Shi William Delacroix 1. Listen very carefully because I will only explain this once. The sword I will use to cut open my stomach has just been sharpened. I have wrapped a cloth around most of the blade so that I have something to grip when I kill myself with it. My collection of poems has been rejected again. The publishing house said it was the worst poetry they have ever read that it made their stomachs churn gave them nightmares and they immediately trashed it. The world of poetry right now is in very poor condition. There are people who are breaking the mould but no one is rebuilding it. Almost no one reads poetry anymore. Why? Because it's boring. I want to see something that I've never read before. I know the beauty of nature the pains of love the joy of life. I've read those poems. There are plenty of them. We need someone to say something new in a way that gets people's attention and refuses to be ignored. 2. That's why I'm committing suicide and writing my last words in the form of a poem. I want to change the poetry industry. I want to make an impact. I kneel down on the floor and lay my sword before me. I remove my clothes and burn them in the fireplace. My wife a novelist will understand why I'm doing this. She sleeps deeply but I will try not to make noise. Holding the sword by the cloth handle I place the butt against the floor so that the blade points upward. Since I am right-handed I will start with the right side of my stomach and cut to the left. 3. I lift my body above the blade and hold the tip against my stomach. The steel is cold the pain is sharp. Without closing my eyes I thrust inward. As the sword penetrates my body three things happen at once: a tidal wave of blood gushes forth I wish I had used a tape recorder I ejaculate explosively. I push down with my body driving the blade deeper. As I slice along my stomach I can feel my viscera tear apart. But I must not make a sound. 4. There is blood everywhere. My hands and arms are painted crimson making it difficult to hold the sword but I cut deeper deeper. The flesh of my stomach grins and my intestines erupt. The scent of raw meat fills the room. I fall to the floor in the growing sea of my own blood. I keep cutting. A groan escapes my throat. My wife stands in the doorway. She knows what I have done. It's called hara-kiri: stomach-cutting. She kneels down in my ocean. The flesh of her palm on my face is so warm. I tell her I love her and that I'm sorry. She burns the other poems and with the sword cuts off my head. It doesn't work. The blade digs in to the bone of my neck. She tries again and misses her mark splitting my jaw. The blade is stuck in my face. I just want to die. She pries out the sword and drags me to the fireplace trailing my intestines across the carpet. You wouldn't believe the blood. She rolls my body into the fire but I can see what she's doing. She's writing a haiku in my blood: Don't try this at home. Go somewhere with no carpet. Nothing gets blood out. Author's note: Depending on the ideogram used, the word shi has well over a hundred meanings, including the number four, "poem," and "death." Romanization or implementation of katakana, the angular syllabery unique to the Japanese language, renders the title's meaning ambiguous, and several translations become possible. Isn't Japanese great?