Appeal Poems |
These are anti-war poems by Japanese poets
against the war. America is trying to deal with the problems of the world by using overwhelming military force.But we definitely want to see peace and friendship mintained through diplomatic efforts instead of military force. As for Japan in particular.Weinvaded China,Korea,andother coun -tries in Asia in the past,causing heavy casualties and damage in those countries.Also many civiliansin Japan were victims of the war.In Hiroshima and Nagasaki,we witnessed the horror of the sho -ckingly destructive power of the atomic bombs. The victims of the atomic bombs are still suffering from mental and physical after-effects of the nuclear weapon.Japan has vowed that we will never again give such miseries and pains to other countires.We have never engaged in war and have been trying to maintain pe -ace ever since the end of World WarU. However.the Japanese govermentreadily accepted the use of military force of the United States of America and showed its intention to support America's war in Iraq. This is clearly an act of trampling the war-renouncing constitution of Japan. Most of the Japanese people don't agree with the government'spolicy. It threatens the stability in Asia.We strongly protest against it. We ask our government to stop supporting America's strategy immediately and execute diplomatic activities based on the wa r-renouncing spirit of theconstitution of our country. At this crucial moment of history,we have collected poems by many poets in Japan who are against the war. Please read these poems. Incidentally, this is our response to Mr.Sam Hamill's "Poets Against the War"appeal over internet HP Partially you can read the English versions, although all the poems here are waiting to be rendered into foreign languages. |
Cape Kyan Takara Ben On the reddish-brown poor field Are the beautiful tracks of fermor's plow Car runs to Cape Kyan The sea at my feat As clear as light blue And hold bones of NAUMAN Elephant The wave are invading to washed-out rocks On those rocks The yallow Butterhurr-flowers The sunrise on New Years Day Reflecting on a white ligthous Smart my eyes Cover the traces of numarous blood sheded On Wrold WarU Spread the green grass In the flashes of light <PAGODA of peace> with modern sculpture In the conter of hollowed PAGODA One sphere is Behind that space Spread the blue sky and sea Open to the south We offer a butterburr-flowers and a leaf before the PAGODA We pray Yes pray Pray Like kissing with my lover To break Grudge Grief and Rago one by one Sink into my Soul deepiy On Cape Kyan Like the sea Like the waves At the bottom of the root of the sea rumbling Pulling the trigger hardly We pray at Cape Kyan It is Me Dropping Bombs Mita Hiroshi The sun light is coming into the dining room in the morning I spread the newspaper Immediately the siren starts ringing aloud. I turn on TV The sound of explosion blasts out and the smokes rise up. I start washing my hands in the bath room On the water I am bending over I see a child's face covered with blood. It cannot be real Here I am so far from the desert. I try to sleep with my futon pulling over my head I cannot sleep I open my eyes slowly Suddenly iron blocks are falling down from the ceiling. Oh,I cannot escape it by any means When I hold up my hands against the darkness like in X-rays Palms covered with blood come up to be seen clearly. It's me I am dropping the bombs. *Born 1943. "A Ship for Marine Transportation" Essay book of poetry" The Lyrical Century" Translated by Mizusaki Noriko Tree Planted Upside Down: At Hiroshima Shibata Sankiti On that day,the hands of man Planted a tree upside down. The world flowed backwards and The tree With the force of death,upon the roots clutching the sky Put out thick leaves. Leaves swaying in the wind are The words from the land of the dead. The lost voices The pain Shining as debris of time Heal our eyes. Why? The evening of The city turned upside down and Hanged on a tree. Now it is a metaphor for something which continues to die. The seeds of shadows Burst out and All at once Start to fly. Standing in front of the withered tree in winter Can we read out The naked city? Our fingers touch the crotch of life Which should be hidden under ground Then The tree may Put out thick leaves From corner to corner under the ground. When we think of True treetops. Translated by Mizusaki Noriko Eyes of Okinawa Noda Hisako Coming down the cliff in Mabuni(*) where the sea is shining At the bottom of the sea of trees of the Chinese banyan On the track where the young women Walked back and forth to draw water for the soldiers A back is walking along in front leading me. Every