japan, the woman in the black dress
 

japan, my dear, you were so beautiful
even after the craving trapped me
on an island buried in radiation and gloom by
a hiroshima cloud

i tracked the kitsuné down to the pier
and in fearful deception it became the
sensual woman in the black dress, who
was the delusion bound to my mind by
obessesion, love, and lust
it kept me here in this terrible place

as the cloud lifted and dissipated into the ocean breeze,
i could see; the advantage was finally mine
i clutched it at the throat and squeezed
it's amatory front remained until
the moment it died, and
meanwhile i watched the expression
roll off of its face
my eyes became dry in tense anticipation
and the tips of my fingers dripped with
something more than blood

i released
and let the
body defer to the ground

now i swim alone (i always was) from
the edge of this world to the edge of another
the water smells of salt and
feels both hot and cold
body drenched in cortisol,
peaking during the inevitable, unyeilding storms
rigid with panic - the sea is apprehension
but i keep swimming
drag my arms over and under the water
over and under
over and under
this current,
i'm so very near
drowning
so very close to escaping,
the coastline is approaching

i can see it faintly
in the
distance

This was great. If Hiroshima mon amour was adapted to poetry, I think this would be the result. Good stuff, man.

thanks man, i appreciate it a lot. this is probably the third piece of poetry i put up on here and yours is the first reply i've had haha

i've never seen or heard of the movie you're talking about, but i looked it up and read the plotline and it is really similar :haha sounds interesting though. 'japan' is actually the nickname of/reference to a person i know, but as i was writing it kind of turned to both a person and a place at the same time. at least for me, but i wouldn't know if someone else would read it as both. i just let it go both ways and hoped it wouldn't confuse the reader. haha

I liked this.

This was good. About the content of the piece, there was only two things I didn't quite like. First one was the word "mushroom"; I believe that, due to the subject of the piece, the reader can picture the mushroom cloud without you actually having to call it a mushroom cloud. Also, I believe it would be more suspenseful like that, but I'll leave it to you. I never like to boss around other people's form of art.

The other thing I didn't like was "i grabbed it by the throat and killed it wih my bare hands" - it sounds a bit cliché and I believe you could find a better was to represent it.

Everything else was good, especially the ending.

Agreed with Seventh Angel on the mushroom cloud, it seems kind of blunt when you look at the rest of the piece. And as for the 'killed it with my bare hands', I liked the idea, but maybe you could go further? I feel like that line should be raw, like the killing should be mentioned in the most brutal way imaginable. Get your hands dirty, really tear the emotion out of that line. As is I can feel it, but I can feel more potential there too.

thanks guys for the crits. i edited out 'mushroom', heavily modified the third stanza and added another smaller one. i think it sounds a lot better now than it did before.

I felt bad for not giving this a comment, since it was such a great piece to begin with. So here it is!
This was beautiful, and you managed to make this even better over the last couple of days. The imagery is top notch therefore, I can really dream myself away in these parallels you have created.

Overall, I think it's perfect as it stand now :)

It is thought Shpagina may go even further in her efforts to achieve her desired look, with some reports claiming she intends to undergo surgery on her eyes to make her resemble her anime idols even more closely.