WORLD WAR II JAPAN

Emperor – Ryuichi Tamura

There are eyes in the stone, the eyes

closed in grief and fatigue.

The man in black passes my door –

You, the Emperor of Winter,

my lonely Emperor, walking to your own

grave in Europe,

your white forehead shadowed by

civilisation

your back to the sun.

Your self-punishment is so painful,

Flowers! You stretch out your hands to

them.

But universal winter has set in

after the era of reason and progress.

European beauties are nothing but

fantasies.

Who will kiss your hands

whose fated palms are dark and dry and

barren?

Flowers! Those scars are flowers.

 

You Left Us – My Emulation 

With your back to the sun

you left us.

Left us to rot in the

destruction and ash of

the mushroom sky.

 

With your back to the sun

you left us,

as a powdery white

settled on our rock.

Concealing our sorrows

and killing the flowers.

 

With your back to the sun

you left us.

In grief and fatigue

you closed your eyes

and you left us scarred.

 

With your back to the sun

you left us.

In our barren, dark, and dry stone –

who will kiss our palms

and take away our scars?

 

With you back to the sun,

you left us.

 

    

Ryuichi Tamura and Emperor Hirohito       


A link to our presentation:

https://docs.google.com/a/ffca-calgary.com/presentation/d/19YDlqqwXS1IriGO9dgUNmUeq0H29p02p3aNAW9YE2X4/edit?usp=sharing

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