Sea of Trees crests at Mt Fuji's feet.
Thick forest of Japanese cypress, red pines
grow neck and neck with alder. Where when
trees fall, they don't: they cant. Rope-like
roots, stymied by volcanic rock, twist and turn,
tortured by ancient lava impeding their desire
to push deep within.

Some voices echo that the trees themselves,
fueled by juices full of malevolent energy
sap the resolve of ones who venture there.
Gnarled branches twisted, tortured
under deceiving feathery moss, rise
above intertwined cypress knees as if
the forest had gone for a stroll and then knelt
when a soul ventured near.

Jukai, of the breathtaking views
where hanging hemp ropes take breath forever away.
Living greens so dense, sounds are swallowed whole:
No one hears the screams in Aokigahara
and there is no one to see until
bleached bones lie in stark relief;
Death thrives next to the rotting.
Sunlight muted beneath canopy
where chilling beauty lies
in perpetual twilight
and the only movements are swinging ropes
where no breeze passes.

Here come the ones who have reached
the end
of their rope or choices: Hanging is
the death of choice in Aokigahara.
Yurei, Japanese spirits who yet cling
to Earthly realm flit between the trees--
white, shifting forms caught only in the
corner of your eye. Leading, perchance,
across cenotes or hollow tubes,
where hidden caves make up your mind
when you travel down the wrong path.

Colorful ribbons, blue, white, red
stream through the forest; strings,
tapes trail behind those who walk
in case they change their minds for
no compass works near volcanic iron.
I am reminded of gaily wrapped presents
but here, what is unwrapped is death--
here, there is only the past where
Theseus unwinds his ball of thread
in the labyrinth of the Minotaur,
in the labyrinth of Aokigahara.
Scavenger hunts lead only
to those scavenged by the forest gleaners.

Death lies in the mists,
in the midst of the living.
An Apollo butterfly
rests on a sign pleading for life--
Apollo, god of light, of plagues, of music
seems to have no place here
but for the plague of suicide
which runs rampant.

Repugnant skulls with hollow eyes
can no longer see their reflections
in the rounds of polished glass
that mirror anguished souls
at the train station in hope
that they will see that they are not
invisible and stay among the seen.
The station is last stop
before they walk the forest path.

Aokigahara, Sea of Trees
looks up to the sun glinting off Mount Fujiyama
but beneath the canopy
are only the fallen.

Her snowcap dress disappears,
as forest on compass interferes.
She can not be azimuth for escape,
why some left trail of yellow tape.
bowing usher points on with blighted limb,
retching out its own hemlock gin.
path in is beaten, with log and stone,
crevices drown a webbed saliva moan.
path out is unbeaten and hard to find,
from death's brambles on the mind.

All trees seem to want to die,
no effort to brush off strangling vine.
where you think they have broke loose,
swaying ropes that once had noose.

And where there is light, is mossy glen,
just enough, for one last note to pen.
dolls, cloths, skulls make up forest litter,
shoes, bottles, and smiling family picture.

With the only surviving sounds so faint and sickly,
Scraping nylon tent--a starving man on day sixty.
The songbirds break the silence,
A cruel happy tune,
They see dark doom in ultraviolet,
the panicked slit wrists and  poison diet,
create failed trails ,
that don't escape and help to hide it.


"The wood line, I made it out"--the cruelest thought,
Mount Fuji's white dress through the trees up top ,
They see themselves smiling,
It is, and it is not,
a happy photo,
identifying their skulls stained green by moss.

4
10:30
"Knock knock"
Still in my pyjamas.
We drank coffee and smoked cigarettes.
He went to a rap gig the night before.
Fifteen dollars wasted.

3
13:00
An old school friend.
More coffee.
We spoke of art, travel and vegetable gardens.
In Japan they don't eat or show affection in public she told me.
Aokigahara finally makes sense.

2
22:00
Lucky Coq.
Girls would ****** for his hair.
He told me of his grandfathers poetry recitals every Christmas.
Idiosyncrasies are the ventriloquists of my heart.

