Sunrise over Takadanobaba

I did not say it was easy to see, but if you look the sun is there. The sunrise always comes. The clouds are moving quickly. Here on the 15th floor with my desk facing my sliding glass door which leads to my balcony, I have never had a better view day after day. The freedom that is in the clouds unfolds itself before me. Freedom is being able to choose when you sleep and when you look at the sky.

Adam Markus
July 3, 2008

How most people find this blog

Most people find this blog by doing a Google search on "July 4th poetry" or "July 4th poems" or on "Marshmallow Diet." As to the latter topic, I wish such a thing really existed because I could use it. As to the former, the last one I experienced in the US was 2001. The 4th of July in that part of Japan I live in, the part not occupied by US military, is just another day. I sometimes think about doing something on the 4th, but the only thing that really occurs to me is to write poems about an America that never was and will likely not be. It exists only in my head, the debris of a undergraduate and graduate level education in political philosophy: A Socratic flâneur. Though to confess, I am a coward who no doubt would have taken exile over hemlock. Or perhaps I have done that already.

Adam Markus
July 4, 2008

July 4, 2008

July 4, 2008

This shining city on a hill
It is just over the horizon
The city is there waiting
It longs for citizens

Today the city is hidden by fireworks
On other days it is ignored
So much TV to watch and money to make
The city can't compete with crass longing

It has a higher purpose
A few will aspire to it
Maybe someday it will be occupied
But now we ignore it for firecrackers

-Adam Markus
July 3, 2008

Keith Olbermann: McCann on Iraq

Keith Olbermann at his best:

Bush gets booed

I am not a baseball fan, but I like a good boo!

Some things you can only lose once

Some things you can only lose once: a mother, a father, a daughter, a son, a grandmother, a grandfather, a wife, a husband, a friend
Wherever you look you find them, but they are only memories that have filled the emptiness
poor consolation for a gap that will be filled only by time and habit or not at all

Adam
March 26, 2008

The Dream of the Ticket

I am sitting in my uncle's seat in first class on a airplane. My uncle will be coming soon and I have to get out of his seat so that I can go catch my flight. He is a politician and has someplace important to go to, but seems to have wanted me to sit in his seat first. I put the seat back in the upright position, exit the airplane, and look at my ticket to see what gate I have to go to.

The ticket in my hand is for a flight in two weeks to Chicago and I can't find my ticket for today's flight. I can't even remember where I will be going today or at what time. I may have missed my flight. It is now 20:00.

I am not panicked because I have my ANA millage card and I know I bought the ticket online. I decide to go to the ticket counter and retrieve all the necessary information using my millage card.

Now that I have plan, I know everything will be fine. However, I begin to panic because there is no ticket counter and no one seems to be able to help me. Actually everything appears to be closed and the few people who are around ignore me. I become simultaneously annoyed and desperate. At this point I wake up and reassure myself that this dream could never happen to me: I am in control. I begin checking all details of my upcoming appointments. Even now, I worry that I have forgotten some small detail without which all my plans will come to nothing.

-Adam
March 17, 2008