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YOUR CART

Homage to JJ
by Taylor Mignon
Note: italicized poetry written by Jeffrey Johnson


The Mojo behind ToPoJo is the mapatriarch of Barbaradical and Jeffreedom
JJ, Your poésie compares to yourself, slow to speak, bro to speak
You believe in the power of words, conjuring lexical stuff out the deep
JJ, resembling The Dude, your laid back cool oozes from your being & rubs off
(Thanks shaker & mover Shakyamuni Joan Anderson for this plagiaristic rip off!)


His Dudeness, Duder, El Duderino
Add one to the trope Gentleman, scholar, poet
The uncapitaled i, no ego seen
Like Mallarmé modest, engaged, serene


Like Wilhelm Albert Vladimir Apollinaris Kostrowitzky
A flair for the concrete or vis u al po e try
After Dali, the Dude doesn't do dope, he is dope




Respect for immigrants who lay down lives on Turtle Island
Expressed in Poem for Dead Father
Whose face is jutting towards the new world


Contained in Onze Haikai, taking a cue from Paul Eluard
The Dude's poésie contains visionary universes:
    Reflection!
    in the autumnal pond:
    the smoke of Muromachi in flames
Cool vs heat, water vs smoke, autumnal decay vs brightness 
Barrier between dreaming and waking states, thin, crossable


The poem Aurora most violates spacetime 
as we land in a rock garden
In your poetry again we find yūgen 
Finding the extra in the ordinary
Your toriawase juxtaposition of concrete particulars
Is a gift, presenting the world as is, at times peculiar
Someone said he didn't understand your poetry
If we did perfectly what would it call it?
Rather it is profound subtlety, depth and mystery 
You make yūgen contemporary
So, Basho's black birds and EA Poe's ravens
Give cameos in Crows rule, Tokyo, 2am
Tough love in heavymetal sludge of decay in Karmic Junkyard


Talkin' tech, this guy's gotta knack for rhyme and consonance 


The Unplayed Flute
we were left to the fate of fates
That the unplayed flute will forever resonate


In Post 3.11 Post Revisited
politicians and powercompanies obfuscate
Polite conversations circumnavigate


& in i remember
searching for my father's youth
fat sisters with freckled faces placing me like furniture


The road trip of the Blue Bug
Where the car cruises on Coconino country roads
covered in clouds of kicked up dust


Already endowed with a musical ear
These words, presenting the world as a gift
Realistic Psychedelic Visionary Prophetic


When fused ala ToPoJo Toasters' Samm Bennett
We benefit from musico-poetico subtleness 
We witness wicked depth: heightened senses
JJ, yr calm resonate voice stretches
While Samm's strumming accentuates
Creating sometimes trance-like states
stripped down Negative beauty equals the plus side
​
"This was written in 2017 in response to an unpublished manuscript of poems written by Jeffrey Johnson, so it is both an homage and review of sorts. It also is a token of my gratitude for being a member of the ToPoJo staff for which I’m still grateful to this day. Recently, Jeffrey published the volume Conjurers Dream of Voyage. A few of the ones contained there were included in the unpublished draft. Fond memories writing this with a drink at Cliff’s Bar and Lounge in Lincoln, Nebraska."                 Taylor Mignon


Taylor Mignon is a poet, editor and translator living in Saitama. His most recent book is VOU: Visual Poetry, Tokio, 1958–1978 (Isobar Press, 2022). He is cofounding editor of Tokyo Poetry Journal (ToPoJo), responsible for a special book-length issue on Japan and the Beats, and led the translation and editing of Bearded Cones & Pleasure Blades : The Collected Poems of Torii Shōzō (highmoonoon, 2013). His translations are to appear in an upcoming anthology of Japanese experimental poetry of the twentieth century (New Directions, 2022). He is planning another book of visual poetry for ToPoJo v.14, with editor Zoria Petkoska.
​
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