For Summer
Fast stirring olives
At the bar saying
“I’m a bit racist”
Hand rising upward
“Japanese up here!”
Dropping hand way low
“All the gaijin here
“Ha! Americans
“Imperialist!
“Atomic bombers"
Fist pumping the sky
“I am true warrior!”
Swings the martini
A glass katana
Ready to battle
And conquer the world
I questioned confused,
“What are you saying?”
Arms folded, staring
Victoriously
“I am just so drunk.”
In 2016, I moved to Hawaii, and though life did not go as expected, I met many interesting people while building websites and writing content, many I consider friends to this day. One of those friends, Summer, the petite Japanese woman in this poem, drank martinis like a two-hundred pound sailor. This poem's inspiration came from a night at a steak house bar where she gave a drunk speech I will never forget.
After discontinuing free verse poetry, style uncertainty manifested in this simple syllabic poem, with each five-syllable line providing a pattern without meter. This poem forms the basis of my newer style, using syllabic patterns and mosaic rhyme. I am still a work in progress.
Written 2017
gaijin: nonJapanese person.
Photo by Daniel Lloyd Blunk-Fernández on Unsplash