Janet Braithwaite has BA Hons. Degree in Classics from London University, a Post-graduate Diploma in Social Administration from London School of Economics and an MA in International Relations from Coventry University. She has worked in Greece, the UK and France. Janet has written poetry on and off most of her life, usually at threshold periods of deep change.

Note: For Part 1 and Part 2 follow the links.

 

THE YEAR OF JAPAN

 

July

 

High risk magic on the run

I arrived with quarter of an hour to spare
after driving halfway across the country,
while you got there on the dot slightly breathless,
announcing you had to leave an hour early
to rush back to work for the rest of tonight,
so this week we did manage both to be there
in the same place
at the same time
for one short heady hour,
vibrant with the excitement of holidays.
And you confessed
that last year during the holidays
you were sent off on a business trip
because you were new and unscheduled
- and too shell-shocked to dare to say no -
I suggested.
You didn’t understand the word ‘dare’
but were at home with ‘high risk factor’.
So I showed you
- given the lack of time for teaching
more complex potent deep enchantments -
how to placate the gods of pleasure,
ensure good luck
and keep the demons of work at bay
this summer
by touching wood
and keeping your fingers tightly crossed,
and you searched hard
for similar gestures in Japan
for times like these,
and you found absolutely nothing
- not surprising!

 

 

THE YEAR OF JAPAN

October

The year of Japan 1

 

This is the year of Japan
 

this lucid year of clarity
when I see through the riddle,
read the maze’s innermost secrets,
reinterpret codes,
arrive at answers
sought through all these years of dreaming,
and thus at last enlightened
have escaped the Sphinx’s circling deaths
by self-destruction:

 

this wondrous year of sorcery
when I have found the alchemy,
the hidden stone of transformation
seen dimly through the fumes of striving,
catalyst of change
and revelation
glowing in the depths of darkness,
visible to those who venture
plummeting dark-night, deep-sea journeys,
hurtling through black holes of the spirit
beyond that unplumbed dread descent:

 

this complex year of paradox
when the equation’s cloudy essence,
thus catalysed, turned lucid and shone clear
as innate inequality
- positive equals negative -
- inspiration is almost like love -
but not – this Delphic knot
of self-delusion, unloosed, resistant
to half a lifetime of unravelling,
fell suddenly apart,
and through the smoke-hazed cavern
gloomed with prophecies and dreams,

unblinded, undazzled,
at last I saw distinct
the taut-tensioned mystery
of held-apart polarity,
and ceased to pour that dark energy’s
exploding abstract force
imploding through love’s fragile circuits:

 

THE YEAR OF JAPAN

this limpid year of signs and messages
of recognition
when I received the messenger
and, moved by his beauty and his strangeness,
embraced the meaning, held his words,
without vain striving to impede his flight
or lure him earthward
- luminous inspiring angel,
bright meteor at risk of falling light-quenched
into night of my desiring;
when I perceived the power of totems
and read the visionary moments
of the red fox in sun-tinged arrow flight
blade-running down the quivering tension line,
and geese in steely nomad chevrons blazed
and throbbed across a copper solstice sky,
as darkening meadows glimmered
with the light of secret candles:

 

this austere year of self-restraint
stretched between worlds so disparate
when I have learnt to balance,
hold taut
the intricate discipline
of the dance’s measured patterns
that hold my feet unfaltering
within the dervish ecstasy
of high exhilaration,
tight-tensed
between obsession’s madness
and the search for meaning there
within
where I am most in danger,
running straight down the tension line,
intense and focused,
keeping all my worlds in orbit
separate-circling:

 

THE YEAR OF JAPAN

this Persephone year of contrast
which began
underworld
dungeoned-deep
imprisoned
powerless
held in thrall
by darkness
held helpless
deep in labyrinthine passages
where despair
leads me down
encircled
circling round
returning
tortuous
nightmare tracks
whose tortured
twisting through disorientation
found no way
out:
prisoner
by powers of darkness night-enravished
imprisoned
underworld
found within
helpless hands
a thin thread
tenuous
frail as love
which yet held
and drew me upwards shadow-ensnared
yet surface-soaring and unfettered
as light bursts
and earth-bound spring breaks green and potent
out of night:
the earth splits
rent apart between light and darkness
sundered pregnant into fruitfulness
goddess-freed
empowered
energised.

 

THE YEAR OF JAPAN

this harvest year of integration
when the elements
all combined
and coincided into ripening,
found their destined time
of harvest,
after circling seasons of sorrow
when pain’s slow pulsing
drop by drop
fell upon the heart insistent as
sleepless memory,
till at last,
in despair, against my stubborn will,
comes understanding
full of grace,
that time’s straight arrow curves concentric
into circles
where rites of passage lead
our endangered faltering footsteps
full of fear
across the angel-guarded thresholds
awe-inspired
traversing through revolving cycles
transcendent
merciful
redemptive.

 

THE YEAR OF JAPAN

 

October

 

The year of Japan 11 for Shoji Saikawa

 

This is the year of Japan,
the year when I transformed
my heart’s becluttered vaults
encumbered with
extravagance of passion
importunate longings
hopeless expectations
lust’s fraught fevers
- vanities

into a sparse interior
of calm serenity
and found within
this quiet simplicity
an unsought richness unrevealed
by all my frenzied searchings;

and on a morning misty
with unsuspecting dreams
received in confirmation
from the furthest limits
of your journey to the north

a dove bearing peace and flowers
- messenger.

 

 

THE YEAR OF JAPAN

December

 

Sayonara

 

I always knew
that someday parting
was inevitable

for I
am of the floating world

- that cobweb raft
of fantasy
whose shimmering landscapes
insubstantial
rise structured on
the driftwood of the mind
emmeshed within
a web of dreams –

and I
have bartered all my sure
infrastructured
safe certainties
for imagination’s
shifting shadow play
of mirages

while you
belong
to the mainland
firmly anchored to
the material world
of confident solidity

and have
a well-mapped life
of constant schedules
and ranking hierarchies
structured in ambition

and all my work
of building bridges
failed to span the distance.