Best Wasabi Poems
Kyoko walks alone in the morning tide,
comforted for a fleeting moment by salty air.
She feels the same sand between her toes
as when she was a barefoot little girl, in a time
she felt safe, when the eyes of her mother protected her
like a suit of armor - before the mighty wall of water,
the “harbor wave”, towered over her village
near Fukushima, washing her happy childhood away.
Her dear mother, her security, her everything
never came home that day.
Many months later, her father, a local fisherman,
has lost his ability to cry, laugh or tell her why.
His silent eyes, cold as frost, are dead
like the poisoned fish he nets every morning.
In many ways, Kyoko lost both of her parents
on that haunting day - forced to grow up long before
the water receded, before the nuclear leak,
before this new, austere existence.
Night deepens the despair. She is loneliest
when darkness invades. She prays for the crickets
return. They no longer sing her to sleep, and the stars
have faded, no longer shining through her open window.
Even the grasshoppers have died…
from restless sleep, night calls her to the mirror
to find her mother’s dark eyes staring back at her –
a curse she hopes will one day become a blessing,
a hope that one day her father will look at her again...
With tomorrow, her greatest burden will return.
She will wake along side the broken-winged butterfly
with her duties in mind. Then, she’ll wear her stoic face
to the marketplace. Father says he will soon lose
his fishing boat. She has heard visitors from the city say
only a fool would eat the fish from nearby waters,
the same fish she fries most every day. No one knows
the global impact, they say. She hears foreign words
like radiation, disease and mutation while she sells
the shiso and wasabi root from their garden stand,
feeling fear she does not fully understand but one day will.
She only knows how to survive today…
For Debbie Guzzi's Global Poetry Contest, 11/19/14
her brown skinned
body laying atop a
table top covered
by a white table
cloth but she is
naked yet dressed
as a buffet with
delights to eat
placed like plates
for to be self served
my finger tips imitate
chop sticks to take
the taste of her now
noodle hair with
seaweed eye brows
following further down
her cuisine figurine
fingering disoriented
flavors and spices
sipping the saki shot
puddling her bellybutton
pairing with her pear
hips where sit not fig
greens but the earthy
shiso leaves that by
uncovering these find
two slices of raw tuna
sashimi dripping blow
fish soup the deadly
delicacy i immediately
drink licking her bowl
clean liking her sticky
rice inner thighs i
find no longer fingers
but my tongue turning
over the table now
able to smell pickled
ginger and inhaling
the heat of
wasabi
Seaweed, Wasabi,
Delectable treasures,
It is just sushi.
The Master
You have much to learn
Grasshopper. Kung fu, ninja
OK. Start boxing. Tex Wasabi
I am your clam, your mussel
I am your tuna, your salmon
I am your cream cheese
I am your rice, white and full-figured
I am your peculiar cilantro
I am your wasabi
I am your sweet ginger
Am I a delicacy?
Do I taste good?
Don’t you think you had too much meat?
Maybe I should have more carrot and more cucumber.
But still, I am sushi
That’s what’s important to me
Eel or salmon sushi rolls
Nori or rice wrapped
Served as roll or hand roll shapes
Eaten with chopsticks
Served with wasabi
And gari
Plants
!
2-20-2016
Sushi like butter
Heated by wasabi lips,
cooled by ginger flesh.
Sushi, the healthy, refreshing food,
With many varieties and sizes,
Even has alternatives for allergies,
Theres at least one roll for you!
Theres more than just raw fish,
You could ask for a cooked roll,
And Theres even steak rolls!
Yeah! You heard me right,
Sushi isnt just what you thought at first,
With an amazing splash of soy sauce!
Maybe even splat a little wasabi
that might even make you say ouch!
The sweet and delightful caviar,
Pops a magical number of flavors!
Tex Wasabi
Tex Wasabi here.
Specialize… cowboy haiku
My hoss Mount Fuji.
I see you here from
Time to time; no disappoint.
