Posted in aging, Dignity in Aging, My Rants About Something, Poetry, Uncategorized, tagged aging on September 17, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Morning Shock Waves
Who is this woman
In my morning mirror?
Who let this old
Japanese woman in?
I have fallen in aftershocks
From devastating earthquakes –
Aftershocked from broken romances –
Rear-ended crashes .
Avalanched by human cruelty –
But never, never, such
Aftershocks of this mirrored truth.
Get her out of here!!!
Frances Kakugawa 9-17-19
Posted in Poetry, poetry month, Sacramento Poetry Center, Uncategorized, tagged Poetry, Sacramento Poetry Center, Women poets on April 4, 2019| 1 Comment »
Men in Disguise at Book Signings
“Did your husband write all these books?”
He was in the audience a few minutes ago.
Yet, here he stands in his three piece designer suit
Scanning book titles with furrowed brows.
“Idiot,” I didn’t say, “Would I be sitting here,
Two hours on my hemorrhoids
Signing someone else’s books
With carpal tunneled fingers?”
At Barnes & Noble in Hawaii,
The FBI disguised in a loud Aloha shirt,
A wilted orchid lei, a camera strapped like a gun
Interrogates me.
“You wrote these books?”
Not satisfied, he grills me over hot coals again.
“You? You wrote all these books?”
Ready to turn the lamp on me,
He turns to his partner.
“Martha? Martha? Come on over.
She said she wrote all these books!”
Expecting the click of handcuffs,
Water boarding or worse,
I remain silent.
A man in his black robe
Sits on the Court bench.
The Advertiser news story of my poetry book
Spread across his lap.
“A Japanese woman publishing poetry…
No Japanese man” he prophesized,
Is ever going to date her.
She crossed over into the Haole ( white) world
With this poetry book.”
Yes, Your Honor.
Japanese. Woman. Poet.
Guilty as charged.
Frances Kakugawa
Posted in Poetry, poetry month, Uncategorized, tagged Poetry Month on April 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »
April
The poets, in droves
Lick their pens, salivating
Over metaphors, turning
Death into life. It must be
National Poetry Month.
fhk
During one of my poetry writing sessions with 3rd graders, this was my contribution. Not quite up to par with my students’ poetry.
A Poet’s Declaration
I am a star
In the Milky Way.
I am the crest
On emerald waves.
I am a dewdrop, crystal clear,
Capturing sunbeams in the morning mist.
I am that dust
On butterfly wings.
I am that song
Of a thousand strings.
I am that teardrop
You have kissed.
I am a poet!
I am! I am!
I am that rage
In the thunderstorm,
I am that image
Of a thousand form.
I am magic on each page.
I am a poet!
I am! I am!
Posted in Agelessness, Climate change, Coffee and Poets, Dignity in Aging, Poetry, Sacramento Poetry Center, Uncategorized, tagged Elders, Poetry on January 22, 2019| 2 Comments »
Becoming
Never laugh at the elders
Who meet at MacDonald’s in Hawaii
Never laugh at their animated conversations
On trips to Vegas and the best ramen at Hotel California.
Never laugh
Because eventually you will become them
As I have these cold winter months
After working out at the gym in early morn.
I walk across the street to La Bou
Stop by three or four tables
To exchange greetings with the regulars.
Monday through Friday, one conversation
Is a recording…
She speaks Spanish, I speak English…
We say Buenas Dias, Gracias and more Buenas Dias.
And smile without translation.
Are you that youngster at a table
Laughing at my limited vocabulary
Swearing you will never succumb
To life of the elders
Who drink the same bitter coffee,
Morning after morning
Staring at the world that never changes
Through last month’s spider webs
Except for a tree that reminds me
The seasons of my life are alive and well.
frances kakugawa 1/22.19
I
Posted in Kapoho, Kapoho: Memoir of a Modern Pompeii, Poetry, Sacramento Poetry Center, Uncategorized, tagged Kapoho, Kapoho: Memoir of a Modern Pompeii on June 6, 2018| 6 Comments »
Our old house lot in Kapoho was covered with lava a few days ago. The poem below describes the original Kapoho of my childhood, not the current Kapoho:
Once There Was a Kapoho
Once there was a Kapoho
Where children played barefooted
Until the evening sun disappeared
And kerosene lamps and gas lamps
Beckoned each child home.
