Obon

It's festival day: paper
lanterns strung above
the hall. Names
are recited, children
fidget in the pews.
Oshoko, incense
and candles for those passed
on into the Pure Land.
In the kitchen, starched
ladies in madras
aprons ladle somen
into bowls.
The altar gleams with gold.
Sandalwood wafts through
the dojo as an old man
clasps his hands --
gassho. He bends
his shining bald head in prayer.

Tenderloin #4

Perhaps it's a point of pride:
the ability to look another in the eye
and say, "I am who I am,
no more and no less."

What goes before the fall?
The know-it-all boy
in t-shirt and scarf
sings a song on the brick

Pavement of the sidewalk.
A choral response from a playground
rings out through the town.
He flashes the devil's horns

And thinks, "Rock and roll."
The King in his own head
knows he rules this life
with neither scepter nor crown.