Re-living the Past within Us
FOOD FOR THOUGHT, 18 Aug 2025
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service
My new Japanese friend, Toshio Kojima, owner of the “Kojima Art Gallery” in a suburb of Tokyo, has been teaching me about the importance of Boro Art!
“Boro-boro” is an expression meaning “worn-out.” (Spending too much time watching US politics play out on TV, one might say, “I’m feeling boro-boro now!”)
In the mid-Edo era (1650s-1750s) cotton fabrics became common in Japan. For folks who lived in isolated areas, these fabrics were still not accessible. After being worn out, fallen pieces of these fabrics were brought to other areas of Japan. Poor people who couldn’t buy bolts of fabric would sew small, worn-out fabric pieces together and make smocks, gowns or workwear! Once those were worn out and came apart, pieces were repaired again and again.
In the 21st Century, we wonder: how can we sustain our “standard of living,” our “pride,” our “individuality” in a constantly changing, threatening and threatened world?
My poem comes courtesy of those spirits who have taught us
“to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Toshio Kojima – Courtesy of the “Kojima Art Gallery” in Nishi-Kokubunji, Tokyo, Japan
*********************
The Japanese “Boro” Man’s Ghost Considers….
By Gary Corseri
Now you’re all astonished by my rag-tag self!
“How could anyone…?” one wonders,
“wear such clothes?”
“They must have all been beggars!”
another one declares.
“Worse than beggars!” asserts a louder fool….
“With all those holes in their outer-wear
it was easy to see their skin and bones,
and know what sex they were…
but who could give a damn?!”
And they all laughed at that!
And I wiped away
an errant tear from long ago
when I held my child and thought:
“I must do all of this for you!
Piece together what I can
to venture into a sordid world
where wars obliterate
and those who win
lost all compassion long ago….”
Now I wander, ghostly,
up and down the corridors
of “Modern Times,”
Echoing, like Charlie Chaplin:
“Why do we learn so little from the past?
Why can we not
piece together
the siren-songs of long ago
with those today and those to come
and heed the warnings deep within our souls?”
________________________________________
Gary Steven Corseri is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment. He is the grandson of Ukrainian-Jewish and Sicilian-Catholic immigrants. Gary has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Library and his dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta and in universities, high schools and Little Theaters. He has published 2 novels, 1 full collection and 1 prize-winning chapbook of poems. His poems, articles, fiction and dramas have appeared in hundreds of global publications & websites, including: Countercurrents, Village Voice, Redbook Magazine, The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, and Transcend Media Service. He has taught at universities in the U.S. and Japan, and in US prisons and public schools. He has worked as a grape-picker in Australia, a gas-station attendant, and an editor. Contact: garyscorseri@gmail.com
Tags: Food for thought - Editorial cartoon
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 18 Aug 2025.
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