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A Place Neither Here Nor There

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Faceless spectators complaining about the pole position at the top of the stairs. In the boxing ring above the ground, boys and girls are absorbed in innocent games.

Orange season installed by bridesmaids with the referees. As a glove full of regret and irony is thrown from one step short of the gallows, the citrus splash dazzles the laurels winner.

Lively evil of youth grinning into the camera. Careless chatter with the parrot continues. Sky bouncing in the greenhouse. Blue, dividing the horizon that has not yet awakened.

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image: hiromi suzuki

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A Place Neither Here Nor There / Hiromi Suzuki

© poetry & Gif Photograpy by hiromi suzuki, 2024

published in RIC Journal (July 7, 2024)

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via RIC Journal

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Bed & Board

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In the drowsy sunlight, the focus of time appears blurred. I guess the psychological term for this phenomenon that sneaks into my life is dissociation. Even my own whereabouts are in doubt. Meanwhile, “we replaced the wallpaper,” they are singing of their happy lot. The wall without wrinkles or stain is flowering in pink and cream-yellow that marks the end of a long winter. My cousin just got married for the third time a month ago. Her new husband is an actor, and also writes scripts for the theatre company she runs. Their new home is a second-hand flat, but it has been transformed into a beautiful room. Bossa Nova is playing on the portable radio. Sinking into a cosy couch made of Norwegian wood and welcomed by hot milk tea and freshly baked chocolate tarts, I feel like a high school student. The girl past the middle of her life who stiffens her body nervously and stares into the distant landscape. Sometimes the newlyweds leave me alone in a sunny spot and delightedly disappear into the kitchen. The steam from the pot of boiling water can be heard along with their secret laughter. Their lives seemed set, but the wallpaper in the corners of the ceiling already looks to be peeling a little from the damp. In a run-of-the-mill detective story, the narrator would confess that the plastered walls hid fragments of the former lovers’ diaries. Long ago, the groom used to be a cook in the bullet train dining car, seconded from the Imperial Hotel. He wrote many made-up tales on the back of menus that were discarded at the terminus. Brides leaving the train at the turnaround would be blessed with that confetti.

I hear a dog bark, begging for an evening walk. Children frequently use shortcuts to sneak into the backyard through the plantings. The dog may be warning of mischief. After saying goodbye to the couple, I ride my bike. Stop at a grocery store on the way back to buy side dishes for tonight and a bottle of cheap table wine. The gentle breeze on my cheeks reminds me of the supplementary maths exam tomorrow. I also have to compile the paper in a foreign language about the melancholic future-world, and more importantly, I have to reorganize my noisy memories which have been confused on the desk since the end of last summer. As it gets cold and I turn on the air-conditioner, the roar of the sea overflows through the airflow. Alternating waves of flooded near and distant views under the bed. When I grow up, someone will tell me what it means to be in love and to love forever. I am just a faded flower on the wall thinking about it with jealousy and a little embarrassment.

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Bed & Board — hiromi suzuki

© short fiction by hiromi suzuki

Published in Minor Literature[s] (July 4, 2024)

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via Minor Literature[s]

[hiromisuzukimicrojournal]

Agua de Berber

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I miss the smell of rain. Quiet water whispering on the pavement instead of the tides. Clear water to drink for a thirsty soil that has forgotten how to sing. Bossa nova. I can hear the tune.

Ballroom. No sea on the back side of the moon. Steel wool. No foam with Savon de Marseille. Only the rhythmic steps of the raindrops must make the lunar surface glow.

Someone has left caramel paste after mixing dried fruits, nuts and diamond rings on the roof. Drizzle it into a glass of water. In time, melt-in-the-mouth fudge will get my song back.

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image: hiromi suzuki

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Agua de Berber / Hiromi Suzuki

© poetry & Gif Photograpy by hiromi suzuki, 2024

published in RIC Journal (June 2, 2024)

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via RIC Journal

[hiromisuzukimicrojournal]

Orchids Forever Naked

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Potted orchids gifted at the launching ceremony. A recipient is absent. The captain has vanished beyond the horizon. Only the emergency exit light floats in the empty wheelhouse.

A stranded sailor finds a décolleté dress that lost her own flesh. Run away, she chants a hymn flashing in green for him. The needle on the compass points to the edge of the world.

Magnetic sand falls to the seabed with the lower energy of body heat. Eventually it will be a mass of iron as an insubstantial gravity. Departure is eternal stagnation. Orchids smiling naked.

