Tokyo 1990: Imagine Signs Of Life Amidst All The Debris Of Change

Daily earthquakes constantly shake 

so I create a ritual, I walk.

I need to get out 

of my thin paper-wall room.
Flee the fragile construction 

of the Worker's Guesthouse.
Avoid being inside a matchbox 

ready to ignite in case of fire.

I walk,  

I traverse beneath sub-way trains.
I walk along traffic-clogged roads, 

through nature-lined parks,
under tree branches by flower gardens, 

over water arterial pathways,
past rock bands playing 

heavy metal, rap and hip-hop,
competing for fans stranded in 

the open air oasis of urban parklands.

I walk past shiny desire 

beautifully machined into personalities.

Designer labeled elegance 

graphically alluring to the passersby.

Yours to have and hold just pay cash, or swipe a card,

press the touch pad to select and receive.

Cans and bottles full of beer, sake, juice, 

iced milk coffee or green tea.

Walls and streets of machines that vend 

satisfaction to satisfy any need.

Solar powered health aids, sex aids, 

comic books, street maps, food parcels.

All prettily wrapped in delicate paper 

and sealed attractive, yet accessible to all.

Disposable convenience sold to friends and strangers.

One day I found a camera vending machine,

and picked up a disposable camera.
I clicked and flash-capturing 

the spirits of people 

weaving between the worlds ...
Spirits by water fountains 

looking blurred like bends of water,
Spirits ascending upward to sky as the Earth pitched.
Spirits simultaneously descending downward 

onto the ground spinning 

out of control during the Earth's roll.

I rejected occasional drunk men passing by,

approaching me for quick sex in dark corners.

These strangers strangely whispered 

sweet nothings into my ear.
Pushing and promising speedy exchanges.
Fast, cheap interaction, no sitting or kissing required.
Heated breath, warm rice wine exhales,
cigarette smells, greedy hands bargaining.

They all took rejection badly.

My refusals of their unkind offers.
Their urgent desire for intimacy needed no eye contact.

I always found the safest and quietest route back home.

I walk quickly avoiding alleyways, 

I evade unexpected encounters.

I learn to ignore anything, 

but not everything, 

while I look for signs of loving life.
There are signs in the city 

that communicate the best way forward.
How to push through the unwanted events, 

neutralize the noise, not bother with the fuss or confusion.

I glide past the neon stares, glares, 

dance around the competitive nudges of strangers.

It seems everyone is seeking refuge 

from unwanted life experience.
Yet, we are all on the same trail 

to detect the secrets within the book of life.

There is ancient knowledge 

contained inside our body of archives.
How the human mind and universal heart 

translate the language of society.
How the heart of every society 

decodes the wisdom of ages,

all that is bookmarked historically inside humans.

Everywhere within the rare events of life are reminders.
Memories shaken from sleep.
The signs in life that were in shadow 

begin to become illuminated.
All the passageways slowly clear,
and within the human heart a

ll that was lost is once again found.

Collective tragedy 

quenches the thirst of sorrow,
and fills all the vacancies 

forgetfulness brings for lust of life.
In moments of grief the human heart awakens,
and the mental organ's become suddenly love-filled.
Desire rekindles to release all the now 

unimportant troubles of the past,
all that before plagued 

and weighted life down 

within each human's heart.
All that and more, releases,

as the earth quakes change, 

shakes it's Self free of what is pent up.
We are reminded of previous historical destruction.
Everyone momentarily looses their cool,

shares their mass need to forgive

and forget past wrongs doings.
We all are one, 

united in the surreal turmoil 

of safety and survival.

We all bleed,

and the act of bleeding 

generates the same simple sound.

Amongst the life signs 

and coronary streets trafficking confusion,
are glimpses of the occasional human 

camped out in a dark corner.
Disguised as an electrocardiogram 

witnessing and reading the beats,
counting each heart rhythm 

as a footstep drumming, 

a fingerprint strumming, 

an instep tapping 

and lapping at life's distant shores.

I watch a monk bent over tending to his garden.
Concerned for the trees and worms, beetles and snails,
he gently cuddles them, all the children of this nation.
He softly encourages one and all,
to find refuge within the heated earth, 

our earthly home, now quickly cooling.

