Tanka poems against the war

A summer morning

Makes me feel like vacuuming

Up with my Hoover

All of the tanks advancing

On the desert in a convoy

列をなし進む戦車を掃除機で

いっきに吸ってしまいたい夏

Retsu wo nashi Susumu sensha wo soujiki de

Ikkini sutte Shimai tai natsu

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Collect warheads of

Nuclear missiles on the earth

Send them to Jupiter

'Cause peach trees will be blooming

Next spring on the brown planet

核弾頭を集めて送ろう木星に

春には桃の花が咲くから

Kaku dantou wo Atsumete okurou Mokusei ni

Haru niwa momo no Hana ga saku kara

It is possible to make our world with no nukes and no more Hibakusha.

Keep believing!

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In a TV interview

The man was shedding beads of tear,

Leaving tear trails on the both cheeks

From the wide-opened eyes

One teardrop after another was

Running down on the cheeks

"If we had dropped wheat seeds, 

Not bombs, in Afghanistan,

No children would have died of hunger there"

The man was shedding teardrops,

Leaving the cheeks glistened

"If we had dropped books, not bombs,

Children could have had hope for the future,

Not despair"

One teardrop after another

Has been falling down into my heart

And formed a small pond there

The still surface of the pond, like a mirror,

Has begun to reflect the world I haven't seen ever

The above is a poem written 20 years ago. Why do we keep dropping bombs around the world? Dropping bombs never creates peace. Two years ago, August 15th , after 20 years of bombing Afghanistan, what has happened? It is just feeding the rich by killing the poor. Stop bombing anywhere in the world.

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A trembling jellyfish

Taken away from the ocean

Lies on the sea shore

Like a thirsty child at war.

Put him back where he should be

戦場に渇く児に似て砂浜に

震えるクラゲを海へとかえす

Senjyo ni Kawaku ko ni nite Sunahama ni

Furueru kurage wo Umi e to Kaesu

"Put him back where he should be"

I wrote the poem 20 years ago with the wish that children should get back in a peaceful world not in war. 

Tomorrow, the 24th of August 2023, Japan's PM Kishida is going to let TEPCO start dumping radioactive water contaminated with tens of trillions of becquerel of tritium. The ocean is not the tritum should be. It should be kept in robust tanks for at least 50 years as its half-life is 12.3 years.

Let me share a video which explains how hazardous tritium can be.

The speaker speaks in English.

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A huge thunderhead

Swelling up in the summer sky

Is now forming a

Sumo wrestler standing firm.

Tackle the flight of fighter planes!

四股を踏み沸きあがりくる入道雲　

戦闘機群に体当たりせよ

Shiko wo humi Waki agari kuru Nyudogumo

Sentoki gun ni Taiatari seyo

At the end of summer, thunderheads rise in the evening. 

Something never changes.

I like to see thunderheads in summer but no more fighting planes anywhere in the world.

The poem, tanka poems and drawings from "Flowers and Bombs: Stop the Violence of the War Now!" by Kaoru Kobashi

https://hanabaku.blogspot.com/