Blackbird
I remember the summer of Tokyo time...between the gathering of darkness and a sun's rise.  I close my gaijin eyes and hear the rumble of walking lives...the ghosted  memory crowds from Shinjuku trains hurrying the blended mix of jazz and cinema samurais and swords and sullen Blackbirds singing into the dead of night. Oh, reimagined salarymen as Shoguns stumbling into red lanterned Izakayas to embrace Kirins and taste the grilled catch of the Japan sea. Where did I stand in all this loneliness? So far from home? Nippon handkerchiefs absorbed my sweaty brow. Two years in Tokyo time...the end. Back home to where I can drive my car. Roll down my window; feel the ocean breeze. Look to the east...and dream of samurai trains; remembering how much I wanted to come back to my town.  And now with the decades passing I wonder how I was ever there and if in the dead of night Blackbirds drink Tokyo beer and sing forever into a sun's long rise.