I walk past flower stands still blooming,
and pretty red-bean stuffed green mochi.

The night air is the business of the walled street.

Colors embody the same qualities 

in the darkest shadow, as well as the fullest light.
One and the same aspect of Soul,
the colours we perceive and experience.

Color as separate events, dry, wet, rain, snow,
all independent colours within the same body of life.

What we judge as dark is also light.
What we discern as light is also dark.
All shades of life with no simple duality of extreme.

This or that, one or the other,

each colour is composed of all colours.
One color, one event, one experience, 

one sense of Self, one Soul ...
perhaps what we are experiencing 

is the individualization of our Soul,
as it separates from life 

to distinguish it's Self at source.

I walk past Korean workers,

as they hastily prepare Japanese take-out food.

I watch Japanese workers make American fast food.

I witness Arabs vend Italian leather, 

as Africans trade Chinese pearls.

I hear Russian women sell their wares, 

as Thai women ply their trade.

I squeeze into streets full 

of half broken red and blue neon streaks.

I see uplifting signs reflect down onto wet ground.

Unearthly signs of change reflect up onto pedestrian faces.

Proletarian rain blurs obscure 

the color palette of urban technology.

Everything is melting,
the organic outline of nonlinear golden light,

butters sweet the non-organic lines of luminescent light.

I trip over cylinders, tumblers, wormholes, 

twisted vortexes left behind by time travelers 

making quick getaways from the present and the past.
The streets feels like they are paved 

with a vague sense of the future.

A futuristic accompanied by all 

signs of life made visible by trembling change.
Fear that reveals the unknown.

I read recently in a book 

that American General George Stilwell once said,
“All living generations 

are responsible for what we do, 

and all dead ones as well.”

There must be more signs of life in life.
Signs that evolve us 

through unexpected events 

that transform all we know.
Signs that veer us away from our everyday routine.
If only in that one moment 

which fatefully changes our direction,
we are altered in our journey's course,
we are slowed down into absolute stillness,
our rhythm quiets until our pulse is heard,
and united as one with our heart's beat.
Unification stills us, until,
we can see the light coursing through our veins,

the I, me, we, igniting inspiration 

into e.motion, so we explode 

with the ability to feel.

Exhaling after implosion we sign in collective relief,

"I am, wisdom."

"I am wise"

"I am embedded into my depth,

until,

the deep seeds within me, awake."

"I am amused, I am a muse."

Everyone infuses amusement into life's signs,
within the everyday trickery of society's pathways.

Courage and strength are found 

in the undoing of the familiar,
the unraveling of the common threads 

becomes our sword and our shield.
Change protects us and shatters 

our dream-chasing of the non-essential.
Trauma shared, unites us all 

with the illusion of fragile mortality.
Sudden change marries us 

to the deeper meaning of our eternal existence.

We witness liberating signs of life 

within society's walled and caged moments,
and then perhaps in one instant, 

one precious moment -
for it only takes one moment 

to alter us forever.

We are all, altered, together forever.

In one moment I am altered forever.
My knowledge surfaces 

that I am enough as I am.
Standing alone on the edge 

of the unknown within myself,
my truth glows brighter than my lies.

I am showered with validation and Self-love.
I am awakened from death to rebirth my imagination.
I begin again to imagine my Self a new story.
I dream my Self a new dream.

Larger than my life, 

brighter than any and all stars in all galaxies,
a remembrance sparks of my own eternity.
Greater than a flash of heat and fire,
my forever forged into my mind, 

I am sculpted permanently into my heart.
My unique fingerprint is carved to perfection.

I do not remember if it is fate, destiny, free will,

or mere chance that creates change.

I do remember 

in my moments of life or death 

every situation where I chose life.

I do recall that I reminded my Self

of how special and precious my existence is.
I am glad that I can put one foot in front of the other. 
I can dance my Self anew into each day.
I am grateful that I have the courage 

to renew my strength.
I am blessed with imagination 

to imagine signs of life 

amidst all the debris of change.

~ Other People's Fingerprints ~
Sometime after 1857 Ferdinand de Saussure said;

“We can therefore imagine a science

that would study the life of signs within society…

it would teach us what signs consist of,

what laws govern them.”

"Urban Blur" 

by Karin Lisa Atkinson