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Monstrous Landscape
Handgun, knife, axe,  
weapons of any kind are lying there, anywhere.
You can take any of them.
Pick up any of them.

The burnt field the colour of soaprock scarlet –  
you can go sidewise, go straight,
you’re free to pick your way.
There’s never been such an expanse.

Bathed in blood and alcohol,
the setting sun
sinks beyond
the naked horizon when,

damn, what’s this!                              
Blocking my way, mushrooming   
are nothing but phalluses.
Some even with an anchor tattooed on them.
 
 
 
 

Translator's Note: This poem is a part of a sequence that describes Tokyo, reduced to ashes during the last ten months of the war.