by Peter Robinson

‘. . . and if I had filled the picture with things
where would the bird have been able to fly?’

Warrior–helmet–mountain at a distance,
on weekends, public holidays,
see how they traipse up from the station
in bright–coloured hiking gear —

animist spirits, a pilgrim band
with bentos, back–packs, sticks, sun–visors,
starting out from here . . .

*

Just as that mad–about–painting hand
made artefacts in ripened age
to teach us how the floating world
moves beyond its image edge,

Hokusai kept changing his name
and even tipped–up fishing craft,
they probably survived their Great Wave
remaining in its frame.

*

Those people being born at sixty,
reborn ascending, no, not frozen
on a slatted wooden bridge,
umbrellas hurried under slanting rain,

they’re animated, in good weather,
like animé survivors
being born again.

*

Still the way those antique hikers climb
towards Kabutoyama’s temple
following that torrent river —

not tied to a memory, without nostalgia,
pasts completed, gone forever,
I’d watch them stride in admiration

on slopes of Warrior–helmet–mountain,
would see them traipse up from the station
meaning to start over.

by Peter Robinson

1

The boatman shows his photographs
of how things used to be
here at Oku–Matsushima
now half Japan in miniature
has fallen off a cliff.

That chance–made, cropped–out map
with bonsai moss–tree crust
has been eaten away by polluted air,
irradiated oysters, Chinese sand,
by all their flat–lined years . . .

2

Firm still on the helm, he points,
manoeuvring his craft
into a cove of wave–curved stone,
is pointing out a green lagoon
underneath its pine–topped rockface.

Expert, calm, he’s rightly proud of
all this natural artistry,
but veers around now, as explained,
when suddenly the offing roughens
and lighthouse island drops away.

3

He’ll take us back along the seawall
newly raised against those waves.
After that great one sucked and came,
months on, local fishermen
found human hair in catches’ guts.

His boat accelerates, slams and bucks.
It kicks against a running swell.
Spray’s freshening our faces
caught amid the sculptural forces,
their exhilarated shocks.

4

Fishing boats moored beside a mole
are jostled out along the headland.
At intervals, a next bay’s spume
shoots through its wind–bent pines.

Newly raised against those waves,
likewise, here at Tsukihama
round its crescent–moon–shaped beach
they’ve built a higher seawall too.

5

Rose–bloom nets draped on old concrete,
a casual clutter, rust, and the rest,
those years ago, looked set to resist
erosion and encroachment all around.

You’ll search in vain now for dreck and wrack,
tarred, tangled ropes, a crusted anchor,
house doors open onto silence . . .
all swept away, its people lost.

6

Yet how that place comes flooding back
in a borrowed house on Yagiyama
when what had rattled screen and window
starts high ripples in its pond . . .

Then how your poor joke comes back too —
‘No tsunamis up here at Matsunami–cho . ..’
Yes, how it all comes flooding back
to chasten and chastise you.

by Peter Robinson

‘clear out of the picture’
Denise Riley

1

Blossom time, back in Kyoto
to catch at glimpses of ourselves
from lives that were, we’ll pause
while tourists take a photo —

or be photographed ourselves
now time lived flows forever
past pain down managed levels
of the Kamo river —

2

and where its Y of two streams merge
converging in the humid heat
around about mid–day,
tiny birds fan at our feet

hawks wheel, tumble across,
a couple of cranes flap by,
that egret in the shallows,
it takes my breath away.

3

On awkward turtle steppingstones
mothers with their children,
schoolgirls in blue uniform
leap or dodge each other.
It’s like a traffic jam.

Although undoubtedly here
hiding in plain sight,
being written out, or not
a part of their own stories,
you still can’t disappear.

4

From on the bridge, late evening,
its lanterns orange in a night
of cloudless climes and blinking neon,
dark gulfs between each point of light
are the interstellar vacuum,

and thanks to an airiness, gravity,
come back from the video rental
I’m firmly on that parapet,
tiny in earth’s shadow, yet
head up, heading home.

5

Oh, and it’s a shame
I know, being seen like this
near the flower–shop at a corner,
all its colours on display —

as if to deck a corpse or coffin,
though death might be the very last thing
on anybody’s mind
this public holiday.

6

Two alien lovers kiss,
a wading fisherman
lets go his reeled–in fish.

Once again, I’m ravished,
cagey, but not caged —
this boy set free . . .

7

this boy with his own snake–belt and knees
below real traffic stuck on bridges,
and that same bundle of sensations
as if stepping into the river twice.

Then at stirred petals’ peripheries
you can almost hear the voice
of someone lost, somebody who
would take the edge off solitude
despite those great renunciations
mayflies make, or midges . . .

Right now, I renounce them!

by Paul Matthews

Hail Mary in blue and red.
As the sunlight streams
through your rose window
we gaze, content
for Word and Image
to resolve in virgin colours
their old argument.

But, outside your house,
blue sky grows overcast.
Gargoyles spit judgement
on our heads. New Herods
stain your rose with
so much innocent blood.