1
23:00
We smoked under vine-entwined lanterns.
He fell in love with a French girl once and lived with her in Versailles.
He was young and went back home.
Regret at the fork in the road.

0
23:30
Left to find a 24/7 bottle shop and go home.
Crossed paths with old friends.
"Come have a drink with us"
-1
-2
-3

The women in Pakistan are all dead
Men are hungry,
butter their bread with lead

Cartel gang ****, death in Venezuela
Girls bleed, crying
Shadowed figure screams "Impale her!"

America hates women
Women love America

Generalisations of a generally confused man

Man jumps from UK office block
Painted tarmac,
because she refused to simply **** his ****

******* figure hangs from a tree in Japan
Aokigahara hikikomori,
The human condition destroyed this man

Single father, taking his daughter to a park
Accused by a stranger,
Jumping to a conclusion, rather dark

Hooded man runs the world
Masked by power,
Money is bigger than Jesus
Knowledge destroys prejudice
Rock. Paper. Scissors.

I’m tangled within a sea of trees
and lost with no markings or guides,
I have once read about
history absorbing
the dense and porous lava,
once in this land
as it does me now
providing my sense of solitude

words mean everything to me
but in their essence, they are mistaken.
there is no loneliness in a suicide forest
because you're surrounded by corpses
                                        not unlike yours;
yet the very reason you have something in common with them
                         is because you felt alone.

"Blood keeps drinking away, certain of its destination. Driving through New Orleans at night. Gotta find a destination...just one fix." ~ Ministry

Sick
I gargle your blood one last time
I hear you tell stories of authors
you love so much
while inside my head digs tunnels
to China

At first unwrapping,
(a child with no eyelids)
the chunk of tar
always seems fist-sized - until it is gone

High
You are suddenly there,
a cool summer morning anxious to be far too hot,
wind blows through you as if it were
balloons
in rainbow hues.

Reloaded conception, sanity.

Sick*
Stupid -
doing your part by recycling cans,
wasting water cleaning each one out,
equation a zero-sum,
positive multiplied by a negative.

Aokigahara, a Sea of Trees,
redolence of a carrion flower attracts flies.
They land, bring up dissolution and
spread your legs
where they deposit the eggs.

Beachy Head, a white plume of efflorescent death.

the horse rummages on the track
and the victory is owned by the ****.
soon sleep will engulf my body
like the oblivious quietude of Aokigahara-jukai.
things and their semblance of utmost care.
light begins to burst
and there is little left to see,
wide-eyed, crunched by the efficacy of aches.
taking all to the very heart of hurt
as gamblers wager,
and coming back with the sound of completeness:
a man is a man in his chronology of defeat -
left torn by madness,
a cornered beast pressed against the woods.

the moon plays its lyre, white-washed,
sound wading in the very source of quiet,
hauled out of the Sun, its mother.
this hound stalks the world
with woebegone legs, a reflection of the entire world fractured
by a singular shot at the end.
i hear the guttural snarl of engine
unwavering in its limitations. say, at first light, all exists to paint darkness quicker
than any obfuscated conclusion -- hiding in
itself, its mood for squalors.
the mud dug deep for bones
pared from the slaughter of midnight,
hiding them to mask my defeat:
everything around me sparkles with
the vigor of frailty, all the same.

the nights are too long, scarce as froth
from an opened mouth left flat,
a dry gin bottle.
i imagine sad armies dissolving in pale moonlight, and crosses thumbed down to the snaking hiss of its nondescript prayer.
gears gnash like teeth in anger
of you in your young clothes, the pace of cars
hurrying back to homes.
i remember the splintered wood burning
the last in the round kiln of the Red Lion.
the upholstery of night is the twilight's
catharsis. the coast of dread widens like
the vernal metamorphosis of a young ******* in Gibraltar,
come in, come in with undecided ******.
you can hear the fall coalesce with the levitation of ember, landing like feet blunt
on the asphalt beside desolate bicycles
    in seedy parks.

