city lights.

I love you big much,
love you big time;
I love the way you giggle nervously.
Titter-titter,
"Tee-hee-hee!"
It must be amazing to find everything so funny.

Big city, sake sunset;
a karaoke moon rises
over a robotic, neon inception.
(transmutation)
Transformers, Transformers:
autobotic-neurotic Bumblebee
comes to the aid of Samurai Prime.
"Autobots, transform!!"

Bored of the bright lights?
Weary of the snappy-happy gaijin
doing photo-photo
while they look for a sweet sakura-panpan?
Then take a leisurely stroll up to Hokkaido,
where there's less sucky-sucky,
and more bow-down-low-austerity
alongside the 108 gongs a-bonging.
Chant a few prayers,
speak with the sacred cedars,
take a dip in the hot springs
with some smiling monkeys,
and watch snow fall, together.

Nippon, you offer everything.
I can eat 20 times a day
without gaining a pound.
There's always more room
for miso, chanko nabe, shabu-shabu,
gyozo, okonomiyaki—
I am going to stop writing this list
so that I don't drown in my saliva.

I refuse to look back,
refuse to go back to the boredom
of white picket fences and hamburger dreams;
I want to stay here forever.
I love you big much,
love you big time;
totemo ureshii da.




March 1st, 2012

Harry Heironymous Huffenhoffer
was leading a lonely life working nights
at the fukfoorfiffenfimmer factory
where he was in charge of loading crates
full of fukfoorfiffenfimmers, onto cargo cars destined for the city of Cincinnati.

There was such a huge demand for fukfoorfiffenfimmers in the city of Cincinnati,
poor Harry Heironymous Huffenhoffer worked his hunnyhush to the bone.

On one of his few holiday weekends,
Harry Heironymous Huffenhoffer went to a hair salon for a trim.
Here he was attended by a hairdresser named, Henrietta Huckhellopolis.
Harry Heironymous Huffenhoffer instantly fell for the husky-voiced hairdresser.

Gaining enough gumption and gallasisgoppingguff needed to bypass beating around the bush of courteous courtship,
Harry Heironymous Huffenhoffer asked Henrietta Huckhellopolis if she wanted to leerlumpaloomp later that evening.

"I would love to leerlumpaloomp later this evening," she replied, batting her long lashes lustily.

And how those two leerlumpaloomped!

They leerlumpaloomped long through the night.
They leerlumpaloomped so loudly,
the neighbours ended up sticking stuffystoils
into their sensilivities, in hopes of drowning out the noise.

Nine months later,
the lovers were blessed with a litter of lullaloonillies—wot with the loud leerlumpaloomping and all.
But, of the seven lullaloonillies, four of them had two lumpalots instead of one.

Bolstering himself against drowning in despair at the prospect of having sired freak lullaloonillies,
Harry Heironymous Huffenhoffer helped design fukfoorfiffenfimmers especially meant for lullaloonillies who have two lumpalots instead of one.

As the double-lumpalot fukfoorfiffenfimmers
were Harry Heironymous Huffenhoffer's idea, the owner of the fukfoorfiffenfimmer factory gave Harry Heironymous Huffenhoffer
a forty percent cut of the royalties.


*Fortunately some fairy tales come with a happy ending, because the city of Cincinnati was hit with a record number of lullaloonillies
born with two lumpalots instead of just the one.
The high sales of double-lumpalot fukfoorfiffenfimmers,
enabled Harry Heironymous Huffenhoffer and Henrietta Huckhellopolis
to quit their jobs and buy into the fukfoorfiffenfimmer factory.

Yes, after getting married,
Harry Heironymous and Henrietta Huckhellopolis-Huffenhoffer
lived happily hever hafter.
So did the lullaloonillies....

including those with two lumpalots instead of one.

frontline soldiers
march through the melting snow—
rows of wet saplings

Through past/present/future, the Imagist Express still clatters, bending time, space,
and everything else that truly matters.

The eclectic, mingled aroma
of Turkish coffee, French onion soup,
and spicy Kung Pao almonds,
wafts from the kitchen,
stinging the ornamental eyes
carved into the lounge car's ceiling.

A draft clears the air—
squinted eyes become wide-angle lenses;
pupils melt like hot candle wax,
dripping onto toes that are tapping
to the rhythmic beat of iron bones
spinning 'round below.

Barely—just barely,
the passengers feel the engine's migratory yearning as the conductor switches the tracks
of thought, so mesmerized they are
with their reflections in the windows:
pale faces dangling from a moistened,
black bough. The strange, intoxicating fruit

hangs

amongst the smudges of fingerprints,
their spirals, bending time, space,
and everything else that truly matters.

Rapid Eye Movements
cruise down the Autobahn,
driving dreams of soldiers
slaying the Beast in the East:
seeds hidden in the cuff links
that return home for the victory parade.

The victory parade of the new millennium
is a mirage: desert sand creeps
through the streets of Basra;
spray painted slogans of “Aryan Nation”
are left behind on pock-marked walls.

High level terror alerts
scroll across the Fear o' Dome,
breeding paranoid glances
from commercial-class passengers
while they fly above fenced camps
where centralized secret service agents
watch the unloading of another train.

"Son, do you forget the sacrifices?
Have you lost all your respect?
Okay, it’s possible that the Feds
were influenced by the Purebreds—
a minor repercussion
of maintaining our national security.

It isn’t even about racial purity—
you are all mixed now, anyway.
Whether female, black, jew, or gay,
we must unite together as a nation;
raise its flag with pride,
and fight against a common enemy!
This enemy is trying to disintegrate
the cornerstone of our free society!

Son, can you not see! Not see-notsee-notsea-notsi-notzi-natzi-****-natzi-notzi-notsi-notsea­-notsee-not see!"
_


—cold sweat.

I awaken to remnants of nightmarish images
sifting through my mind:
flocks of carnivorous sheep
with invisible shepherds.

The dream had felt real—
solid, like flesh-out reality.

I rush out of bed,
just to make sure.
From my bedroom window,
I see the neighbour’s Iron Eagle weathervane
goose-stepping towards the west.
A lawnmower growls in the background.

Everything appears normal here
on the corner of 4th Reichstag Blvd.



2016 Neu Berlin Remix, July 13th, 2016
(original version was written on March 29th, 2010)