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: