The Showa Era

Aloof, introspective, the Son of Heaven

Pores over his marine collection, ravished by thoughts

Of prehistoric cuttlefish, and sea spiders’ rituals,

Lingering with delight over bloodless invertebrates

And the rarest creatures from the oceanbed,

Exquisite monsters seldom witnessed by man.

His impassive eyes glint behind glasses

As he looks up from the microscope.

This, his era, will be an age of enlightenment and peace,

Blessed by the copper mirror in the Shrine of Isé

That first tempted Amaterasu from the cave

To contemplate her features in the light,

Thus delivering the earth from darkness.


Robotically intoning the divine archaic tongue,

Hirohito addresses the court from his throne

As they bow in awe before this slim, blank youth.

In China, his troops are running through Nanking,

Tossing babies on bayonets, threshing empire’s harvest.


General Ishii, man of science, receives an audience

To demonstrate his new invention, a wonder-machine

That turns wine into water. Performing the miracle

With a mountebank’s flourish, he quaffs a glass

Before the startled Emperor’s gaze. Hirohito, at once,

Bestows his gracious approval for the General

To pursue his work, his patriotic mission

To master the secrets of biological warfare,

And obliterate Japan’s foes with invisible squadrons

Of typhus, tetanus ,anthrax and other such allies.


In the Manchurian wastes a secret complex hums

All night beneath the cold stars, a walled Xanadu

Of barracks and laboratories, where technicians

Experiment on convicts, vagrants and prisoners-of-war,

Injecting, gassing, freezing and dissecting,

Studiously compiling scientific reports.

Ishii looks on, rapt, as another pickled specimen

Is added to his store,- a corpse floating in alcohol,

Suspended in limbo, empty eyes staring like a fish.


Admiral Yamamoto laughs and capers, entertaining

Ladies of the “water trade” on board his ship,

A pocket-sized maverick, cackling irreverent banter,

Able to subdue any man with one look.

Later, alone, he sits in a calligrapher’s trance,

His balletic brush kissing arabesques on paper.

A gambler with all the cards in his hand,

For a dare he will execute perilous handstands,

Balanced on a high balcony’s edge.

Brooding now over maps, the Admiral

Plans the great attack: his diminutive finger

Stabs at the coordinates-Pearl Harbor, Hawaii...

For this, they should give him a proper reward-

A casino of his own in Singapore!

He laughs to himself, the frowns again;

This strange foreboding will not leave him,

That Japan’s greatest victory will also be its doom...


Throughout the world,


Everywhere all men are brothers;


Why then do winds and waves


So turbulently rage?

Sadly, Hirohito ponders his grandfather’s haiku...

He offers peace-and the world refuses!

Eight corners of the earth under his protection...

Why do they not gratefully comply?

Oh that he could return to ichthyology,

True to reason and the scholar’s retirement,

But war, it seems, is the will of the age,

And its strange euphoria possesses him, too,

Vast designs not found on microscope slides.


A letter to the Emperor from Yamamoto:

“Without ceremony or delay, the little wrestler

Attacked and shoved the giant from the ring

And the audience cheered his audacity.

But then the heavyweight staggered back,

Strengthened his stance, and slowly advanced.

Now he confronts his opponent in the centre,

The last five minutes will decide the contest...”


In the New Guinea jungle lies a crumpled plane,

A swatted dragonfly, tangled in itself;

Shouting soldiers pull out Yamamoto’s body.

At last, he has gone to follow them beyond the sun,

The grieved-for warriors lost to the skies.