time he guides visitors from other prefectures He is sharpning a bit of himself He makes no sound even when he is swallowing blood, that's oozing up from his insides. Once my words echoed through the cave and He stopped still and looked back as if saying. "Really? Is what you say really true?" His eyes are clear like those of a clay doll and gazing at my words They do not blame me or get angry at me They are the eyes of Okinawa that is just sharpening himself. My words get dried up quickly The eyes of Okinawa burn Some parts of myself which have no words. Days turn backwards slowly and I feel something painful in me. The pain which emits a faint smoke I find myself turned new and strange. Okinawa Is waiting for it in silence. (*)A place situated on the south edge of Okinawa Island (the main island of Okinawa). The south edge is a cliff sloping into the sea.Here during World War2,the last hard battle was fought between U.S. and Japanese Forces.Now on the chiff there is Peace Memorial Park. Translated by Mizusaki Noriko Goboh Koda Shiro The POWs were freed from the POW camp on the reclaimed land In turn the Japanese war criminals were locked up there. Perhaps some of them were the supervisors of the camp, officers and ranks. Who had been charged with giving the POWs tree-roota as food. They insisted that the tree―roots were a common food in Japan called goboh. Their objection was rejected. After the war criminals were send to Sugamo prison The reclaimed land became a bathing place named Peace Island Where the sea was brown in color and strangely didn't taste salty. In front of the bathhouses hung with reed screens bathed emacited people Who might have looked as if they were engaged in a ritual ceremony from afar. Off the beach there was a breakwater And another body of reclaimed land called Nakanoshima. Human bones were deserted there.it was said But nobody was sure whether they were bones of Japanese or of POWs. They couldn't find the human bones. There were only darkened pieces of wood Which many have been the human bones or goboh. Beyond the breakwater there was nothing as in an empty stomach. "Goboh wo taiheiyou de arau"* How do you translate that into English?" In those days, that's the kind of thing I might have been thinking about. *" Washing goboh in the Pacific Ocean" Translated by Inoue Kenji Kamata Suzanne Birthmark Sagawa Aki When I was very young I had a small birthmark on my back Its shape and place was exactly like That of the young man Who was my mother's elder brother And died in the southern country. My mother and grandmother told me so. In the room where I was born There was a painting Of a delicate cream-colored rose he left, As if wishing to part from his fragility, He'd gone off to war. He wrote that he wanted to Come back to eat his mother's cooked red rice, But what come back was only a cake of soap. So we offered the red rice to the soap. Yes, he was a sad man. Yet When I was as old as he was when he died I knew his slender fingers might have Shot, stolen from, humiliated and killed Those in the southern country. My birthmark disappeared unnoticed Yes, it disappeared. But in the country where he died Beside the river a war Memorial Hall was built A saying is carved. "We will forgive, but won't forget." When one has no wish to be forgiven, Being forgiven is a terrible thing. When one does not hesitate to forget, Being remembered against one's will is a terrible thing. I had the same birthmark as A young man I've never met. It gave my life A shape, and Made me aware of Connected time and human beings, And now I know I'm also connected. translated by Kijima Hajime Dora's Ear (On the Fiftieth Anniversary of My Brother's Death) Mizuno Ruriko Through waves of showering cicada descending into the dark ear of dawn I find before me endless grey dunes stars shoot across a corner of tha sky my dead brother whispered in my ear "Look See it up there?" Looking up I see the stars have disappeared and in their place a little sickroom lamp is burning "Do you remember Dora?" said my brother's voice "That elephant's voice -- can you still hear it...?" * In those days Dora appeared against the backdrop of the island's evening sun her shadow came towoard us reaching out Long and narrow like a tall tree that has begun to rot (sometimes Dora herself looked more like the shadow of a tree.....) her voice was like wind blowing from another star the children following Dora's green foolprints lost themselves among the multitude going upwind through unfrequented memory some were seized about the foot by the scarlet of trumpet vines they slipped and fell from cliffs high as the stars some tripped over cactus-shaped