Kitasono Katsue 北園克衛 (1902-1978) is a Japanese avant-garde poet. I have put his twelve short poems on the table. Please select one or more poems and write a poem by the inspiration you have received from these poems.
on 10th January 2008 by Yuko
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Untitled
by Ann Copeland


The street gathers itself to a cone

where cats congregate.

Their white eyes elongate

into question marks.

And from the yellow sky

black infantry marches down.

Through the Brain

Come into my pupils and you will see
a funeral party on a hillside,
clouds racing in Odin's wind.
Though he rides on the swiftest of horses,
a still greater power impels him,
the gale roaring from riffling pages
of a red book behind the hill,
world-embracing work of the learned
who lectured once by London Wall.
Now, as we fly to friends abroad
you see the city lighting up,
cut by the plane's dark wing.

Dennis Tomlinson
I took my starting point from Kitasono's 'Forehead' but this poem is also a continuation of an earlier work of mine, 'The Apple Orchard'.

Breaktime

Lemon tart flips the coin.
The naked game reverses into next week.

Pit Viper
Her ear stares at heat,
as the tongue whips flesh mousse.

Nanne Sinclair

City
based on City 「街」

Cars shine like apples
and the reflections get in our eyes.
We have to wear sunglasses.
We hate the wax on bodywork.
On a Sunday morning
we grasp sponges in our hands
and rub bonnets, doors and roofs.
The cars have lost their sheen
and our eyes aren’t blinded any longer.

Next morning, towards the city centre,
Cars drive in from outside.
We hold sponges again
and decide to peel off their wax.
When they stop at a traffic light,
we start scrubbing the cars.
Our fear for shine is too strong,
and the bonnets, doors and roofs come off.
The drivers are stunned
like their coats being taken off.
Some sit still on the seat,
others start running on their own.
We scrabble the bodies of the cars
and throw them in the wind.

Yuko Minamikawa Adams


One Day it did not Come

The sun spins arterial blood.
Wave-clouds of light boom
the senses like guitars
while below, iguanas doze
dreaming overripe fruit
and beetles.

The pendulum hangs straight for time
that may not be measured -
years as grains of sand,
minutes as dust webbing
thread-seams of rock.

It is the season, they said.

Shadows move in the mind's eye.
A word rebounds like a whipcord
echoes its reverberation
to the stone's blindness -
a shrieking shell that explodes,
bursting the smirk of torpor.

The sun spins arterial blood and beetles.
The pendulum hangs straight;
it is the season, they said.
Shadows move in the mind's eye
bursting the smirk of torpor

and where did the river go?

Richard J. N. Copeland.