Why I took no photographs in Hiroshima

1.

It was a beautiful day.

I mean that I left the hostel early,

taking the correct bus,

stopping near a museum – they had Edvard Munch, sold

with his “Scream” standing in the afterglow.

Thinking, he obsessed with death,

loneliness, and more than a touch of sex,

a touch of pain –

in those rooms

his art was beyond even

the wisdom of schoolchildren,

who gazed up and swelled red.

So then I had another walk,

feeling out of step and tired

by the bareness of the grey concourse.

I crossed it, full of men on their benches

embalmed by the light;

the light that kept me walking past more

tight corners and

unfinished constructions.

The bones of a remembered dome grew in my eyes

and several throats, mouths and tongues,

by accident or purpose,

rose like the crows

(felt in the air,

they cut it glass-smooth)

2.

[Tape Loop]

Eyeless, just dates and reports

from the cockpit

near the trail of smoke

that shook a photographer’s hand,

steadying a camera’s weight.

3.

Children…

Very universal, I thought.

Many mouths opened before reaching the mind

plotting what had to have been

They folded the cranes

signalled with gongs their presence

that belonged there

I saw this many times

standing on the white cross of

a bridge to the park

(remember the model:

this spot is marked as

a red ball of potential in the air

it never settled to pose on

the ground’s surface)

4.

Escape…escape

Yes, it is here escape

so little for this escape

a uniform for school escape

shadows permanent on stone escape

lunch box fingernails gems of skin escape

a wall blessing broken glass

just like a kiss…

Some child’s tricycle

heavy with his life

beyond hope and the last sunlight

red rust and age

and escape…

5.

(Plastic globe)

models drool with wax

hairless eyes shut homes and the forgotten heat

that awakened something there

made lips part with water

one step away from hope

6.

An American boy is walking through one room. His father stands

in front of one plastic case, but the boy’s young legs are not

meant to be still. Not even with the silence or the knapsack on

his back that he really loves. It is dark green and he never takes it off.

He carries it from display to model and all around the room.

You are invited to touch the metal piping and fixtures of

a house warped by the blast, he reads. But he does not do this.

He keeps on walking, gazing at the life-size mannequins that they

created well after the fact. He keeps walking, his right arm up to

his eyes. Not seeing; he wants tears on the soft hairs of his skin.

But his father has moved to another case and will not

share them because he wants the caress of his own arm on his face.

How do I know they are American?

7.

It

is an island.

No one mentions this in their books

or believes that such a thing deserves words

beyond the ones in my badly-folded map

and in quick conversations with the hostel owners

who made me

breakfast and

dinner

8.

They forbid flash photography inside.

Light can cause damage to the displays

it is an irritant

9.

As I wrote this

I sat in a kitchen

dreaming images that

never settled;

they were never enough to make me feel

that this is how it was;

that it was enough with my

pen smacking paper

away from the light

and schoolchildren who said “hello” and

called me “sir”.

And I think of posing words into

complaints, into lies to inform the mind;

To rhyme and give what is not here

more beyond

what is there

*

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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