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image: hiromi suzuki

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Orchids Forever Naked / Hiromi Suzuki

© poetry & Gif Photograpy by hiromi suzuki, 2024

published in RIC Journal (May 8, 2024)

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via RIC Journal

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True Confessions

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Midnight café. A waitress brings a crumbly French toast from the laundromat dryer. Pulp magazines on the table are full of cheap confession stories.

Your puzzled face confesses to want to go home. Snow falls on a paper cup of coffee. A cold wind at the end of winter waves goodbye to our salad days.

We used to dance in the backyard just before the turn of the 21st century. The bus stop seemed so far away. We believed there was still time until dawn.

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image: hiromi suzuki

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True Confessions / Hiromi Suzuki

© poetry & Gif Photograpy by hiromi suzuki, 2024

published in RIC Journal (April 6, 2024)

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via RIC Journal

[hiromisuzukimicrojournal]

Gentle Melancholy

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An insurance investigator digs muddy soils out of a dry river. Handling an excavator dexterously. She knows the flow path will lead to the runway. An ocean-going cargo plane departs from airport today.

The insured as probably deceased was on a run. A short letter was left in the room where the fugitive kept himself hidden from the world. Characters written in mashed raspberry juice bled onto the writing paper. Unreadable password put down on a Panama diary in Nile Blue made by Smythson.

The plane disappears into the sky casting a shadow over the sea. Instead of a gentle melancholy, faded recollections will return on the next flight. Powder snow spills from the hourglass on the sandbank between the river and the runway. Time mingles with the grainy raw sugar to make a steamy, bitter and sweet chocolate. While unlocking the sluice gate.

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image: hiromi suzuki

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Gentle Melancholy / Hiromi Suzuki

© poetry & Gif Photograpy by hiromi suzuki, 2024

published in RIC Journal (March 1, 2024)

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via RIC Journal

[hiromisuzukimicrojournal]

Just a Bright Place

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The still images left on 35mm movie film spin weaving an anonymous narrative. Particles of light are falling on your eyes like raindrops. The occasional noise in the silent movie like a drizzle brings us a harmony between crush and tranquility. It is sunny outside the cinema, though.

The projection booth lost power. I lost your shadow on the screen. The silk socks slipped off my feet and disappeared into the basement. A peek through the door of the next meeting room revealed that the monks were talking about something serious in the half-light. I was just looking for a bathroom to recite my lines. Just a bright place.

No end to that 35mm movie film. Take a taxi in a bustling town. I wonder if you have memorized even a muted scene hidden behind your eyelids. Do not forget. In cinematography, we are directing our incidents. It will never actually happen. The still images keep spinning with the light behind.

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image: hiromi suzuki

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Just a Bright Place / Hiromi Suzuki

© poetry & Gif Photograpy by hiromi suzuki, 2024

published in RIC Journal (February 3, 2024)

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via RIC Journal

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Send Me a Lullaby

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Looking into the darkness, it is a pound cake mould anchored with a whisk in a spring-fed pond.

Drizzling rain and bubbling water, the boundaries of time-space are fizzling out. Lose your place.

The coffin carrying the sweet smell of flour, butter, sugar and eggs will be swept away to the crematorium.

Finally, spoon the glaze over the top of the baked cake. The moonlight illuminates the candied lemon peel.

Here is your coffee. Lullabies drifting to and fro through the downtown, end up in Tokyo bay.

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image: hiromi suzuki

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Send Me a Lullaby / Hiromi Suzuki

© poetry & Gif Photograpy by hiromi suzuki, 2023

published in RIC Journal (December 31, 2023)

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via RIC Journal

[hiromisuzukimicrojournal]

Radiosonde Balloons

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Telephone handsets fall from the sky.

One, two, three… The numbered balloons were flown into the midnight void. It was a dusty night with strong winds and no one could sleep. The emptiness rose between the branches of the trees with endless time and filled the darkness. The thin tips of the sondes picked up the lively chatters in the upper atmosphere, probed the vagaries of wind and humidity. Sometimes found the carcasses of the stars that had lost their brightness and whereabouts.