Prease rasso your joy.
Have you tasted the delicious torment of oysters
Let your foccacia bread drip with soft green salted olive oil
Do you know the love of Sushi
and boldly face the wild winds of wasabi
The tellers of the tales...these
unbridaled ocean gifts
smashing against the rocks
and found deep in the white and black sands
of beaches I have laid apon
These... the oils of Solomon that drip like mir from lovers hands
those that touch and those that are forced to say goodbye
Here, find them here, in your breads and oils
Taste the memory of what it is, what it was, to love
Find it there, just there, in that flash of purity
as the oyster hits the back of your throat
There... yes, there
when the wasabi flings open your passageways
and you breathe for the first time in your life
Here, yes, here I am
in all of these
as you will always be for me
hidden in tree moss
beneath enormous boulders so strong and large I find I must believe
in miracles
in the wind that catches in my sail
in you and perhaps
in time- even in me.
The special Mexican-American Japanese Wasabi chef
“It’s my first day on the job
pretty good for a first time, eh?”
…
“Well, not really his first day”
Hah! He had us all fooled!
He deserves a big tip!
green wasabi burnt
ginger a little too sweet
sake should be warm
I thought by writing this poem
I could ramp up the cognitive demand
I wanted to get down on paper
The time my chopsticks talked to me
They told me there is a towel
On the flag of Belarus
I was flabbergasted by this
I dipped them in wasabi
I imagined a scream
Like a falling bomb
I overheard someone
Asking about the buffet
I heard the name
Emma Chizzit
This was repeated several times
With more and more intensity
Then it was realised that this
Australian woman was asking
"How much is it?"
Followed by my chopsticks
Asking me about Moses
How he makes his tea
Hebrews it was the answer
I paid the bill and left
I imagine myself
with my head on the table,
looking within you,
breathing you in,
with me conveying all that I want to say,
and get some answers.
We talk.
About the mundane things and the important things
Can we touch on everything and nothing,
about feeling and thinking,
with Japanese food eavesdropping?
Can't we go back to how things were,
be friends again and put the pieces back,
just try?
The end picture might look a bit askew,
but for me it's worth trying...
We laugh.
And I want to cry again right now,
for what was lost and messed up,
and because I miss you So much
I miss the sound of my own laughter,
I miss that happiness in my eyes.
They somehow went meandering
to that place called Regret Ave., cor. What-If/When St.
and still haven't found their way back to me.
They seem to be enjoying themselves there,
finding it more fun than being with me...
goes to show what good company I am these days.
They like it there because maybe reality is there,
and as for me, I never even realized
that I have wandered into
the Illusion of Nada
Where what I thought, where what I felt
was all an illusion
Or was it?
So does that negate all my wallowings?
I don't know anymore...
It felt real though. Still feels real.
But somehow, the silence that I have been meeting
has made me think, made me feel
that it was all nothing.
Somebody easily overlooked and forgettable.
An imaginary speck that made you blink for that time.
Seeing spots that made you crazy.
I can't say the same for me, though.
You are precious, far too real and unforgettable,
and I'm just here. Thankful for you, for everything
And me...
I just close my eyes, since the sadness
that can be seen there is far too real.
It's not an illusion,
because others have been seeing it,
unlike you.
And I don't want them to know why.
I am still at that table though,
fool that I am.
Waiting for laughter to return.
Chopsticks in hand,
I pick another piece of futomaki,
put a dollop of wasabi,
and close my eyes.
Like raw meat, and nothing less than sushi
It's the taste of fresh and pure unaltered flavor
It's the beginning
the end to the past and the reason for this future
Sing the blues away and squeeze the lemon of life
No lemonade here to sweeten, its all just peachy
Quite a new day and time
or the same but better
or better but richer
or ruined with too much wasabi greed
or seasoned with the wrong vinegar
or sipped by the wrong girl
sushi makes the world a better place
and the world is a better place because of raw talent in the hands of the right people
-Jess