Poetry
Khun Rat
I saw a rat scuttle under a paving stone
In front of 7-11. He was slithy and grey.
The squirrel lives in the open, airborne
A trapeze artist skittering on a telephone wire
Into dark leaves. The rat lives underground amid
Filth and muck, feces and waterworks. He is
A creature of the demon-world. We hate him for that
For living in the lower circles. I see
Roadkill, soi kill, sun-whitened, flattened husks of frogs
And rats like shadow forms of the atomized in Hiroshima.
The rat is our double.
Richard Oyama
Richard Oyama’s work has 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, Buddhist Poetry Review and other journals. He has an 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.