bones of elephants (somewhere Dora smiled and gave a little laugh) To live was to carry bruises constantly even in our dreams * One day out of the deep darkness in the children's in the room along with picture books and all the other trash Dora's page was torn away after that only one grey bloodstained ear remained and the world was dragged into war * " Dora's tusks were torn out her hide was ripped off she became raw flesh she escaped in vapor from our hours in the dunes Each perishing thing (people animals plants insects) is the last race of one certain star each departs carrying with it the language of that unique star..." My brother's words broke off * The sky over the dunes was one vast field of stars the stars shone down into the dunes like hardened starfish some light beams were from stars already burnt out some stars had traveled from tens of thousands of light years away and now having each traversed its own length of time they shone in muttering voices * The summer he was twenty in a hospital in a devasted country defeated in war my brother died I barely managed to place one. bouquet of belIflowers in his casket on its way to the cremation grounds The star my brother belonged to where did it go? where now do they twinkle the words of the lost star? (when I closed my eyes Dora's grey ear shone tiny at the edge of a star- cloud the color of deep violet bellflowers) Translated by Edwin A.Cranston. Hallucination Kawakami Kamo I found myself to be a naked body like an object on the bed. When I entered the operating room, an empty hole, and laid myself on the table, I felt ashamed of my body. A surgeon, as murderers do, gazed at the affected part of my body. I trembled. At the bottom of fainting consciousness I felt the lower part of my body decending the stairs. Was that one of my childhood memories in the Pacific War? I remember that night in Beijing; we climbed up the emergency steps for fear of the Russians' night-assault. I felt dimly someone plunge forceps into the lower part of my body and I groped through the dark mist along the iron steps with my body staggered. Beyond the mist I heard the sound with which forceps and scissors touched. Ghastly light covered my body. A woman wept on the waiting room bed before the opera- tion. An old woman vomited at the corner of the bed. A small yellowish blot on a white sheet. Her shoulders trembled as insects do. translated by Ishihara Takeshi Momijioroshi Kureo Jun A red pepper is hanging down in front of my face. This red pepper asks me to come closer, looking innocent. Like a boy with red hair by Renard. I turn down the invitation. I wake up in a scene in which I yell at him "I'm going to cook you, Momijioroshi! " It is May with no "R" When I tasted Momijioroshi, granted radish and red pepper. For the first time. That is when I touched her knee timidly While drinking wine with oysters In the blue-painted restaurant which had few people, After I got off the boat in an artificial lake Surrounded by new green of spring. Needless to say, the supple and slender hand grabbed my wrist . However, she told me that this was Momijioroshi At the point of time when fallen leaves were reflected On her oval face and Sygnus appeared in the east. Keshimiso, Kinomeae, tartar sauce and demiglace-- She has been my teacher since then. Now a srnall flower of culture is in bloom in my l ife. Once I braggad by saying that for me, Eatinq was a kind of pumping the gas in me; But I cannot go on like a horse any more. Man does not live on bread alone. But even in the cause of justice war should be no more. I just want to drink in the afternoon, not carrying about the Spirits of the dead still being spiteful. Translated by Bunichi Kawamura Collaboration of poem and haiku No Flowers for My Biack-Eyed Doll Yoshimura Ikuyo Dear black‐eyed doll,my favorite friend. Please answer these questions instead of me. Where is my mom? Where is my dad? Where are my older broters? Where are my younger sisters? Where is my grandma? Where is my grandpa? Where are my friends? Where is the kind lady next door? Why do many strangers ask me, Mhen I lost mom, How my dad was killed, Where my brothers and sisters were missing, Whatl saw and how l spent the nights of bombing? Why do many strangers ask me, The reason why I am here in this place? Dear black‐eyed doll,my favorite friend, Though l have no bouquet of flowers for you right now, Please answer these questions instead of me. even a doll in the rubble, bathing in ocher sand War Takashina Kiichi On the blackboard I write the word, "love," just as my teacher showed me. On the blackboard I write the word,"dream," just as my teacher showed me. On the blackboard I