Radiosonde weather balloons might have burst at the edge of space. Lots of telephone handsets suspended from torn parachutes are falling on a reservoir in the forest. Mixed in with the low-frequency noise of dead batteries are the voices of taciturn ghosts. It is cold and rainy today. How long will it last? No answers, silence, vacancy, numbers, one, two, three…

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image: hiromi suzuki

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Radiosonde Balloons / Hiromi Suzuki

© poetry & Gif Photograpy by hiromi suzuki, 2023

published in RIC Journal (November 29, 2023)

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via RIC Journal

[hiromisuzukimicrojournal]

Flowery Era

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The red carpet in the corridors seems to go on forever. The scent of flowers on the breeze from the vents at the end of each floor of the hotel. A network of pneumatic transporting tubes runs parallel to the ventilation system. He orders room service by telegram through the compressed air. Outside the door, the leftovers from various rumours are left on a dinner-wagon.

Last night, he wanted the words to overflow from her crimson lips. What the maid brought to his room, though, was an expired date stand-up comedy. The monologue was a medley of vague lies and ordinary romances dumped on the street. Pre-recorded laughter bubbled up from the champagne glasses and eventually faded into the twilight of dawn.

He seals a forgotten secret in the vacuum of pneumatic tubes forever. Beautiful flowering time repeats beginning and ending on the worn red carpet in the corridor.

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images: hiromi suzuki

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Flowery Era / Hiromi Suzuki

© poetry & Gif Photograpy by hiromi suzuki, 2023

published in RIC Journal (October 29, 2023)

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via RIC Journal

[hiromisuzukimicrojournal]

Alone in the Pacific

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Pinky the fairy is a small giant, raising newts in her ears. She lives in Fountain named by Duchamp. In the corner of the memory warehouse. Ground floor of Invective Laboratory. Where the ceiling lights are broken.

Dr. Murmur, the director of the laboratory. Suffering from passion withdrawal, he hums in the cracked mirror fascinated by the neurons firing the rhythmic signals.

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images: hiromi suzuki

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Note: Alone in the Pacific is a part of the first poetry collection Ms. cried – 77 poems by hiromi suzuki (kisaragi publishing, 2013 ISBN978-4-901850-42-1). The poems written in Japanese have been translated by hiromi suzuki, 2023.

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Alone in the Pacific / Hiromi Suzuki

© poetry by hiromi suzuki, 2023

published in RIC Journal (September 29, 2023)

…

via RIC Journal

[hiromisuzukimicrojournal]

The Macaroni-Pasadena Express

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Early in the morning at 5am, I saw you off in a cloak over your pyjamas. Clockwork snowflakes dancing at dawn. On the platform waiting for a train to the suburbs.

“The rapid train … bound for 7-Eleven … is now arriving.”

On the Ancient River No, on the Ocean No, on the Earth No, beyond the Universe,

An asteroid named Pasadena exists. Take a peek through the macaroni.

Ma Caroni! (Marvelous!)

Goodbye Terra, Our Lovely Planet.

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images: hiromi suzuki

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Note: The Macaroni-Pasadena Express is a part of the first poetry collection Ms. cried – 77 poems by hiromi suzuki (kisaragi publishing, 2013 ISBN978-4-901850-42-1). The poems written in Japanese have been translated by hiromi suzuki, 2023.

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The Macaroni-Pasadena Express / Hiromi Suzuki

© poetry by hiromi suzuki, 2023

published in RIC Journal (August 26, 2023)

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via RIC Journal

[hiromisuzukimicrojournal]

Basque Grilled Steaks

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Chief Complaint:

Poet.

Family History:

The eldest daughter of three sisters. The second daughter has jealous delusions and the third has a sensitive nature.

Past Medical History:

Myopia and narrow vision. Incidentally, her two younger sisters also wear bottle-bottom spectacles.

History of Present Illness:

She has suffered from hunger and emptiness since adolescence. She and her sisters frequent a steak restaurant, but she is unable to order for more than half an hour with the menu in her hand. When the nice waiter stares at her, her immediate younger sister tears the edges of the paper mat to shreds and the youngest sister begins to cry, so she loses her words which must be uttered.

Diagnosis:

Not enough blood and flesh.

Treatment:

No medication required. Try making merry in the heat of sweat, oil and fried-garlic in a lunchtime restaurant crowded with well‐muscled workers. Rhythm on a plate with a knife and fork to the kinky music as background sound, then a sweet silky voice will leak out from her butter-slick shining lips.

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images: hiromi suzuki

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Note: Basque Grilled Steaks is a part of the first poetry collection Ms. cried – 77 poems by hiromi suzuki (kisaragi publishing, 2013 ISBN978-4-901850-42-1). The poems written in Japanese have been translated by hiromi suzuki, 2023.

