A GREEN THOUGHT Poem by Ryuichi Tamura

It is not
a bleeding rhythm, or
a poetic rhythm that freezes the heart

It is a vortex
too fluid and formless
something evil in its essence

It is a violent brilliance wildly reflecting the whole world's sunset
It is the gravity of a soul
coming down from a height beyond the stratosphere

Suddenly a window opens
a man leans out and screams something
He is screaming, but no voice is heard

Or
maybe his voice was heard, but
not one person looks back

Or
maybe someone looked back, but
not many suffer from odd hearing disorders

In this world
falling ill is a great privilege
a great privilege for those who decay, decompose and perish

You say "in this world"
do you mean the world made up of oceans, cities and deserts?
or

do you mean the world made up of flesh, ideas and semen?
Have you seen a human being?
Have you caressed a human being?

A thermal, perishable substance
covered by porous skin
held erect by a pair of legs

Just whisper "Love"
Humans will instantly dissolve under your eyes
Shout "Justice"

they will instantly perish
It takes no effort to vaporize them
All you need is a bit of pity

So
There's no need to tread softly over a grave
There won't be bad dreams any more

The whole world is made of flames and ashes
of the parts that are burning, and the parts that have burnt out
It is a relationship among parts

A wholeness is not found inside parts
However many parts are put together, they will not become a whole
Parts and parts are merely a part

I simply assumed "Time" was a linear movement, but
the progression of "Time" is not uniform among its parts
It varies from part to part

Everything is warped
the branch of a pear tree
a snake's tongue

There is not a single human who is sleeping horizontally
a dream in a spherical bed is warped
a death flowing down a spherical canal is warped

A pregnant woman's uterus is warped
Her fetus is warped
"Time" is warped

A green sphere
a sphere locked inside a sphere
constantly reproducing, constantly dying

It is afloat, but not floating
Humans are walking, but they are not moving forward
What is falling is not coming down

It just looks that way in part
It just feels that way in part
We simply know a part in part

When I close my eyes I see that so well
To see things with my eyes means to massacre them
It means to destroy them

Just once would do
I'd love to see things with eyes that are not human
I'd love to feel things

I want to look at things
I want to look at the sky
unaffected by the sightless sculptor "Time"

I've had enough of Einfuhlung or empathy
with a hurt pigeon
with a snake with its head crushed

Rather than empathize with the beautiful dead of our time
be a pigeon covered with soft down
be a snake slithering over summer grass

Be the dead who were born and returned to the earth
If a human offspring stands up on his pair of legs for the first time
if he steps over the doorway, naked, for the first time

he is what flies inside my eyes
he is what sparkles
flying from a rainbow-colored shore toward a dark green space

If a human has eyes
if he has eyes that can truly see things
even if a spherical human screams out something

from a spherical window
from a spherical meridian
he had better not look back