drinking water
from the faucet flames:
empty cradle

Yomi-no-kuni
the land of the dead

crippling actions —
artificial pollutants add to Krakatoaian sunsets
Amaterasu shivers; her light dims
the kami of volcanic cores runs

Ise shrines fill —
offer up your rice now        your paper money
clap twice        the gods of stone are deaf to your desires
lunacy reigns   best make your god shelves wide

the shades of ancestors disemboweled scream in —
Naraka — the hell realm

fossil fuels release sulfur dioxide —
the spectral span of blue’s and violet
will be no more
atomic waste fills wilderness habitats
in the Pacific Ocean
we fish for food in fouled nests
bathe in borderless layers of radioactive
wastewater
Hiroshima’s legacy — gene-scarred children blanch

*

at Fukushima               shadow descends
walk across the surface tension
above sores of radioactive waste
[17,000 tons of fuel rods dumped]

Ise shrines fill —
offer up your rice now        your paper money
clap twice        the gods of stone are deaf to your desires
lunacy reigns   best make your god shelves wide

the body temple
not meant for the mishandling of men
sea water         groundwater    water vapor
misformed    deformed            terraformed
blame the atom           or blame man­­?

[Deborah Guzzi writes full time; when she’s not reading. Her book The Hurricane published by Prolific Press is now available. She travels the world seeking writing inspiration. She has walked the Great Wall of China, seen Nepal (during the civil war), Japan, Egypt (two weeks before ‘The Arab Spring’), Peru, and France during December’s terrorist attacks. Her poetry appears in: Existere – Journal of Arts and Literature in Canada, Tincture in Australia, Cha: Asian Literary Review in China, Vine Leaves Literary Journal in Greece, and Eye to the Telescope, Bete Noir, Liquid Imagination, Illumen, Literary Hatchet, Eternal Haunted Summer and Silver Blade, among others, in the USA.]