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Basque Grilled Steaks / Hiromi Suzuki

© poetry by hiromi suzuki, 2023

published in RIC Journal (July 27, 2023)

…

via RIC Journal

[hiromisuzukimicrojournal]

The Summer on Board & Other Poems

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The Summer on Board

Suddenly chased by thunderclouds. The early summer café we fled to.

The River Thames beyond the forest, somehow it smelled of tide. Moist atmospheric air and the great old stream. There are no boundaries of the water.

Taps of rain on the river. Footsteps on a graveled path. Walking on the flow. Laughing with time.

Eternal adventures. Farewells echo. The sky in blue forever would never be night ever.

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CARPE DIEM

A heatproof glass dish fell out of the microwave, it cracked and flowered.

Happy Birthday!

I have no way of knowing who you are or when you were born, though.

The cluttered kitchen floor is a kaleidoscope spinning at the same speed as a 78 rpm record. Petticoats of coloured glass shards sparkle and dance a waltz.

Carpe diem.

Pluck the day.

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Lying Lemons

bear,

bear,

bear,

bear,

bear,

bear,

bear,

The belly button marks time.

Meals inside the hunted furs.

Scent of life splashed with lemon juice.

A momentary lie passes on the bullet train.

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images: hiromi suzuki

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Note: The Summer on Board, CARPE DIEM, Lying Lemons are parts of the first poetry collection Ms. cried – 77 poems by hiromi suzuki (kisaragi publishing, 2013 ISBN978-4-901850-42-1). The poems written in Japanese have been translated by hiromi suzuki, 2023.

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The Summer on Board & Other Poems / Hiromi Suzuki

© poetry by hiromi suzuki, 2023

published in RIC Journal (June 25, 2023)

…

via RIC Journal

[hiromisuzukimicrojournal]

Lycoris Radiata

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One chilly winter morning, the body of a young woman was removed from a hilltop hotel. The hotel, built in 1937, was in the student quarter, Kanda Surugadai Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, known as Quartier Latin of Japan, which retained its classical Art Déco interior and exterior. The short hair of the corpse, that had been dyed in gold and wrapped in a white sheet, was wearing a scarlet feather headband. It was an unusually snowy morning. A bellboy carrying a poodle saw off the stretcher carried by the emergency team. The dog, having lost its owner, was shivering from cold and grief. A young man, a student at an art university, was in a café on the ground floor of the hotel, looking out the window at the white city, holding a cup of coffee. He heard the siren of an ambulance carrying a dead body and a scream squeezed out of a fluffy white ball of wool held by a bellhop.

“Who will take in that poodle?” He asked the waitress who brought Kalita’s coffee server and a ham and cheese croque-monsieur to his table.

“The hotel manager will take care of the dog. The woman wearing the red feather headband was originally the manager’s mistress. Would you like some more coffee?”

Before he could reply, the waitress poured coffee into his cup and slipped the bill under his plate.

A cloudy sky

A smudged orange

In lemon green

Lime yellow

The spikes on the stem

Of the Tahiti lime

The acidity of the juice

Strangling my throat

Suddenly, he heard a colourful old song in the breeze, sent by the fan spinning on the ceiling. “How do I get to the store called Lemon Art Supply? I need to buy some tubes of watercolour paint”, he asked the waitress. “Down this hill, on the corner to the left of the playground”, she answered. “Will there be snow on the ground in the park till this afternoon? I want to make a snowman when I get off work: A girl with a red feather headband.” She laughed innocently.

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Withering vines are coiling about the now closed theater and signs of autumn are creeping into the wasteland. The vapor blows up from the culvert of the underground. The sunshine remains to cast idle warmth and dull light on the bushes. Flowers of Lycoris Radiata are stuck in a cul-de-sac. They are hearing the footsteps of winter. Lycoris Radiata seems to be a young lady, just started blooming in red. She laughs at her diamond tooth as she examines her face in the backstage cracked mirror. A stray dog digs up the ashes, remains from the burning branches of trees and weeds of the summer months. The dusty ashes fly in the air, exposing the wet soil. The dog continues digging in the soil with his paws. He is looking for leftovers from the diner years ago, which he had hidden at the roots of a pine tree. Eventually, he will give up. Hungry and thirsty, the stray dog barks at the gaping hole.

“Give me a cup of coffee!  If only one wish could come true, give me some fried chicken! I do not care about the flesh! Bones and a shattered husk of a soul!”

Lycoris Radiata, in an unladylike manner, laughs so hard that she drops her false tooth to the bottom of the hole. The body of the beast and the diamond tooth must be buried in the season, along with the husk of their souls, and washed away into the groundwater.

