This is a self-portrait that I took at the Sakamiko Illumination. I am standing in an enclosed walk-through tube that has walls which project a revolving kaleidoscope of colored light. I was only able to look directly at the ceiling for a few seconds before the luminance’s intensity forced me to look away.
Sagamihara, Japan
February 2016
Yesterday, I visited the Sagamiko Illumination. In Japan, light displays are very popular during the winter season.
The Sakamiko display is the largest illumination in the Kanto area. The theme this year is Great Britain and they used 5.5 million lights!
The Sagamiko Illumination will run until April 10th. Catch it if you can!
website
Sagamiko Illumination
tanks creep
through silent street,
for we have gone to sleep,
and cannot wake up to defeat
the fleet
I found this cat sunning itself on our laundry deck. She let me take this photograph before she ran away.
Kofu, Japan/February 2016
Rain’s lyrical cadence haunts him (Whitman and Eliot too) – but,
it doesn’t dare deposit its wrathful hands on me.
At present, grass is drying (as I lie sighing) beneath a lemon-hued
gorge, overflowing with endless jubilant, unconcealed song.
Clover eyes (blind forever) tumble down over my swarthy skin.
Index finger knuckles brush them away. Tears remain.
If I stay silently through the night (may it last forever), will you
harbor me within your celestial enemy voice?
explore this planet if you can
to understand your fellow man,
for hearts are stitched from common thread
and mix their dust when they are dead
Moon fingers laugh with remarkable lucidity
but weep when the rains of April come.
Wrap me in spheres of calcium, flowing fast.
I will not cling to thin vibrating barriers.
Memories implode through convoluted pathways
(forget me not, but ring around the rosy) – what
folly, what fun – yet, if I may, must I repeat
myself (girdled in shame) as you demand?
Her magisterial gaze ensures that
two inattentive eyes
remain in the dark, polluted streets of
Lantern Yard.
Winged lambs, daubed in bronze,
flit past plasmic
lace organelles, waging a shameless battle for
restless minds.
On August 6th, 1945 at 8:15 a.m, the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The bomb exploded in close proximity to the Genbaku Dome; it virtually destroyed the entire city. Former Hiroshima mayor, Shinzo Hamai, was instrumental in collecting funds for the dome’s preservation. The Genbaku Dome has undergone two preservation projects since the 1960s.
This is a 30 second self-portrait that was taken by Kofu’s Kanente Station.
Kofu, Japan
February 2016
sundry folly 