write the word, "friends," just as my teacher showed me. We need no eraser. A bomb falls, and erases all these in a flash. Like a Title Tokuhiro Yasuyo On my first day back war breaks out in another country Home from China, I read a story I read three years ago straight through to the end not recalling a thing A novel like catching a cold once it's over it's over forgotten for good Seems like only the title stayed with me It'll all be forgotten the trivial the meaningful in the same way With each thing learned with each thing felt something else is lost forever Someday all there is is changed into one big blank and then what floats up in the mind? a few things, maybe like a title perhaps Three summers back in a village in China I was shown three thousand bones: half a century ago Japanese soldiers taking the village forced all the villagers under a precipice then shot them then set them on fire burying the bodies by toppling the precipice down onto them Uncovered later, only skeletons remained So suddenly did it come upon them they appear unchanged from that moment Bones half a century old a few are screaming a few are sleeping against the ground And in the midst of the bones, two skeletons lie holding each other two lie there embracing each other, one behind the other A single bullet pierced them both then time erased both bullet holes, both bodies locked in embrace, only their skeletons remain surrounded by love l think of them, now and then and feel envious Murdered like that I would want to be like them Someday, when all of mankind has vanished off the planet when I myself am a skeleton I want to embrace another skeleton like that What people laugh and scoff at dismiss till some later date is remembered here, as a title might outlive its contents like two sets of bones in a loving embrace A city is crumbling *translated by Wright, David W. (from " A Zigzag Joy. The Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Japanese Poetry." (1998) edited by Kijima, Hajime (pp. 306-309) ) God of War -His other name is Satan Yaguchi Yorifumi God of war, sometimes visible and invisible, Showed up after his work of Terrorism, Stood on the platform with his baton, And started conducting. Then the U.S. high tech vultures rushed to Afghan And started unsparing bombarment. His seeds bore splendid fruit again! Joy danced on his face. Thig God, who has been worshipped In the mosques Under the mask of Allah And in the church Under the mask of Christ, Has been ceaselessly whispering to them "Make wars." Now so showily waved he his baton Both camps rosponded in ecstatic unison, "Kill them! Kill them!" As he conducted more, their hatred Increased more. His kingdom had been The battle- field, but now it is the whole globe. Even when he stopped conducting and disappeared, He never failed to sow his seeds again. It is this God who entices us, "Go to war! Kill them! and I will install you In my Yasukuni shrine as gods, As I did before." And our prime minister. Half-rising, is almost ready To follow him, like a patient infected with high fever. Who made a mine? Narui Toru A girl who lost her fingers by a land mine A boy who lost his leg by stepping on a mine An old man whose arm was blown off by a mine An old woman whose body was exploded into pieces by a mine Who made a mine? Who laid a mine? Who killed children and old people by a mine? For what purpose did you lay a mine? Answer me PIease answer, "it is me". Men are working to dig out mines from underground Thousands or ten thousands of them are needed To dig out so romly mines. It takes thousands of years To dig out all the mines laid all over the world. Why is mankind so foolish? For what purpose do you kill people? What joy can you get by driving them to misery? Who made a mine? Who laid a mine? Answer me, please, and for what purpose? Can you see a boy who is walking on crutches? * translated by Noriko Mizusaki Dar chan Ishikawa Itsuko Wearing a fine dress with a collar of white lace, a red beadband, coming between her elder sister and brother, a little prim-looking, Dar-chan was five years old. (Where did she go?) Her head swollen, her body emaciated, eyes hollow, she lay motionless in the bed. Dar-chan was six yeas old. (Wher did she go?) The number of depleted uranium shells used in the Gulf War was 950,000. They hit the tanks at high speed, exploding spontaneously into flames, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was scattered around. Their half-life period is roughly 4,500,000,000 years. There was a prime minister who said the Gulf War was for "restoring peace." He offered $11,000,000,000, which was securely put in the safe of America. Since they said "Japan