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Sketchbook
Andreas Gripp, CA
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Free Verse
In Tokyo, it
is tomorrow
As I go about
today, noting
each error that I’ve made,
all the snap and hasty decisions
that haven’t worked
as I had planned,
I think how the Japanese
are waking up to a warming sun
and that they’re not entirely
on their own:
Australians, Filipinos,
Koreans and Chinese;
Vietnamese, Indonesians
and some far-east Russians too,
all getting a jump on existence,
18 hours or so ahead
(compared to Canadian me, that is),
knowing the markets in advance,
the trends, what will be popular this day,
how to escape the pitfalls that awaited
yesterday;
kissing a loved one while at lunch
as I dive in the dreams of night.
They’ll be roughly three-quarters
of a rotation
smarter than me,
having learned from the foolish mistakes
I’ve yet to make, able to guide me,
if they could, from afar.
I want to hop on a streaking jet
and race across the globe,
just beyond the speed of sound,
land at Narita International,
dine on sushi and yakisoba,
discover what living should be about.
And before the moon
makes a glowing swath
across the star-filled sphere,
I’ll hurry home,
to the familiarity
of Eastern Time,
re-living the calendar moment
though from another point on the Earth:
remembering
to hold the elevator
for the blind man
and his dog,
answer the cell call from my boss
without a snarl
or flippancy,
avoid the racing
of yellow lights
and the cursing
of pedestrians,
let my wife know
that I love her
instead of complaining
of rice that sticks.
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Free Verse
The
haiku I just wrote is pointless
What’s
the point of
Layers of gray cloud
are leaving the landscape wet
Ducklings in the grass
a critic asked me,
saying who cares about ducks
in the grass and why would anyone
read a poem about them
and I emphasized ducklings
which are the babies
and people are always drawn to babies
because they’re cute and in this case
they’re fuzzy and walk in a row
after their mother
and the mother isn’t mentioned in the haiku
if you’ll notice
and the point might be that they’re lost,
maybe orphaned,
that the gray cloud leaving the landscape
was far more vicious than we realize,
casting mother duck away in a storm
and her babies doing an awkward waddle
in search of her and tell me then
that you don’t even care
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