Dislocation:
poems and illustrations about Japan

Poet, artist and introvert Loren Walker had the opportunity to travel through Japan for two weeks with her very-extroverted mother, Roberta. This chapbook is a record of traveler fatigue and tension, culture shock and self-awareness, a journal of their insights and adventures in central Japan, including Kyoto, Mount Koya, Kurashiki and the Seto Sea.
  Available on Amazon!

---

Excerpts from DISLOCATION:

The Fortune Teller
(first published in QU Journal)
 
The ryokan owner brings our breakfast:
morning kocha tea, loose,
strong and floating in our own pot,
rice bread two inches thick, our own orange toaster.
 
My mother and I pick tea shavings from our tongues,
grasping at this needed taste,
nostalgia in silence, studying the Zen gardens
in the courtyard, the sunlight,
the shadow-bodies on the balconies.

Then suddenly, the sound of her voice.
"Don't dump out the leaves," she says.
"We can read them."

A double clink as the liquid pours out,
spreads over the saucer, squeaks drawn out with each turn,
and then, brought to light.
 
(But where were these revelations before?)
 
I'm straining to see stars, letters,
anything in these brown constellations,
this new reversed sky of dark on light.
 
She peers into my teacup, her telescope, finding patterns.
 
I study her bent head, redrawing maps in this moment,
wondering at these opened routes,
this flush of enlightenment.
 

 
Watermarks
(first published in Frequency Writers: City and Sea)
 
i.         

I took the train to Kasaoka,
past industrial rice fields and ramshackle beauties,
to the port town falling apart.
 
After grocery buying came bouncing waves,
green and tan, rockiness, the strange waterfront,
the long walk trudging uphill,
the international island villa coming down to meet.

Somewhere on Shiraishi, a Buddhist priest
will bless one’s kitchen, but I only see cats
with broken tails, and great rocks teetering on top
of mountains: a position to set eyes on,
to consume this world alone, for a moment.  

ii.

The Seto Sea wind rattles the doors; skin shivers
at the familiar sounds of waterfront weather
amid rain, rain, and the promise of more.
Sounds, voices fill the rafters, the hollows of this queer space.  

Are other people staying here? 
No, alone: a private dwelling, built for communal use

like the Huron cottages, stacked back home,
ready to rent. “The first thing to do, wherever you stay,
is clean the kitchen down,” Mom told us kids.

And there is a comfort to washing greasy dishes,
hot water pulsing through pearly rubber gloves,
while on the table teapots with saucers on top
keep the heat.

And later, slow, slow sips, amid the smell of moss,
dampness, wind, so much like

     the spruce and pine          Sauble horizon           in my alligator view
     sandbars    shimmering under the water veil   ridges
     like Zen sand gardens                 teal        then white and reflections            
     cool heaving air        floating  in the warmer third         of the water
            the calls to “get going”              but once more         
                  once more              into the lake . . .

iii.

The old Shiraishi women in sunbonnets and apron-shirts
hack at ripe cabbage patches, push carts past layers
of onions laid out on patios. 

The men have no interest in me until I shriek and jab
with an arrowhead rock at the black-yellow spider
caught in the spokes of my bicycle; then one steps in,
stoops over, neatly cuts the web, hides the fear,
fills my tires enough to run. 

I like the brakes squeaking with every loud stop
on the circumference of the island, announcing
my presence, perhaps forgiven a little
for invading, when I should be  

     home shucking Canadian corn    us six, en masse
     the angry squeak        dirty wisps, speckled cobs

     sound of a lawnmower      waves in the distance
     the Labrador crunching      through a knotted stick     
     pieces         torn     scattered       like flakes of sunburnt skin

           shirtless brothers joking, muttering

               shuck you       mothershucker
                   gonna shuck you up

iv.

Floating past tiny island shines (little versions of God),
the Japanese children in the sea are shrieking
in boats, paddling from one side of the fishing port
to another; left behind on the sand,
the beachside minshukus are airing out
their student trip energy.

I’m straddling
the black spider veins of the shore,
watching yellow, red, blue, gray, flipping,
twisting paddles in the high winds of the afternoon. 

Uniformed girls fish off the bridge of old bamboo
and car tires, on the waves, as little white oar-wings bob
from the water, wooden mosquito with legs outstretched. 

The kids keep their distance.
They can see my skin.   

I feel the chilling, pushing wind,
let it push me forward, lay my hand upon the water in hello:

            yes I know this is a quick visit, an improper introduction.  

This water is leery of me, won’t lap my palm like Huron

     (knows me between the legs, down the throat, 
      played games, told stories in watery breath,
      co-conspirator of magic spells made
      with billowing mud clouds)

            I don’t dare to enter this strange pocket of the sea.

So odd, the smell
without the familiar seaweed. 
Across the bay,
industrial towers rise in the fog and blink
like Detroit across the river,
like Providence red-eyed lights
by the Fish Company.  

v.        

Weird nostalgia at night.
The familiar calm I prefer: body digesting dinner,
Shiraishi beach deserted, hands in pockets
(taboo here, but no one is looking)
stepping over ridges and canyons of glassy sand. 

Pebbles stand like fists; spiders herk-jerk through open crevices.
Here at the lapping shore, I find flat rocks to hook fingers over,
throw underhanded: skip once, three times,
stones glittering, lit in pink.

       (take that, you harsh, sullen water.)

The night comes and I retreat,
but I know how it is by the shore
 
     under the Big Dipper                    so clear, each point
             sharp Huron wind            hoods over head
     hands under sweatshirt               a lone streetlight      
         creating a path                           towards      specks     
 
under the crushing width       (the span!)  
              of shooting meteors into dust         satellites 
            hovering planets                   in pink            yellow 
 
     The infinite black beach   barely alight 
 
     the universe          plainly seen   smelling of sea 
             false beacons 
     fingerprints                       holes to look through 
 
            (how many?   
 
                   for how long?)