Spaghetti Western Jisei takes a humorous look at the ways that cultures overlap, appropriate, and circle each other through the lens of childish imagination. Bananas and cardboard tubes stand in for the weaponry of ronin and bandits, while serving as the pen by which we write our own stories and mythologies. Written entirely in traditions derived from Japanese verse and recited in English, Jisei, when performed, channels acts of art and sacrifice, while its collage of record contrasts actual revolvers used by the artist when performing in American 19th century reenactments with the tools of imagination.
Jisei began as a performed ensemble piece in 2023. It was then written again as a poem, debuting in the Fall 2025 edition of The Prairie Light Review.
Jisei then served as the basis of the found object collage below.
Spaghetti Western Jisei
September, 2023
Neo-Futurarium
Ensemble Performance
I and an ensemble member walk to center stage. I carry a banana and black craft paper. They carry a large cardboard tube.I kneel and peel the banana while the ensemble member stands behind me with the tube at rest. I press the banana into the page, drawing a cowboy.
TH:
Our cowboy culture
Is samurai cinema
Derived from Japan
I watched those westerns
Wanted to be those drifters
Revolvers and spurs
My parents did not
Allow toy guns in the home
I used bananas
I’d stick up my friends
They’d hold their hands above them
I would still say, “bang!”
My honor died then
Roughly aged four-and-a-half
Cardboard promises
Japanese poets
Sometimes wrote death reflections
Verses called jisei
I am those cowboys
Living Spaghetti western
Diluted poem
I place the mashed banana down and sit back. The ensemble member bonks me with the cardboard tube.
Next.
Spaghetti Western Jisei
2025
Poem
Prairie Light Review, Fall 2025 Edition
I pull it from its holster,
My waxy yellow sidearm
And kneel before a black epitaph
A postercraft tombstone
I peel it with the care of a
Live firearm, silvered and frothing
Chomping at the bit to taste flesh
Enriched with potassium and lead
This is my end and I
Press my banana against the coarse tooth
I compose:
Our cowboy culture
Is samurai cinema
Derived from Japan
I watched those westerns
Wanted to be those drifters
Revolvers and spurs
My parents did not
Allow toy guns in the home
I used bananas
I’d stick up my friends
They’d hold their hands above them
I would still say, “bang!”
My honor died then
Roughly aged four-and-a-half
Cardboard promises
Japanese poets
Sometimes wrote death reflections
Verses called jisei
I am those cowboys
Living Spaghetti western