Seven Samurai
These ‘golems’ of Kurosawa’s seven samurai were collaged from the content of seven books: Seven Samurai by Joan Mellen (BFI Publishing, 2002), Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, trans. Jay Rubin (Penguin, 2006), Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (Penguin, 1965), Harpo Speaks! by Harpo Marx with Rowland Barber (Virgin, 2002), The Annotated Thursday by G.K.Chesterton, annotated by Martin Gardner (Ignatius, 1999), The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse, trans. Geoffrey Brownas and Anthony Thwaite (Penguin Classics, 2009) and Kabuki Heroes on the Osaka Stage 1780-1830 by C.Andrew Gerstle (The British Museum Press, 2005)
Kambei
Under the hazy, blossom-laden sky,
Kambei rubs his head with a sort of blind wonder.
The quiet of the lake, too tired to laugh;
the outline of a white fox;
the oldest game there is.
Eyes on the spring hills at the end of the street,
Kambei rubs his head once more.
Kyūzō
Kyūzō, buried to the waist in flowers,
mirrored in the autumn lake
by Asuka’s Thundergate,
two strands of hair loose on his face.
Rags and ribbons flutter in the wind.
The moon shines over the hill field,
practically reduced to ashes.
Heihachi
Looking through the sawdust
he drops his pipe and tobacco case
in sudden amazement,
pulls a straw rain cape about his head.
A cunning lattice of very light steel:
the running stream where Heihachi will meet
imagined voices in the water sounds.
Shichirōji
All at once the smell of sulphur,
the stink of corpses through dust storms
like the bulbs of iron plants.
Shichirōji’s keen senses will ensure his survival.
He struggles out of the pond with
the stump of a snapped harpoon,
the tholepin of an oarlock.
Gorōbei
In the first sunlight: three children
who circle their terrible father,
the moon in his arms a modest lamp.
The saddest thing of all
is the scarecrow, a lonely bird,
snow blowing in through broken windows.
Oh Gorōbei, Gorōbei, Gorōbei, Gorōbei.
Katsushirō
After Shino and Katsushirō make love,
war clouds no longer hover in broken snatches.
The soft folds of her lavender sleeve
are damped down at daybreak.
Blameless as the flowers of spring,
they give way to a final tilt,
sending sharp sparks into the air.
Kikuchiyo
Wet with dawn’s dew, a lean black dog
falls in love with a high-ranked courtesan.
Kikuchiyo pretends disinterest.
Apron dangling from his thin neck,
he infiltrates the evil Iruka’s palace
in a cloud of flour and fury,
ready now to take charge of volcanoes, the tides.
Under the hazy, blossom-laden sky,
Kambei rubs his head with a sort of blind wonder.
The quiet of the lake, too tired to laugh;
the outline of a white fox;
the oldest game there is.
Eyes on the spring hills at the end of the street,
Kambei rubs his head once more.
Kyūzō
Kyūzō, buried to the waist in flowers,
mirrored in the autumn lake
by Asuka’s Thundergate,
two strands of hair loose on his face.
Rags and ribbons flutter in the wind.
The moon shines over the hill field,
practically reduced to ashes.
Heihachi
Looking through the sawdust
he drops his pipe and tobacco case
in sudden amazement,
pulls a straw rain cape about his head.
A cunning lattice of very light steel:
the running stream where Heihachi will meet
imagined voices in the water sounds.
Shichirōji
All at once the smell of sulphur,
the stink of corpses through dust storms
like the bulbs of iron plants.
Shichirōji’s keen senses will ensure his survival.
He struggles out of the pond with
the stump of a snapped harpoon,
the tholepin of an oarlock.
Gorōbei
In the first sunlight: three children
who circle their terrible father,
the moon in his arms a modest lamp.
The saddest thing of all
is the scarecrow, a lonely bird,
snow blowing in through broken windows.
Oh Gorōbei, Gorōbei, Gorōbei, Gorōbei.
Katsushirō
After Shino and Katsushirō make love,
war clouds no longer hover in broken snatches.
The soft folds of her lavender sleeve
are damped down at daybreak.
Blameless as the flowers of spring,
they give way to a final tilt,
sending sharp sparks into the air.
Kikuchiyo
Wet with dawn’s dew, a lean black dog
falls in love with a high-ranked courtesan.
Kikuchiyo pretends disinterest.
Apron dangling from his thin neck,
he infiltrates the evil Iruka’s palace
in a cloud of flour and fury,
ready now to take charge of volcanoes, the tides.