has not offered blood."in the Gulf War, the present prime minister dispatched an Aegis destroyer. (What is the Aegis destroyer doing in the Indian Ocean now?") Dar-chan didn't get to live to be 7. What wrong did she ever do? She was playing outside. (Where is Dar-chan?) On March 20.2003 America and Britain started to attack Iraq "for the sake of peace." While Dar-chan's mother's tears haven't dried yet. how many new tears should be shed? (Where is Dar-chan?) *Itsuko Ishikawa.b.1933."Chidorigafuchie Ikimashitaka?" (Have You Visited Chidorigafuchi?) "Yureru Mukuge"(Swaying Rose of Sharon Blossoms) Things That Were Lost -Ehimemaru- Shiba Noriko Children like pearls Who grew up by the sea of Uwa Protected in a slash of the mother shell, They developed and grew with layers of thin membrane year by year. And now, As they were ready to shine Carrying on the traditions of the ocean nation, They spilled off Hawai. Children like pearls Who grew up by the sea of Uwa Connecting their families and their friends, They were a strand that would scatter With one missing. But the loop was cut by nuclear scissors. Having no time to call the names of their families, They sank in an instant. It must be cold. It must be lonely. The sea, the sky, and the earth-the military is doing whatever they want. It is mortifying to be the victim Of a demonstration ride for the military budget. A hard, round lump Was born in our throat. The milky whites are about to sleep in the darkness of the sea. Children like pearls Who grew up by the sea of Uwa. *Ehimemaru: A Japanese training ship for high school students of Uwajima which is famous for pearl shell farming. In 2001, a U.S. Navy Submarine crashed into it and sank it near Hawai. Translated by Moroi, Yuichi (in U.S.) Miserable soldiers Hama Ryu. Soldiers, do you know Iraqi is a ground of God. It's a ground of the Bible and Abram was born in the land of Ur. But you got the ground of God dirty by the blood of the Iraqi's people and you. U.S sinned more against God, rebelling against the Most High in the desert. They tested God in their heart by demanding the oil. They spoke against God, saying "Can God spread a table in the wilderness?" US peoples have Cat and dog blood donations. They have national animal blood banks. Oh, how happy animals in U.S! But U.S didn't send the medicines to the poor people of Iraqi, who doesn't get sufficient medical cares. People treat their pets as a number of the family. But they don't turn their eyes toward Iraqi's children. People get suffering from miserable attacks with unfair bombardments and the uncountable missiles. How much money U.S spent for the war, baseball and their pets! Now U.S uses again the Depleted uranium bombs. It gives a long-term damage to the people and soldiers. It spreads the dust of the death toward Iraqi's people and soldiers. But U.S government says, "We confirm its bomb isn't effective to the human health. " Oh, miserable poor U.S Soldiers. U.S people believes the pet goes to heaven, but they are indifferent to the death of poor Iraqi's children or mothers. When their cats need the operations for a kidney transplant, they pay $25,000 immediately. U.S Soldiers, your salary is only 120 dollars per month. Oh, miserable poor U.S Soldiers. U.S, you know Iraqi is a ground of God. It's a ground of the Bible. Abram was born in the land of Ur. U.S got the ground of God dirty by your own blood. I AND SHIRO Kimura Toshitaro Hey, Shiro, do you like WAR? Of course I do! What about you? I hate WAR. If somebody died, maybe "the EARTH" feel sad. HE is doing his best to make us alive. It's terrible. The WAR hurts HIM. For HIM, human is like his own children. It is human that is the most cruel creature in this world!! Please stop the WAR. I think it's stupid. It's no use to keep on such a battle, Please stop the WAR now. What a stupid thing. Hmmm..... You seem to be right. War is not the right thing. Thank you boy, I think I'll take care of HIM from now. I'm one drop of the blood which Jesus shed Tozyo MIho I'm one drop of the blood which Jesus shed All the tears of the women passed on the ground Where have gone salty water? All of things .......to sea brings near and returns and brings near the surge of wave train Where have gone water of the taste of blood? All of things ........ to where? Also my blood vessel is filled with it With beat from one to another This love is more salty than sea As the sea reflects the sky, this blood too blue, and blue Brightness is illuminated..... are we not the target,too? Kijima Hajime where are they aiming at ? your weapons your nuclear weapons the earth is getting so small a louse in my palm can be crushed or kept alive no need to tell anybody why what can they do? your weapons your nuclear weapons threatening us into extinction bound down from afar how to escape from this weird net nobody knows miserablly whom do they bang at? your weapons your nuclear weapons consider all humans are kindred Even Fetuses Protest in Baghdad Koriyama Naoshi Even fetuses in their mothers' wombs protest in their wee tiny voice in Baghdad. "In my mother's womb I am shaken hard when American planes drop powerful bombs. In the dreadful bomb's earth-shaking bangs, my shocked mother huddles in the shelter. Many people in the dark do falter as they run about, feeling deadly pangs. The U.S. ground forces proceed northward to Baghdad by the Euphrates River. Innocent Iraqi people quiver, fearing that their land will soon be a graveyard. Hundreds of thosands of inncent people will be involved in bloody ground battles. Some may step on shards of broken bottles. Some may be hit and suddenly crumple. No one should mangle people innocent. To the fate of pregnant women,mothers with babies,sick folk,sisters and brothers, invaders shoud not be indifferent. And we all run around in confusion. What little blood I have in my body within my mother's womb is already seething in rage at Bush's deadful action I will be born into a war-torn land where many homes.buildings,bridges,stores, hospitals,schools,and hotels by the shores, are ruined, and I'll in confusion stand. Involving innocent folk in airstrikes and ground battles is a criminality. What man needs is amicability. We must fly flags of all nations on dikes. Killing innocent people by mistake is a crime that can never be redeemed. If President Bush wished to be esteemed. he would not of me an enemy make. Will I grow up happy, kind and friendly? The great fear I feel in my mother's womb as she runs, shocked by the dreadful bomb, will stay at my heart's bottom steadfastly. Since violence only begets violence. Bush should stop this bloody war all at once." The Massacre Kawasaki Hiroshi First came my parents then I was born but only because my grandparents came before and before them, my great-grandparents Going back ten generations my ancestors, including parents, come to a total of one thousand and twenty-four If even one was missing I wouldn't be here now War kills that "even one" not only that one but also countless lives as yet unborn it Massacres Spring on tho Earth Kikuta Mamoru When hyacinthes and crocuses quietly open their hearts, beautifully blooming in the garden of my home, why does my heart feel so sad? When violets bIoom and sparrows and thrushes visit my garden and happily peck at feed, why does my heart ache so? Why does the horsefly visiting the flowers to suck nectar look like a reconnaissance plane? Oh,. my poor heart! My peaceful garden extends as f ar as that I and sky of the Earth. Even now land mines are buried in the ground, awaiting their time to bloom into bloody fIowers. In the sky where birds were freely flying bombers now hover bombarding the city. The areas looking like habitats of purpIe violets are really the scenes of the bombarded city burning The spring on Earth is mournful. Kikuta Mamoru b.1935"Kanakana(EveningCicadas);"Aomuke(Lying on my back)" . Stir Your Stew Kondo Meiri All mothers in the world, Stir your stew! Feed it to your son who's going to a war Put him to sleep by your side and Don't Iet him go All wives in the world, Stir your stew! Feed it to your husband who wants to use the new weapons Tell him there's nothing more important than the supper you have with your family How amazing! Amerikan, French, Russian, Korean, Iraqi, Japanese Our stews are just alike Because all women are just alike When we make a stew, our hearts are just alike Give your stew to your neiqhbors! Give your stew to children in the country which called an enemy! All women in the world, Feed and hug your man and don't let him go In Okinawa: beside Abutiragama Cave Mizusaki Noriko On the eighth of march, 2003 In the evening, beside Abutiragama Cave. I was waiting for my tour members to return in our van. They long stayed there and had not returned yet afier my long waiting. The pictures I had seen in the museum of Himeyurl flickered before me. The girls of seventeen or eighteen years old Ordinary girls, all were killed by bomb's blasts or by bomb's straight hits. And one big picture I saw in the museum of the Peace Memorial Park Of self suicides of women by handy bombs Their hands and legs were gone somewhere and strands of blood were on their blasted bodies I was in the evening that started getting darker It would turn into a big darkness we could never come out of On the first of April, 1945, the landing