Before becoming acquainted with the cremation procession known today, Japanese people used the Lycoris Radiata flower in funeral processions. Japanese people plant Lycoris Radiata around food in the hope that the flowers will deter wild animals from preying on recently buried human bodies. This is where the flower associated with death got its name.*

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The young woman wearing the scarlet feather headband was a very beautiful dancer. Her death was caused by an overdose of tramadol. The hotel maid cleared out the articles of the deceased. In the closet were colourfully stowed away flapper dresses decorated with gorgeous fringes and beads for dancing the Charleston. On the table, room service Peach Melba was melting, leaving only the bones on a plate of chicken steak for the poodle. The bells of the Orthodox Church high on the hill, rang. Below the hotel was a valley, and the Kanda-River was filled with abundant water. The snow would have eventually turned into rain and flowed into the river. The art student exited the café through a bronze door fitted with geometric stained glass and felt the cold rain on his cheeks. As he descended the hill, he pictured the ocean on a paper pad of Arches Aquarelle in his arms. The Kanda-River flowed through the town to Tokyo Bay, and then to the Pacific Ocean.

The Greeks believed that all the waters of the world were connected, so Naiads had the ability to travel anywhere water was found. Unlike most nature gods, some Naiads made their homes near civilization and even in the middle of cities. The wells and springs that provided fresh drinking water to humans were often the homes of, and gifts of, the water goddesses.**

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A performance by The Savoy Havana Band can be faintly heard from the orchestra pit of the closed theatre. No, it could be the sound from portable radio tuned on a programme of swing jazz. An unclear broadcast because of the noise, buried in a hole at the roots of pine tree by the stray dog. Yes. It must be the music of the groundwater streaming forever. The flowers of Lycoris Radiata sway in the wind.

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photography: hiromi suzuki

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Notes:

*Lycoris Radiata, Beautiful Red Flowers That Aren’t as Pretty as Their Meaning

https://www.floweradvisor.com/blog/lycoris-radiata/

**The Naiads, The Nymphs of Fresh Water

In Greek mythology, Lycorias was the Nereid, one of the fifty marine-nymph daughters of ‘Old Man of the Sea’ Nereus and the Oceanid Doris.

https://mythologysource.com/naiads-greek-nymph/

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Lycoris Radiata – A Short Story by hiromi suzuki  

© short story by hiromi suzuki, 2023

published in IceFloe Press (June 4, 2023)

…

via CASSANDRA/CHORALE – A Subterraean Chatter Project

[hiromisuzukimicrojournal]

Late Blooming Girl

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Uncle Beard had no teeth, I was thinking. First of all, the reason he was called Uncle Beard was quite simple: he had a long white beard growing under his chin. The reason he was thought to be toothless was that he clucked his tongue like small drops of sudden rain hitting the roof, no matter what he ate. Uncle Beard, who was an elder brother of my grandma, ran a shoe shop on the edge of Tokyo. I was set to transfer to a new primary school that autumn and my grandma took me to the shop to have the school-designed one strap low heel shoes, pretty shoes so-called Mary Jane in the 1930s, made. Lovely leather shoes strolling could been seen through the display window, Oxfords, Derbys, marshmallow heel pumps, lace-up ankle boots, and knee-high boots. Even the flat shoes with corsages made by suede for little girls pretended to be prima donnas. In a faded poster of the 1966 tune These Boots Are Made for Walkin’, Nancy Sinatra laid sexy, holding Spotted Python to her breast. Uncle Beard showed me a leather sample book. There were a variety of animals, including cows, pigs, deer, etc. and even reptiles such as crocodiles and snakes. True or not, Uncle Beard told us proudly and exaggeratedly that once a year he went to the Amazon River and Río Orinoco to catch crocodiles. “Lunch is a crocodile dish,” Grandma called everyone from the main house at the back of the shop. On the kitchen table were dishes of chicken and white fish, which appeared to be cod, fried in used rapeseed oil. The plate was garnished with tartar sauce and cut lemon, with pickled olives and plastering a heap of French fries. I had lost my appetite.

