Yoshiwara Festival

The green and violet peacocks
With golden tails
Parade.

Beneath the fluttering jangling streamers
They walk
Violet and gold.

The green and violet peacocks
Through the golden dusk
Showered upon them from the vine-hung lanterns,
Stately, nostalgically,
Parade.


Sharaku Dreams

I will scrawl on the walls of the night
Faces.

Leering, sneering, scowling, threatening faces;
Weeping, twisting, yelling, howling faces;
Faces fixed in a contortion between a scream and a laugh,
Meaningless faces.