Enjo-Kosai children (Tokyo)
There are heavy sinful nights
on Tokyo’s flashy streets
what Gaijin call the true Bladerunner dark
where wheezing suits of Yakuza
suck ramen noodles hotly
over gritty golden teeth
where a million black umbrellas
hide a thousand white gloved cabs
and seven story Telebis
soothe masses with their love
where rain drives furtive couples
into five star love hotels
into stations black with rain,
black with ashes from the side walk smokers puff
turning streets of grey to black again … Here teenage girls
chase sex and style
like miniskirted lemmings
take their big thighs off
to rave in Shibuya, and off again,
getting older compensators off ……
what a wet and fish white lark
but it pays on cold stoned nights
for designer clothes, and toys
and happiness on faces bright
and of course if it is happy here
(happy for the outside press to see)
there is no problem known aloud
in Tokyo town near Tokyo Wan
the great ho-mo-ge-ne-ity
has spawned de-nile everlasting
sucking teeth cry out Yaa-Daaa,
and oooohhh Banana Yoshimoto
strolls the crowd in rain and blackened pavement for the love of suicides.
Gaijin [外人] means foreigner.
Yakuza [やくざ] are the Japanese Mafia and street criminals.
Yaa-Daa is just a noisy expression, like Huh, or Oh Wow.
Banana Yoshimoto is a Japanese writer. If you needed this footnote, you need to read her.