Elegy for a Stranger

I know this might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I've been having a hell of a time finishing another, more conventional (i.e., predictable) post about Pocky or somesuch nonsense. So, here's a poem I wrote after a suicide on the Nankai Semboku line made everyone late for work a few weeks back. If poems aren't your thing, may I direct you to stop reading and go play some Scrabulous.

Elegy for a Stranger

We crowd into antlike furrows, scurrying through steel metropolitan veins,
Close our eyes and jostle into silver wombs that slide,
Timed to perfection, are jettisoned, creaking, to Sun or Sea,
We unhappy many.
Today contractions are interrupted, the wa disturbed
(All but obliterated, though propriety remains)
By the specter of untimely death--
Rumors ripple through the unspeaking gray bullet.
Most of us pour onto a sun-soaked concrete island three stops early.
More delays in Sakaihigashi, hundreds of Plans B dashed,
Hundreds more appointments late, though excuse slips are distributed by conductors.
No one dares speak, yet it is generally understood
That someone has, well, you know, on the tracks.
It happened at Sumiyoshi Higashi, right where the line splits,
Where an uncelebrated dotted blue snake diverges,
Anaconda becomes hydra.
Somewhere here amid the familiar trees,
One of our fellow weekday warriors came to a different conclusion
And gave up fighting the good fight, lay down arms,
Painting some anonymous meter of steel that we will grind over this afternoon.
Though surely none of our silent, truant crowd
Knows our fallen comrade, we are the worse for losing him:
This ill-timed dagger has rent the great curtain of our shadow-play
And revealed a nearly empty house.
"How could he?" we all ask, "and on such a nice day?"
Trains are never late in Japan.

We feel guilty about enjoying the unexpected moment of sunshine, seconds stolen from our next air-conditioned cave by a tortured soul who would now disperse or else hang from the power lines and chill our bones other mornings,
mornings where we arrive at work without interruption.

Osaka, 5/17/10