of the U.S.Forces on Okinawa Main Island Fierce fightings in the rain with life ald death The earth turned into chocolate rivers with blood and rain Many of Japanese soldiers were Korean people enlisted by force. Hard battles for attacking and defending between U.S. and Japan An Okinawan nurse killed by shot A villager shot to death, mistaken for a disguised Japanese soldier. After long and exhausted escaping villagers jumped fiom the cliff into the sea to kill themselves, Group suicides, children killed their parents and parents killed their children. When villagers asked for help to Japanese soldiers They ousted villagers from caves for their own safety and For hungry snatched foods from than by force. Japanese Army did not try to defend villagers, now people of Okinawa say so. Today is the twentieth of March, 2003 The television is now reporting the start of attasking Iraq by U.S. How many times does mankind repeat holocaust? The Cave of Darkness will be filled with corpses again They will have no necks, arms, heads and legs. *Gama: the underground cave called so in Okinawa, mostly of limestone. Usually they were used for storing foods by villagers near-by and during the World War II, used for escaping places for villagers, temporary hospitals for wounded soldiers, or hiding places for Japanese soldiers. Some of them kilied themselves in it by some means like handy-bombs. MOTHERS Ogawa Kiyoko A baby still fumbled with nipples of Mother who had shielded and perished under the atomic bomb. This was our country half a century ago. A young man had been sent into battle a year before. Mother prostrated herself over his gravestone, sobbing. Autumn in Bosnia. A business soldier died at dawn four years ago. Mother visited his tomb one Indian summer day, murmuring." I'm glad I've been there today." This is my mother in the country of Karoshi." *Workers' sudden death caused by overfatigue stemming from unusally excessive work and intense stress before death. *Born in 1952. Poems: Lonely Island,Broken Taboo. A DEAD CHILD AT HIROSHIMA Taki Yuriko The sound of a bat flapping it's wings Mama is the sound of my knocking A hole gapes in the sky Mama is the scar of clouds scorched at the scattering of my flesh. The voice of Emperer Hirohito praying, is my alarm clock screaming at me never to sleep. Look, Mama my little sisters are playing over my head. From inside my eye a single biade of grass is about to grow. Long have my eyes been bone dry Mama No longer do I cry. THE BRILLIANCE OF THE LEADERS WHO LEAD US TO WAR Scott Watson #1 THE BRILLIANCE OF THE LEADERS WHO LEAD US TO WAR all the knowledge--their degrees from top schools--the dead will be glad to know the meaning of #2 things not human even bloody tooth and claw know no war animals eat in peace #3 GREETED WARMLY BY AN OLD BOOKSTORE DOG two old war vet men chew fat national destiny that is as old as is their hunger undying air raid sirens one after another persimmons are red there they all go, mountain green greener still *going off to the Japan-China War light of the moon where do the bombs kaboom? *born 1954.recent publications:NO VISON WILL TELL :Selected Poems 1992-2002 WEEDS WE'D WED:Translations of Taneda Santoka Haiku I'm Going to Die Matsuo Shizuaki I can see you, who have never seen me. I can see you, who have never thought of me either. And, as for you. you cheerlessly live a petty life which I would most eagerly want to live. In this land you have never seen, in this land you have never thought of. I can see you. You cheerlessly clothe yourslef and eat and cheerlessly read interesrting poetry. I can see you. I can see your country. *b.1940."Oka(Hill)""Tokai no Hatake(Fields in the City)" Pigeons of Hiroshima Arima Takashi Coo, coo, coo Sky blue,blue,blue From the pre-afternoon plaza A flight of pigeons lift off en masse Circle slowly over the Motoyasu River A shimmering fountain, higher and higher Blown straight up to the midsummer sky A sultry breeze,more temperate A stiff gust from the stagnant riverside At the approach to Aioi Bridge When lingering before the rustling weeping willow That drapes the monument to Miekichi Suzuki At a tilt even steeper than The leaning wreck of the dome On the verge of collapse Lamenting, the numerous Short shadows of the dead What's this, an illusion? Beyond the melting air Loading immobile people Second-hand streetcars displaying destinations in Kyoto Gion,Nishijin,Ginkaku-ji Above which wheeks A single flock of pigeons returning to the Moto River Turning up into the tense blue sky Louder than the giant cheer Rising from the nearby baseball stadium,crying Moan,moan,moan,moan,moan Coo,coo,coo .b.1931."Journey to the Real" |