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A Ghost Tale of Two Cities

from Quiver by Ken Yoshikawa

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about

As a half-Asian actor and poet, the problems of yellowface in entertainment are rather prominent for myself and my communities.
While my Japanese family members weren't incarcerated during WWII, they were citizens in Japan, which provides a different perspective on America than third (sansei) or fourth (yonsei) generation Japanese Americans.
In my time I've noticed the ways many Asians have internalized white-supremacy. This poem is about my journey of processing along the heated angles of those cultural conflicts as they exist on screen and in our bodies.
I dedicate this tale to anyone who shares the struggle.
And for what it's worth: I have my problems with the industry, yes; I roll my eyes, yes; but I have been a long time fan of ScarJo. (So if you read this, I want you to understand that we are all human by-products of the titanic cultures that crank us). Just do better, please.
The situation is measurably improving. I am very excited for all the developments.

lyrics

A Ghost Tale of Two Cities

Nagai means ‘long’
like a flight from here to Tokyo,
like oooooooooooooooooooohs of a ghost.

Nagaiki means ‘long life’.

Naga-ame means ‘long spell of rain’,
which to us may as well be home.

The [i] in nagai is the dictionary form
of the unconjugated adjective.

Ha! Whew!

Hiroi means ‘wide’,
like a turtle shell;
like the audience of a well made film;
Hiroba means ‘plaza’.
Hirobakyoufushou means ‘agoraphobia’.
It’s a wild world indeed.
Dear, Hollywood,
I wonder if you know this.
I wonder, what with
cowboys drawing colts,
knights slaying no-goods,
spies harboring secrets,
or pirates spilling pearls,
when they’re rolling across the floor –
I seem to think you do.

So, if nagasode means ‘long-sleeve’
then hirosode means...?
I think you’re catching on:
a place to keep your aces.
So you know Nagasaki means ‘long cape’
like a bitty peninsula. Right?

And Hiroshima means ‘wide island’,
it speaks much for itself.
There is an order you must understand
before you can make language dance.


But that doesn’t have to matter, right?

We can say Nagasaki means ‘long ago’,
means ‘half-life’,
means ‘forgotten’,
means ‘rad’
means ‘long point’
means ‘stick and roast it’.
I mean I think you know what it means
to stretch anything until the meaning changes.

Hiroshima really means ‘follow the light’
means ‘pretty skies’
means ‘mushroom spaghetti all over your pants’
means ‘relieve your shadow of its body’,
But that’s just between you and me,
in this space.
It’s a wild world, because there’s order,
because more than words actually tear
when they are pulled the wrong way.

When you give a child a hero, and then
you take it away and then you change it.

Worlds break in ways that make not a single sound.

You seem to put Scars where they don’t much belong.

It’s OK. We can carry the weight, but the joke is still on you.

‘Cuz Nagasaki means ‘magic man’,
but Hiroshima still means ‘a broken heart’

So do your magic, then.

Take a mold of our face
and throw it away.
Take a scalpel,
strap it to a white curse
I mean a white cursor –
Whip it in a bending confuser bro cam –
I mean a rendering computer program –
Photoshop your way through the mouse maze
getting lost for cheese in the complex
of raze down, erase & spray paint.
Color my house white, please.
Color my house white, please.
Pick the locks with CG.
Fix the bones in our face, please.
Wait let us try.

Hiroshima means
wide eyes and a pika pika houdai
a “waaaaaaa are, sore, kawaiina, kakoiida”.
Nagasaki no longer means long eyes, but long nose.
Hiroshima: not wide nose but wide eyes.
Let me introduce you
to the beautiful ghosts
of two deleted cities:
Nagashima & Hirosaki.
Where haunted of defeat by military superiority,
that the white victors
are not just stronger
than us
more wealthy and intelligent
more beautiful
than us,
they’re actually just better
than us.
The best way to reinforce supremacy
is to have our enemies defeat themselves
and forget why they’re doing it.
So,
Scarlett Johansson,
you are exactly the Japanese woman
Japan has been waiting to become.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It has been too long. The work, too long.

We can actually be you now.

But, you can’t speak the language.

Easy fix.

They will take your fancy images, remove your voice, make you silent, and then put Japanese words, Japanese souls, Japanese ghosts back into the shell they built to get over our annihilated lessons in humility.

But what about me?


Am I the now unaccepted byproduct
of a loser’s complex in a global world,
with wide eyes & long nose,
Japanese words and US passport?

Nagasaki could mean ‘long precedent’
But, hey, I can stretch anything to change its meaning.

Nagasaki means ‘long game’.
Means we’re coming back for what is ours.
Means you are running out of excuses Hollywood.

Hiroshima means the bombshell bombed this one,
Means cheap thrill have high costs,
Means sex sells - tried to sell –
Means you couldn’t sell our childhood dreams back to us
because you can’t take for keeps that which was never yours.
I mean, you just seem to break what you do not understand.


The magic man in dabble land will wreck himself the most.

Remember now?

I am become death, the destroyer of worlds?

Not I.

No Hollywood, I thought you understood.
I am the Little Boy, coming home,
split, hungry for a hard boiled egg in the fallout.

You are the ghost
in the shell of a very Fat Man,
falling
falling
falling.

credits

from Quiver, released March 30, 2019

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about

Ken Yoshikawa Portland, Oregon

Ken Yoshikawa is a shin-issei/first generation half-Japanese American poet-actor from Portland, OR. He has been active in the Portland Poetry Slam community since 2014. He loves blue chicken taco trees and resents punctuation and grammar at his convenience. ... more

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