Remember The Emperor Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Remember the emperor

In Japan, especially in Tokyo, people are a strange mix of efficiency.
Young people are adolescents until they are forty living in an aspic
of western pop culture that does not exist anymore; when their parents die
they either grow up or become recluses unable to cope with the world.
The older generation did well and there are many of them like shingles
in the emperor's driveway.
Japan had a meltdown 12 years ago which was good for the country
people have less haste and go to karaoke cafes once a week singing
a sentimental song about lonely cowboys.
I was in Nagasaki once, just as Nippon was rising on the financial firmament
but got too close to the sun.
I was amazed how quickly the scars of the nuclear had physically healed
but mentally, there must be a corner in their psyche
that can´t forget and will find revenge one day in the land of the rising sun.