Ut Pictura Poesis.

Saigo

Times have changed; seppuku has not.
(I wouldn't know, I wasn't there
for the final battle. Then: it's all historiographical
from thereon out. People died and rebellions, too;
that force met this force when the sun was here
on that date, a collection of fortune and facts, but
somewhere between blood, the blade, the push,
the man who swore to acquit himself of politics,
the failure, the right time, the wrong time,
the oversights, the geographical separations,
the lingering sentiments of status,
the two prior rebellions, the last rebellion --
the man who swore to acquit himself of politics,
somewhere between blood, the blade, the push;
I imagine, kneeling in the grass, a little cranky,
a little sad, too, kneeling nostalgically in the grass,
and then the blood, the blade, the push,
a rush of blood to the ears -- I wouldn't know;
personally, even generally -- but the faint hum,
looking upward, where the sky is, swearing
to acquit himself at last of politics. It can't be helped.)
One can't sleep on a powder keg indefinitely.
(Eventually, arteries, dreams, revolutionaries
come down to the manipulations of the moment;
arteries, dreams, revolutionaries, powder kegs,
all things burst.)

From the Prow of the Argos

Across the great glittering sea I watched you
cutting to pieces the body of your brother --
barely blushed with manhood, young and soft
as a child, with only the sun on his cheeks --
and, throwing the fingers over to the water
and to the fish and to your father close behind --
why was it I felt no great shudder then
beyond the lurch of the waves against the boat,
no dread tremble in my belly, knowing as I knew
what it was you could do with your two red hands?

Oh, it's the fate of men: to see no shores beyond the one
to which they are at the one moment rowing!