The Ecstatics
Divisions and separations, a summing of consequences,
the brother whose ashes remained forever lost. Two cities
and their survivors’ shame. The loud, kind young man
whose words fell to the restaurant’s floor, unbidden.
What came next in the drift, untoward and misspent,
in the grammar of between? Darkness, suppressed.
Smoke. Pleasure and fear, unclothed.
O at the Edges 
I don’t get it but it is pretty. I visited Hiroshima. Super friendly people, great food – even at the Shinkansen station, but you could feel a spiritual cloud over the city, an unnamed darkness from the past that we all know. It may seem like such things are not possible, but I honestly and completely could really feel that the city had an energy that spoke to one’s unconscious. I swear I could feel the spiritual remains of a great pain. It was in the trees and water and air and sky and sounds. Honestly? It felt like the local Shinto gods still to this day sit in stunned silence at the great horror visited upon them and the people.
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I think you are so right and that such things are completely possible, if not explicable — I think the land holds onto its hurt, its suffering, and its pleasures as much as we do. It remembers.
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This is an odd piece, especially out of context – it’s part of a much longer sequence that I set aside a year ago (the first part alone is about five pages long). I’ll get back to it one of these days…
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I tend to agree with you and Daniel, Carrie.
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I have been to two places that had this strange intangible “tangibility.” Hiroshima and Ramallah, Palestine. Hiroshima has a pain quality, while Ramallah has a invisible remnant of evil hovering over it that feels like tension and sweat. like the city’s spiritual essence has had a centuries long panic attack and you can almost smell the post-adrenal sweat/misery. I don’t know how those poor people can live there without becoming ill from the constant necrosis of the soul that city seems to engender.
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Like it very much. “The grammar of between” especially. Always believed there is something beyond syntax and semantics in the case of prepositions.
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Thanks, Simon. The “betweens” figure prominently in my world. 🙂
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Eternity in one moment. Replicated.
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Oh, yes. And on.
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Very sad poem to me, of war, explosion, death… heaven or hell.
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A poem of aftermaths.
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Ah 🙂
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Well, at least that’s how it started…
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the emotions of this capture the imagination!
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Thank you.
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So beautiful and sad and absolutely necessary. This resonance with the landscape of destruction and the physicality of the human soul, giving voice to pain and suffering. Your words help the wound heal. Very necessary: expression. Thank you for sharing 🙂 Also, something completely off topic: love your recordings and thank you for posting the video of your reading, you have such a wonderful presence.
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Thank you for your kind words, Jessica.
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Lovely! Everyone can assign their own meaning to it and will still be right. I loved it how this time the meanings can be sooo different.
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Thank you. I believe there’s sufficient space for all to find their particular meaning.
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What I said can be said about every poem. The difference in this case is that the variety of can-be-assigned meanings is so broad.
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I am a fan of yours now 🙂
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Thank you, Neena. You are very generous.
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