HOUSE OF SHAME

A poem I wrote while living in Tokyo in 2007.


Disaster can strike at any moment
I can live with it but I won’t look at it

Burnable by night
Intense inhale by day

Shut the door and listen
To the inaudible

Panic may hurt you
Especially after drinking

I converse with illusions
And stay up late believing in them

I walk in the path of falling objects
Yet remain unharmed

Unable to let my hair grow
At the mercy of the Tokai

There’s a price to pay for silence
And thinking of ourselves

As we fly over this planet of a silent sun
Like the wind blowing through the trees at night

Trapped in this house of shame
Will there be anyone to hold you as it falls