Late that afternoon, Uncle Beard took me to a summer festival in the shopping district. Food booths lined the front of each shop in the arcade, I begged for grilled corn due to the temptation by the savoury aroma of soy sauce. We sat on a container of chilled bottled beer and nibbled on a whole corn together. I gazed at Uncle Beard’s mouth from motives of curiosity. When he opened his thin lips inside the bush of his long white beard, a reddish-black tongue glimpsed like a snake through the dark hole leading to his larynx. Then the teeth, which should not be there, especially the big front teeth, dropped the corn grains into his mouth like a bulldozer scraping sediment from a bedrock. The corn cores remained after being ground and eaten up by only his tongue rolled aimlessly away, lost in the footsteps of the festival crowd. ‘Do you want some watermelon?’ Uncle Beard said impatiently and brought two slices of watermelon out of eight equal portions into each hand, from the next booth. The droplets from the surface of watermelon, which had cooled in the icebox, evaporated in the heat of the pavement. I tried again to observe Uncle Beard, but his watermelon quickly disappeared into his long white beard. From a black hole, which might be his mouth, black seeds as small beetles jumped out vigorously one after another and died on the burnt pavement. The juice of watermelon spilled from his relax tongue stained his dry beard a pale pink.

There was a lottery at the exit of the shopping arcade. The Japanese lottery machine was a hexagonal rotating wooden box with plastic balls of about one centimetre in radius in various colours, red, blue, green, white, yellow, etc. The bettor turned a handle on the outside and the prize was determined by the colour of ball out. The first prize of the winner was a one-night trip for a couple to the hot-spring hotel in Hakone. “I hope we win the Fujiya Ryokan, where John & Yoko and Yukio Mishima used to stay,” said Uncle Beard dreamily as he stood in the queue. When it was our turn and I turned the handle of the machine in exchange for a redemption ticket, a white ball rolled out. The prize was a Hello Kitty perfume bottle-style keyring. The madam of the cosmetics shops in charge of the lottery said, “Congratulations, Kitty! you are lucky!” she smiled, hooked a ball chain on the tip of her glittery manicured forefinger and popped Hello Kitty into the palm of my hand. The liquid was noticed to be just water, coloured pink. Madame winked at Uncle Beard with her eyelashes like the wings of a swallowtail butterfly. “You should buy this girl a real perfume. Eau de Parfum named Ever Bloom would suit her. As you know, I work at a distributor of Shiseido Company. The shop is on the ground floor of the building on the corner back down this street. The next door of a book café. Do not forget!”

Even as the seasons passed, I could not adjust to my new primary school. I was a late-blooming girl who never pursued love or dreams. But I fell in love with a dreaming boy in my dream. I could only see his back in the distance. As I woke up from my dream, I was crying hugged the afterimage of his smile. I was listening to These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ on my pillow while eating an apple. Outside the window it was snowing. I thought of sexy alligator-skin boots strutting around town like a Nancy Sinatra song. I remembered the cute boy in the same class as me in the previous school. Although I had forgotten about the Hello Kitty keyring I won as prize on the day of the summer festival, and Eau de Parfum which Uncle Beard bought me. Even the scent of Ever Bloom might have remained in the back of my desk drawer, I cannot remember. I wondered if the truth or not that Uncle Beard was planning an adventure capturing black caiman and Orinoco crocodiles in Venezuela again next summer holidays. Above all, I could never forget the horrible scene, the little black creatures popped out from the dark hole inside his long white beard, then they died on the burnt pavement.

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RIContest theme image

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RIContest #1: Late Blooming Girl / Hiromi Suzuki

© short story by hiromi suzuki, 2023

published in RIC Journal (May 29, 2023)

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via RIC Journal

[hiromisuzukimicrojournal]

Tweets

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“He made a book out of the photos we took together.”

A flashlight with dead batteries illuminates the darkness.

“The woman is older and probably has a husband.”

The dreams of that day made me omnipotent, but the nightmares of last night depress me.

“So, I adored your simple, tidy room. But you are a seven-digit postcode generation.”

“He wrapped prawns and chives with rice papers.”

My husband would not have eaten the spring rolls. That night in Saigon he felt sick and lay in bed.

The wire cage surrounding the circus animals is torn apart with a knife. A cacophonous whistling sounds.

“Speak out quietly so mummy cannot hear you.”

Everyone says the demonstration exceeded 1000 people.

The tweets spilled out of each beak are their own stories. They chant their stories in chorus that will never be told.

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images: hiromi suzuki

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Note: Tweets is a part of the first poetry collection Ms. cried – 77 poems by hiromi suzuki (kisaragi publishing, 2013 ISBN978-4-901850-42-1). The poem written in Japanese have been translated by hiromi suzuki, 2023.

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Tweets / Hiromi Suzuki

© poetry by hiromi suzuki, 2023

published in RIC Journal (April 17, 2023)

…

via RIC Journal