The Woodcutter
In a mountain
hollow, woodcutter
sees a body
wrinkled and
worn in a
smooth silk
kimono
splayed like
a spray
of bamboo
leaves fallen
upon the ground
blossoms of blood bloom
around the corpse
A gad-fly buzzes
languidly, the lone
witness.
The Samurai
in the cool and green
bamboo forest
a samurai lies.
footsteps
somewhere
near here
razor edge
flash of
silent sword.
pain slices
like sunlight
through chest walls.
life ebbing,
with
each
receding
breath.
a killer
exits
like clouds
over the sky.
Rashōmon
The servant waits
at Rashōmon gate
where thieves
commune and corpses
lie abandoned.
The servant
discharged
from service
contemplates
a life of
crime, or
submit to
the grime.
Foxes scavenge
the ruins, crows
circle a murder
above the gate
like grains
tossed by a
violent wind.
A fat black
cloud plops
itself over
Rashōmon
like a curse.
Stone steps
crumbling,
rank grass
growing
dotted with
crow droppings
A gloaming
flickers from
within, an unknown
evil shudders like
an invisible hand
down the servant’s
hunched back, he
crouches like a
lizard, slowly
crawls into
Rashōmon.
Vanessa Ryan
Vanessa is an Australian freelance writer based in Ghent, Belgium. She’s a mother, a vegetarian and an intrepid traveller. She’s lived in five countries and speaks two languages. She is working on her first novel “What She Knew”. You can follow her on twitter @vanessaincolour
[…] Her fiction work has appeared in The Quarry […]