top of page
Image by BERTRAND MORITZ

After Things We Said Today

This is one of a series of poems inspired by Lennon-McCartney's ‘Things we said today.’ The repeated references to â€˜love is luck’ and love is a riddle without a solution, is also inescapable.

                                                                                                                                        

The lover’s eyes fix upon eternity. He’s the

Lucky kind, love to hear you say that love is luck but

Not blind to reminisce about reminiscence.

He’s adamant about forever.


He and the girl go on and on like a round.

It’s the nature of song and

The prisoned memory of the fountain flowing in Washington Square and

Snowbars on bench slats


Even a marble arch looming in a volcanic sky shapes memory.

There’s a rackety A minor as fine and kind are off-rhyme.

It’s the koan of the title

The not-a-lot to say.


It’s the heart of absence.

A smile hovering in the air

That pulls in and strands us on spiraling time.

​

Poet's Note: This is one of a series of poems inspired by a Lennon-McCartney lyric.

Writing with Pen

Richard Oyama’s poems, stories and essays have appeared in Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry, The Nuyorasian Anthology, Breaking Silence, Dissident Song, A Gift of Tongues, About Place, Konch Magazine, Pirene’s Fountain, Tribes, Malpais Review, Anak Sastra, Buddhist Poetry Review and other literary journals. The Country They Know (Neuma Books 2005) is his first collection of poetry. He has a M.A. in English: Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Oyama taught at California College of Arts in Oakland, University of California at Berkeley and University of New Mexico. His first novel in a trilogy, A Riot Goin’ On, is forthcoming. 

bottom of page