The Game of 100 Ghosts Read online

  [trudging along in her struggle

  ]

  She lived with

  her widower father; mother

  died

  of the consumption,

  her body a brittle stick of

  charred wood in the end

  The father’s younger

  brother

  lived

  on the other side

  in a squarish house

  with his wife and two kids

  but no one got along

  Never

  liked my brother either,

  guess

  that’s why

  I feel sorry for her

  It hurt my eyes to see her

  ruby red lipstick throbbing

  in the

  summer heat

  as she walked that lonely road,

  dust on her white high heels.

  August Light

  when

  the evening

  creeps in-

  to the empire of day,

  the light

  turns

  nostalgic.

  i can see my mother

  in her green

  smock

  [with clam-shells opening

  and closing breathing

  in desperation]

  buzzing

  around

  my dad

  who’s sitting out-

  side beside the garden

  on

  a kitchen chair in

  a sheet

  to keep himself

  clean get-

  ting

  his hair cut,

  flinching at every knick

  every

  itch

  i hated

  her in

  that green smock

  because i knew i was next:

  the shaver

  and snipping

  scissors

  mosquito-

  biting

  my neck—the tiny

  filings digging

  into

  the skin

  irritating to a need to scratch—

  so we

  sat and suffered with-

  in

  the lush garden of

  Rousseau—

  dark

  cucumber jungle patch,

  nude tomato

  plants and pear-snake tree insects

  circle,

  looking

  for an opportunity to feed.

  And it is august

  i remember

  most—with its warm

  kind

  of light

  shaded with shadows and

  full

  of home,

  sadness,

  and sense of loss.

  By a Chinese Lamp

  Laura

  Nyro

  sang her siren

  song

  softly

  upstairs

  by a Chinese lamp

  in

  my

  mother’s room

  dragon red oriental yellow

  and tassels with

  prisms

  of light

  attached

  the colours, flavour

  and smells

  of

  Singapore, Kowloon,

  Macau

  [long-hair,

  black pools

  of luxurious oil on

  the shoulders—

  slanted- inscrutable

  eyes, angled

  sharp as knives]

  mystery

  women

  in slitted cheong sams

  intoxicating

  smoke

  and evil

  fingers with needles

  for

  nails a 1930s noir

  poster in art deco style

  Chinatown, my Chinatown

  so soon too young

  she was gone

  too soon

  the

  things she

  missed with

  such a short life

  her impassioned breathing,

  poetry

  on a

  lover’s tongue children laughing

  into

  adulthood. grand- children

  calling Bachan!

  out of love and anticipation

  the sauce of

  conversations at dinner the loom

  of darkness

  weaving

  the coat of daylight

  and

  the music of Laura

  Nyro

  upstairs

  by a Chinese lamp

  i sit on the bed

  to

  contemplate

  the glow of her

  absence.

  and when i die . . .

  Down a Country Road

  sun flooded

  the road like clear

  invisible

  -blue

  water

  the dust between

  my

  toes

  felt like i wasn’t

  wearing shoes

  my clothes were loose

  my skin

  full

  of light and rain

  my hair black as an ocean

  sky

  the dirt road up

  to Ito-san’s barn

  was

  slow-going with

  dead tractors & cracked, busted

  wagon beds lying in-state

  on the

  grass be-side

  the processional

  the wood of sheds and

  buildings

  was grey

  wormwood —

  burrowed decayed like

  broken teeth hanging

  limply from their gums

  but Ito-san’s face glowed

  like

  the hinterland an Issei pioneer

  surveying

  the harsh fields his fields. (finally)

  the road led to a time of plenty

  Mizuno-san wore

  a

  smile like i

  put on a

  winter coat to keep warm

  but

  i

  saw him

  on autumn days when

  his smile

  and his round full face

  were hidden

  by

  bushels of tomatoes

  onions

  and cucumber

  all to keep us during the winter

  to come

  and he laughed when i grimaced

  at the gobo the nasubi the

  kabocha

  he understood but

  kachan squirreled them away

  in the cold room

  below.

