Best Japan Poems

Origami soul
Pressed in rice paper tightly
A tomb of beauty
Memory of Geisha's heart
Tsunami tears in albums...

www.scripca.com...

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*Image of Japanese Elm Tree by CBC.

Japan Surrenders

Japan's crimson sun disrobes a dawning night rise sky,
An elm tree parasol's her coral samurais while they lie.

2022 February 22
*1st Place*
A BRIAN STRAND SHORTIE
~~Brian Strand: Judged 2022 February 23
*2nd Place*
Bite Size Poem No.37
~~Line Gauthier: Judged 2022 March 01...

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Through one of the blackest day
In their ancient history
Emerges Japan, though a little burnt
But spring has come again
Cherry blossoms bloom
In their gentle hearts
Along the dream paths
They see the world change forever
The rolling rice fields blossoms
Sparkling children play in the fresh snow
Sowing the seeds for generations...

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All About Japan

A feather plummets slacks downwards,
a sparrowhawk caught prey soars upwards,

bonsai trees grow its shadow midst sunrise,
cherry blossoms shade a path,
sugis eclipse a shrine,

maguro (tuna) swims the deep ocean,
unagi (eel) curves nearby Mount Fuji,
tako (octopus) struts whilst in motion,
fugu (pufferfish) deadly still, yummy,

pink perianths...

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The artist Hokusai memorialized,
In his woodblock print of raging seas, 
The great wave off Kanagawa,
That brought Nippon to its knees.

Again the modern rising sun is caught,
In the wrath of shifting plates, 
And the belch of a feral tsunami,
Which left millions unsure of their fates

Waves swallowed...

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Japan, land of rising SUN

Faced Natures devastation
Tsunami, earthquake obliterated cities
Lost all but not hope, maturity, sanity

Collective harmony, community first attitude
No honking, no mad overtaking; only understanding on jammed roads
No shoplifting when lights fused in malls

Mature media, compassionate humanity 
No bloodcurdling visuals of chest beating or...

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There once was a woman from Japan
She went by the name of Faye-Lynn
A ninja with beauty
To kill was her duty
Her weapon was seduction of man...

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Beautiful moments each day
Reveal that sometimes only a moment away
Peaceful moments are broken with earth’s violent response
To an unprovoked attack that we wish was just once
But what rises from a devastation of life 
Is a spirit revealed, born out of strife
From a people well balanced...

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~ ~ ~** ~ ~ ~ ** ~ ~ ~

 
a torn sun once wholly wise, the kind that sparkled whistling eyes
now a broken porcelain ,echoing screams from windows’ stain
booming through shattered rooms, waters of black -skinned moons
swish-swash slammed again, those gulps that cannot quite...

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Pipe Dreams

Though I have a woman’s heart; it pounds with
dragon’s fire. Curled about the core of self, 
I have lain in wait for Asia with claw, and horn.

Linked-locks and keys have spined beneath my hand
upon the tourist’s rails of China’s Great Wall where 
builder’s bones...

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Shogi
me?
I can barely play Go Fish

Old Maid is well over my head
Shogi?
I think not

Shogi: Japanese chess
where you get to use your
opponent’s captured army...

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Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Jovial Dr Jekyll played for juvenile Justice
                    a just jaspered journey
jokingly jumped a joyride 
       ...

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These are translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into tanka, renga and haiku. 

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
—O no Yasumaro (circa 711), translation by Michael R. Burch

Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make!
Heaven's...

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There is a lilt to their eyes, a sassy to their attitude.
They know themselves well, drawn in living color.
Alive, dancing through their day, being admired greatly.
Characters who are not afraid to be themselves.

A trusty funny sidekick always building up the heroine
Who falls in love with...

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Matsuo Basho New Haiku Translations

Air ballet:
twin butterflies, twice white,
meet, match & mate
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

Denied transformation
into a butterfly,
autumn worsens for the worm
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

Dusk-gliding swallow,
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers!
—Matsuo Basho, loose...

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