Author: Simon Elmer

Impulse, instinct, memory or my will Flexes the muscle that contracts the tendon That pulls together two bones in my skeleton: And so I move, slowly, out of this space Into another. And as if risen From ashen death, faces whitened, heads shaven, Lipstick of blood at the corners of their eyes, Clothed in the … Continue reading Dark Dance

Strange behaviour Two men playing at romance But what artistry! — Tokyo, January 2025 • • • • • The etymology of kabuki is contested. Some say its three characters, ka-歌 (‘song’), bu-舞 (‘dance’) and ki-伎 (‘skill’), indicate the composite character of an art that contains elements of music, dance and drama that would usually … Continue reading Bizarre Theatre

Restaurant or shrine Not a sign the place is full But how you should queue — Tokyo, January 2025 • • • • • The queue in Tokyo, whether at a Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine, outside a restaurant or shop, into a museum or through an airport security check, and which can stretch for … Continue reading A Tokyo Queue

XXXXXXXXTatami mat XXXXXXXXSix feet by three XXXXThe length and breadth of a body XXXXBuilding block of the residence XXXXOn which the residents recline XXXXUnit of its composition Rationalisation of construction Three-hundred years before modernism XXXXPossibilities infinite XXXXBy their arrangement limited XXXXAt each change of scale remaining XXXXProportionate to the building XXXXXXXXEight to a room XXXXXXXXWarp, … Continue reading Taguchi House

Snow falls from the trees White roofs of the town below This winter temple — Takayama, December 2024 • • • • • Our guide on this, our first visit to Japan, was Roland Barthes’ Empire of Signs (1970), which I had first read many years before, but had left little impression on me at … Continue reading Sunrise Mountain Walk

An autumn leaf Falls from a tree To the moss floor Of the forest Red stars glinting In a green sky Heap of colour Which two women Wielding twig brooms Will sweep away. — Kyoto, December 2024 • • • • • The Philosopher’s Path (哲学の道) runs along the foot of the Higashiyama (‘Sunrise Mountain’) … Continue reading The Philosopher’s Path

The apparition of these faces in the crowd XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX— Ezra Pound Chinese schoolgirls dressed all in white Ivory pawns on a chessboard Mirrors hung in a pool of light The raised faces of Chinese girls A vein of quartz running through rock The white necks of Chinese women The swaying hips of Chinese girls Ticking … Continue reading A Chinese Woman

There’s the hill on which, fifty years past, I crashed my bike, swerving — said the driver Who put us both in the back of his car — Towards the road. Towards the trees! — I lied, Nursing my grazed elbows and knees. My dad Didn’t listen, and grounded me for a week For the … Continue reading Dolce Domum

Sitting in a Hong Kong cemetery Reading to the dead Chinese poetry In translation by an American Who calls lorries ‘trucks’, petrol ‘gas’ and Motorways ‘highways’ — to Hell or Heaven? Alas, America! America, Alas! What have you done to my language, My culture, my nation, this warring world? What evil has not sprung from … Continue reading Alas, America!