  his gifts led to bows of gratitude,

  and the

  gravel

  road wound through

  a stand of trees

  to a barking dog chained to

  its house with water bowl

  as weathervane

  measuring rain

  directing

  w
ind

  and in the distant fields

  of

  strawberries, cabbage

  and lettuce uncle Harry laboured,

  his

  muscled arms

  pulling

  in crop like a Colossus before

  Elysian

  plains

  he loved my dad don’t know why

  he just did

  called him “boshin”

  talked in wind rushing tones

  rattling windows

  with biru as his Muse

  he spoke English to me

  only one who did as if he

  were interested

  he & i

  walked the fields

  one summer and he taught

  me to ride a bicycle

  i wobble, i careen, i fall before

  his strong hand steadies me

  just

  like any uncle should

  i wondered about the dog though

  it

  had no name, never petted just

  fed and

  went unloved

  a country dog driven to desperate barking

  at any stranger that

  came up

  the road.

  a time of friendship and practical cruelty.

  corn roasts in august

  the humidity

  attracted

  mosquitoes as our

  guests

  yet the sweet kernels

  touched

  and

  then coated by

  luxurious butter

  made the insects feel welcome

  oka and auntie laughed

  over stories

  and

  they cooked with love

  and

  generosity

  as ingredients

  and we all watched the

  sunfall

  our fire rose

  higher and

  higher until it was time to go home

  goodnight

  uncles, aunts cousins

  laughter silenced muted talk. [i

  hate the silence of missing you]

  and i stepped into Ito-san’s barn

  upon reaching

  the top

  of the hill at the end of the

  visible road

  the air [spangled with

  dustlight

  insects of fantasy

  and pungent incense]

  expanded and swelled

  to fill

  the cathedral-temple

  around & above me.

  i bowed before the altar of

  the dead the memories of avuncular kindness

  auntie love acceptance & kindness

  the sad generous facial creases

  as i held out

  an

  offering of warmheart love

  the only emotion I have left.

  it is a time of grieving

  A House of Crying Women

  No One

  lives in the house on Ivy Avenue any-

  more but it once was

  a

  home

  of

  immigrants,

  struggling to un- derstand

  the language,

  the customs the

  food;

  a diary of copied stories a book

  of phonics a

  spelling workbook

  but a woman cried upstairs

  for home, for country

  for 3 sisters, 2 brothers for her

  old-before-

  her-time mother

  all dead long before &

  after

  the war

  but

  she listened to

  them in the crackling

  firedark hours of her life.

  she heard them weeping

  down the hallway shadows

  when she

  realized she

  was all alone

  and a father

  deep

  with-

  in the basement

  communed with his loving

  sister

  his empty mother,

  with the ghost

  bright eyes, and long forgotten

  aunts: hearing their voices, in long ago

  photographs.

  and even the house next door 101

  Ivy Italians a

  community of

  Toronto immigrants

  no one felt comfortable

  with the hyphen no one was

  Canadian

  the italian women cried for their

  lost mother

  giving birth

  to a dead sister

  and i am nestled in the pocket

  of a brother just passed

  away his wife (despises me)

  cries amongst the debris of

  his life but i sense

  our mother laments over

  his soul

  perhaps forgiving

  him for his pettiness

  for his anger

  and for his stinginess

  and i too am alone in

  the

  house of crying

  women

  thinking about him

  and trying . . .

  trying

  trying . . .

  to forgive.

  kiyooka airs

  fall-

  ing tumb-

  ling

  stumbling thru

  kyoto

  airs from

  the balconies of kiyomizu-

  dera

  what is your wish?

  longer life to see . . .

  to see my grand-

  son

  become a

  doctor

  to dance & stumble at

  his

  wedding

  to hear his arguments

  bubble up

  and burst their logic

  all over

  me

  to be treated

  in my grand-daughter’s

  clinic to kiss

  her cheek

  turned red and then

  pink

  at her wedding

  to hear her

  boast

  of her successes

  while feeling

  my failures.

  but I will not survive

  the fall

  of wishes

  and regrets

  kyoto airs bejewelled

  with light

  and stars

  too jagged, too foreign, too

  thin

  to hold me up

  yet

  the resin trees

  breathe

  deep

  as I descend into

  their depths

  perhaps to come out

  into

  the light.

  again

  Legend has it that if a person jumps from a balcony of the Kiyomizu-dera temple in Kyoto and survives, his or her wish will come true.

  For my brother’s wish and Roy Kiyooka’s dream of Kyoto

  June 2012

  Come With Me

 
; Come

  with me

  warmheart let me

  feel your sea-breath hand

  in mine as it flutters and

  smoothes

  my fears away

  come

  with

  me