the surreal tabulation of analogue repetitions:
death's myriad, in all corners screaming
the countenance rebel, against the floored masses.

this thespian ardor.
aokigahara-
jukai, suicide of morning trills.

you love her, don't you?   
because she's beautiful; 
she's exciting; 
she's empyreal.  
because she kisses like these are her final moments of life  
and she wants to spend them only with you. 
 
but be careful who you trust (the devil was once an angel, you know). 
she makes your heart flutter, but  
anyone'll tell you that really,  
arrhythmia isn't a good thing.  
 
she's a disguise, grief wrapped up like a gift. 
oh, darling, she's a pretty war. ****** in her veins.  
 
(but) 
 
let's go from the start. 
 
your bones don't fit  
you feel as though your throat is all sandpaperandnails 
you're alone. you've been ohsolonely.
 
then you meet her and she's all chocolateandcinnamon and     
    perfectly 
                aligned. 
 
you look into her eyes. you see a nebula.  
an interstellar cloud but made up of something you should know but don't.  
she's  dumbfounding; 
it's refreshing.  
you like mysteries.  
 
she’s  everything  you’ve  ever wanted (probably) and she pulls you out of that hole. 
that one with the festering thoughts  
and the dark spaces where you could go for days at a time. 
your heart was heavy, a sky full of rain.  
but she was a tempest. your saving grace. 
 
this is a story about love, but it's not a love story.  
not really. 
this is a story about the human condition, 
about how, though the heart isn’t the *****  
that makes us feel, 
it still hurts the most. 
and more importantly, this is an open letter 
to the skies, 
to whichever deity decided that you couldn’t 
be with her forever. 
 
you're a house with empty rooms and 
there's a storm teasing the windows; 
an aggressive ballet. 
looking back, 
you suppose you should have noticed the leak 
before it got the chance to flood 
 
and you remember the look in her eyes when you said  
"even though I did geography at school, it didn't teach me  
the difference between an earthquake 
and you" 
and she said she didn't understand  
and you said * that's the point, neither do I.*

for to love someone 
is to give them your heart on a platter 
and hand over the cutlery, too. 
but you remember just thinking oh,  
if she makes you giddy like this then  
what could be wrong? 
 
you know that "gravitation is not responsible 
for people falling in love" 
but the force with which you feel the desire 
to present your heart like a gift, to 
open yourself to the possibility of hurt and break 
must be greater than yourself 
 
and you never knew why they called it  
"heartbreak" until the day she left 
and you realised after, that the difference  
between you and humpty dumpty 
is that his friends thought he was worth trying to  
put back together again. 
 
the thing is that 
empty rooms echo, and now 
so do you. 
 
and after that, 
after the fallout 
and the body count of all your past selves 
they'll say to you: 
you're young 
it's not the end of the world.
but 
when someone makes flowers grow in your lungs  
and then makes you choke on them 
it feels like it is. 
 
you know what? 
you notice empty spaces more 
once your chest becomes one. 
 
a house of cards 
imagine matchsticks; 
burning love but 
singeing your fingers, 
and she never asked why you flinched 
 
her palms, eden. 
her kiss of death, 
her purgatory embrace. 
she, aokigahara, suicide forest. 
you were born to die in her arms. 
 
and if you ever wondered
why they name tornadoes after girls, 
you don't now. 
 
you, lacklustre lazarus­. 
you know you're no phoenix; 
the ashes consume. 
 
so here you are. 
and ode to you, 
because words shouldn't be like bullets, 
staccato, and 
vowels shouldn’t have sharp edges- 
but they do. 
 
you see, 
poetry is the place love goes when it dies, 
the place where heartbreak is framed with metaphors 
and mounted on the wall as art. 
a library of all the things left unsaid. 
 
the psychiatrist takes lots of notes. 
about how you thought she was your   
deus ex machina, 
about how you remembered too late that this is real life  
and really, all of this is just a periphrasis. 
 
you think 
sticks and stones, sticks and stones 
but the truth is that words 
are like bullets, 
and her tongue the gun; 
her “goodbye” ricocheting against her teeth. 
 
now, today, it’s you with the weapon;  
taking control the way god never did. 
cold metal and clammy hands. 
cleaning up the mess left behind 
by a tornado named her. 
 
b a n g.

