Ghosts

Big Frank has been reading Halloween poetry. These are poems about jack-o-lanterns, witches, graveyards, costumes, spookiness, horror, and ghosts. When we think of ghosts we tend to think of the external ones; you know, the souls of dead people who for some reason can't move on. They can go through walls, sometimes leave you with a chill, and can play tricks on you. Some believe in them and some don't. However, nobody can dispute the interior ghosts. So here are a couple of poems from two women poets from the 19th century.

[Photo: Magne]

XXIX. Ghosts

~ Emily Dickinson

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.

Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
Than, moonless, one's own self encounter
In lonesome place.

Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror's least.

The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O'erlooking a superior spectre
More near.

All Hallows Night
~ Lizette Woodworth Reese

Two things I did on Hallows Night:—
Made my house April-clear;
Left open wide my door
To the ghosts of the year.

Then one came in. Across the room
It stood up long and fair—
The ghost that was myself—
And gave me stare for stare.

Trick-n-Treat

Trick-N-Treat

by Big Frank Dickinson

A ghost that trips and host that tips.
The opposite of expected.
An impulse buy; a treasured gift.
A misunderstanding taken
To an approximate sum,
A hidden doorway to the sun.
An extended detour mapped:
A faded doily wrapped
The only way now gone:
A remembered song.

Two by Tomas Tranströmer

Two Poems by Tomas Tranströmer, the 2011 Nobel Prize laureate for literature.

April and Silence

Spring lies deserted.
The velvet-dark ditch
crawls by my side without reflections.
All that shines
are yellow flowers.
I’m carried in my shadow
like a violin in its black case.
The only thing I want to say
gleams out of reach
like the silver
in a pawnshop.

Romanesque Arches

Inside the huge Romanesque church the tourists jostled in the half darkness.
vault gaped behind vault, no complete view.
A few candle flames flickered.
An angel with no face embraced me
and whispered through my whole body:
"Don't be ashamed of being human, be proud!
Inside you vault opens behind vault endlessly.
You will never be complete, that's how it's meant to be."
Blind with tears
I was pushed out on the sun-seething piazza
together with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Mr Tanaka, and Signora Sabatini,
and inside each of them vault opened behind vault endlessly.

Farewell Osaka

Sayonara Osaka. Big Frank celebrated the end of his Japan travels in the way that only Osaka could do it. Farewell Osaka! It's been fun, but it's time to leave... back to Spokane!

Trainlag

[Photo: Big Frank Dickinson]

Big Frank loves riding the shinkansen trains in Japan. Their top speed is between 150 and 190 miles per hour ... the scenery zips by. Big Frank just managed to get a snapshot of Mt. Fuju (see above) as the train shot across Japan between Tokyo and Osaka. A little known phenomena is that after travelling at that speed for a few hours it discombobulates the passenger - especially those gaijin (foreigners) who are not used to it. See above for the photo taken immediately upon getting off the train, and then the next one taken 5 minutes later when the so-called shinkansen-blur has worn off. Not to worry, Big Frank is no longer blurrrrrrrred. All is back to normal!

Shinjuku Skyscrapers

Big Frank has been taking pictures of the skyscrapers in the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo. Here are three of his favorites.

This is the 200-metre high Sompo Japan Head Officet. The building was completed in 1976 and designer by Uchida Shozo.

To the left is the Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower, which opened in October 2008. It looks like a six-sided fountain pen wrapped in masking tape (or some say, a pickle or rocket). It houses retail spaces and three schools: the Mode Gakuen design school, HAL Tokyo (IT and digital contents) and Shuto Iko (medical treatments and care). Altogether it houses over 10,000 students!

This is the Shinjuku Mitsui Building. It is run by Mitsui Fudosan. It's the eighth tallest building in Tokyo, and was the tallest building in Tokyo and Japan, from September 1974 until March 1978. What draws your attention to it are the black channels running down its east and west sides. There is a sunken garden that surrounds its base with a very large plaza.

[All photos: Big Frank Dickinson]