Once there was a Kapoho
Where outhouses and water tanks
Prominently stood as sentinels
And ohi’a firewood sent signals
Above rooftops, announcing
A hot furo* for the tired and the toiled.
Once there was a Kapoho
Where mothers pumping sewing machines
Marked the end of summer.
Homemade clothes and one-strapped schoolbags
For the first of September.
Once there was a Kapoho
Without television,
But battery-run radios,
Crackling “The Romance of Helen Trent,”
Dr. Malone and Arthur Godfrey.
Once there was a Kapoho
Without washing machines
But wooden washboards
Against concrete tubs
Slippery, muddy denims
Boiled in Saloon Pilot cans.
Once there was a place
Without shopping malls and Macy’s,
But catalogs from Sears and Montgomery Ward,
Dream-makers, before Charmin or MD.
Once there was Christmas without lights.
Yes, once there was a place
So simple and free
Where children swam in Warm Springs
And fished in Green Lake,
Played marbles and Ojame
And Steal Steal Stone.
Once there was a place
Where life went on without question.
Sons went off to war,
Teachers taught the 3 Rs
Parents were the PTA
And children pledged allegiance.
Yes, once there was such a place
Until Madam Pele** said, “No more!”
And scattered all the children
Like stars in the universe,
Echoing Thomas Wolfe,
“You can’t go home again.”
From Kapoho: Memoir of a Modern Pompeii
* furo: bath
**Kapoho was destroyed by lava flows. Madame Pele, fire goddess in Hawai’ian lore, is believed to be the creator of eruptions.
Posted in Nature vs. Man, Poetry, Uncategorized, war and peace on May 21, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Be Still, Be Still
What will poets do
Without the first bloom of Spring
Waltzing in the wind?
What will children do
Without slimy green frogs
Slipping through fingers?
What will Basho have seen
Without the leap of the frog
Splash! Then stillness again.
What will you do
Without the sound of stillness
In the morning dew?
What will you do?
frances kakugawa
Posted in Haiku, Nature, Poetry, poetry month, Sacramento Poetry Center, Uncategorized, tagged Haiku, Poetry Month, quotes on poetry, Sacramento Poetry Month on April 21, 2018| Leave a Comment »
“There is no poetry for the practical man. There is poetry only for the mankind of the man who spends a certain amount of his life turning the mechanical wheel. But let him spend too much of his life at the mechanics of practicality and either he must become something less than a man, or his very mechanical efficiency will become impaired by the frustrations stored up in his irrational human personality.
An ulcer, gentlemen, is an unkissed imagination taking its revenge for having been jilted. It is an unwritten poem, a neglected music, an unpainted water color, an undanced dance. It is a declaration from the mankind of the man that a clear spring of joy has not been tapped, and that it must break through, muddily, on its own.”
– John Ciardi
“Poems are not written to sing of the moon and flowers; they must speak of our hearts in response to the moon and flowers. We must never forget that in our hearts are the seeds of our poems. If we merely speak of the moon and flowers, poems become simply poetical forms, whatever the human heart may be. If these things become a part of ourselves, then we may admire them in verse.”
– Okuman Kotomichi
19th century
“A haiku . . . is a hand beckoning, a door half-opened, a mirror wiped clean. It is a way of returning to nature, to our moon nature, our cherry blossom nature, our falling leaf nature, in short, to our Buddha nature. It is a way in which the cold winter rain, the swallows of evening, even the very day in its hotness, and the length of the night become truly alive, share in our humanity, speak their own silent and expressive language.”
— R. H. Blyth, Haiku, Volume 1, page 243
