11th Century Japan

by Matthew Birch (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Japan

I went to Japan by boat it was actually a page I went to Japan on a page maybe several pages I went to Japan on several pages and drowned. It was good to drown. Write what you know I've never drowned which is why I didn't die instead the ink drowned me out of this reality into another you know the feeling an orgasmic denouement like watching a silver spoon slide into a chocolate soufflé. Amongst the ink stains in my ears I heard that in 11th century Japan they didn't serve chocolate soufflés instead courters served each other tanka poems, men and women wet their sleeves at not being able to see one another behind wooden shutters or rustling bed curtains so spoke about the salt fires of the ama and falling pines. In celebrations they played the si no' koto which stopped the dancing moonlight and men and women in reds and greens and purples sung in reds and greens and purples. Like the raging storms out at sea there poured through everyone an obsessive idolisation of the aesthetic. It inhibited curtailed protected destroyed empowered discriminated which is to say it was nothing like the storms out at sea that did not prey on the little fishing boats it was unlucky or maybe Sumiyoshi was having a bad day. When I arrived they introduced me to the most elaborate lifestyles, feared me fearing the less fortunate I have nothing in the way of understanding them just caught glimpses like a fish half asleep who looks up to the dappled sun. Men wept at their infedelity closed their eyes in the blinding winds of their pilgrimage kept them closed so their perfectionist ideals did not come falling down like the dew drop that settles in a crash from the chrysanthemum's petal to the emerald grass but no mining back then so grass. I became more comfortable in their presence their lifestyle seemed to make sense anyone would succumb to such riches you can't turn down scented paper with a piece of broken wood, not burnt but is the burning fire of unity watch as it falls into the river that runs between wings and he calls another name. The longer I stayed the harder it was to hide from wandering spirits they appeared in dreams as white-noise hallucinations screaming crying children such youth here the Emperor is only nine but his mother died at 22. At the end of my journey there was a picture contest. So many abstract evocations of human experience the older beautifully detailed landscapes struggling to find their calling from the mist up above how alien yet so contemporary. Never has my reflection looked so clear when standing in the mirror. Ending my journey on wet pages I was startled at the similarities I had encountered, like the undying call for creativity in all its forms through all mediums. I was surprised at how masculine, feminine and aesthetic ideals had changed- and to an extent, not changed- over time, and developed more of an understanding as to why we live and act as we do in today's world, as a result of what we practiced so long ago. The journey was a lesson on the art of being an imperfect being. It's importance is unquestionable.