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How many new cousins have you got?
Four. Three with scars and sallow eyes.
How many new sisters today?
Dad’s brought six. Four speak French and bruise real easy.
How many new aunts at yours this week?
Just the two. One still thinks she’ll see her family.
How many in-laws at the weekend?
Seven. Two trained as doctors, five can’t read.
How are your sisters getting on?
Quite well. Six became friends but have hollow eyes.
How many new cousins have you got?
None this week. But dad says I’m going to be an uncle.
Surasawa Pond
By Surasawa pond
on a billboard
a holy man paints a lie:
‘On the third day
of the third month
the dragon of this pond
will ascend to heaven.’
Two men scoff
a child dreams of black dragons
a holy man
explodes with laughter
The lie grows a tail
and fins
An Aunt
from Sakurai
brimful with determined faith
pins her prayers on lasting
to see the ascent
Thus, the ripple of the lie
that on the third day
of the third month
the dragon of this pond
will ascend to heaven
From Yamato
to Izumi
as far as Harima and Tamba
the murmur, the arc
the shimmer, the flowering
lotus of the lie
that on the third day
of the third month
the dragon of this pond
will ascend to heaven
So
on the promised day
of the sacred month
with words that slip their leash
the holy man proclaims
he feels the wait as keenly
as the throng of black caps
gathered to witness
the dragon of this pond
ascend to heaven
And on the third day
of the third month
a storm breaks
The crowd
unconscious of the passing hours
see cherry blossoms
a flash of gold
a hundred feet of vision
an Aunt breathing
‘It must have been’
On the fourth day
of the third month
some believe the truths
of holy men;
some of Aunts.
I, your humble narrator,
have not seen the water, but hear
Surasawa pond
reflects the sunlight
without a ripple.
(Taken from Dragon: The Old Potter’s Tale by Ryunosuke Akutagawa)
With a foot firmly on each side of the Irish Sea, Alex Smith was raised in troubled Northern Ireland during the Eighties before moving to the slightly less troubled south coast and later the midlands of England for the Noughties. Educated in all things English and Spanish at the Queen’s University of Belfast and in all things educational at the University of Chichester, Smith comes from that stable of pared-down, plain-speaking poets such as Muldoon and Armitage. His work has taken him to some of the most socially deprived schools in England. His poetry has been published in ‘Twyckenham Notes’, ‘Tammy’, online at ‘Clear Water Poetry’, ‘ABCTales’ (where he also edits) and in ‘The UK Poetry Library’ and has a collection entitled ‘Home’ coming soon through Cerasus Poetry.