I can't even focus on the keys in front of me
Figuratively
Literally
I am suffocating.
I hate the feeling of having no chains
Because eventually, even that becomes one.
I know we're supposed to say we're never alone.
...But where are they now?
I know I have to be a rock
But I am made of softer things.
And every time I am dropped...
I break.
It's just gravity, but I feel a little smaller than before
My brain tells me I am infinite.
My heart argues this.
And I can't get into it.
You would never find me
Aokigahara

bleed from finger tips
pressed into plastic keys
repeat routine regularly
until wrunged and wrinkled
some of us are just built wrong
you hear yourself say out loud
dream of escape to Aokigahara
where the trees whisper your name
and even darkness is palpable
you can taste it on your lips
the hemlock firs surrounding
dirt and parsnips on your tongue
your skin itches and you are
wildly uncomfortable in the vessel
sleep now, the forest demands

It's the time I wake the hell up,
to become me, once again,
Look like am ******* myself,
I don't care if your offended,
These are the words that left me,
These are the words that came first,

Go ahead and scream that I don't care,
about your ******* feelings,
When am dead on the inside,
Cutting and slicing just to feel,
Send me the seas of trees,
My resting place, is Aokigahara,

Oh Aokigahara, If I decide to,
Your the place, I want to be,
Ending my life, Trapping my soul,
Trapped in the torturous Place,
Cause right now, All I see,
When I look around,
Is a world full of silencing,
And, Hating truths.

You cannot say that, you cannot type that,
Educate yourself, Forgetting that I been to University,
Might have delve in to Wikipedia and new stories,
Conspiracies and YouTube Documentaries,
To keep the whole world ****** happily,
We make mental health, Suicide, Everything,
An Legal topic to talk and speak about,
If you speak about it,

We scream the social media to do fact checks,
Even if you speak about your own feelings,
If we decided that it offensive or a lie,
you are in a fire line, fact checking,
Your mind is dark for me,
Check into an asylum, Get help,
Don't commit suicide,

Forest Of Death
(This poem is based on truth)

     As the Sun rises to kiss the day
The darkness promises to stay
The people live a life mundane
Nothing inside to strengthen or sustain

A London fog forever lingers
In the hearts the chard’s of flinders
Their souls damaged and minds anguished
For so many lives have vanished

In every language the words are burning
And they repeat the same warning
The forest has a power of constraining
Known to be literally life draining

It’s worse than that of cyanide
It whispers to the ear and convinces suicide
Yet many for reasons unknown why
Disregard the signs and walk right on by

The mystery of the forest remains concealed
Theories vary, some say it’s a magnetic field
Some  say it’s the Devil and his evil way
Just another game he loves to play

They come from all around to see its wonder
As if it’s a spell that they’re under
Knowing they could take their last breath
If they enter the forest of death

Written By:Charles Kean
Copyright 12/15/2020
All rights reserved
Note:—This is a real Forest
Located in Japan—Suicide forest
Aokigahara. —fascinating strange and true
Research—Japans Suicide forest

Shinigami

           When there’s a fire, there’s
Always smoke that billows
When you feel a presence of evil, there’s
Always a Demon hiding in the shadows

When you feel Claustrophobic, you
Always seem to lose your breath
When you feel yourself panic, you
Always feel like you’re closer to death

When someone has Nyctophobia, it’s
Known as a fear of the dark
When someone has a deal with the Devil, it’s
Known as a contract with Hells Monarch

When you hear stories of deaths forest, you
Know one is speaking about the Aokigahara
When you hear stories of sudden death, you
Know one is speaking about the Mara

When Japanese warn of Aokigahara, they
Are warning of the forest dark deity
When Japanese warn of deaths Reaper, they
Are warning of the Demon Shinigami

Written By:Charles Kean
04/28/2024