Water in Venice – A Travelogue

Memories of World Haiku Festival 2004 —
La Fenice in Venice
Water in Venice – A Travelogue

by Susumu Takiguchi

THE WORLD HAIKU CLUB


EPISODE 1

On the day I flew from London to Venice in late August 2004, the wind over Veneto region was such that my plane went into the final landing position from the south of Aeroporto Marco Polo Venezia. This gave me an incredibly good view of the Venetian Lagoon. Starting from Laguna Morta (Dead Lagoon), Laguna Viva (Living Lagoon), I saw the long stretch of thin islands and peninsulas in some distance which lock the Lagoon in on itself, from Chioggia, through Pellestrina, Lido to Cavallino, and then Venice itself with the rather ugly-looking Ponte della Liberta connecting the City with the mainland by railway and road, and many islands and islets, 117 or 118 of them to be exact, including San Michele, Murano, Burano and Torcello. The lagoon, dead or living, was the most fascinating as it presented such a strange spectacle of inhospitable and uninhabitable shapes and forms which were neither land nor sea that I could not help imagining that it must have been like this around the year 337, the first recorded date of the early settlement of the lagoon.

kuga naruka hata umi naruka kata no aki

are they lands
or the sea? autumn in
the lagoon

When the plane was flying nearest to Venice, I amused myself with counting how many places or landmarks I could identify from the air. Over London, I had once counted as many as 100 or so places. The San Marco Campanile and the Basilica Santa Maria Della Salute were easy enough to spot, so was of course Santa Lucia railway station. However, from the direction and at the angle the aircraft was flying, the Grand Canal was hidden behind all these palaces, churches and towers. I just wanted to identify the Accademia Bridge or at least the Rialto Bridge close to which I was to stay the next 19 days. However, while I was trying to trace them the City went out of sight from my small oval window.

ten takaku ori-yuku hiki no hayasa kana

from on high
the speed of my plane!
seconds from landing

Not long after, I found myself in exactly the same situation as I was in when I first visited this City of Water, or La Serenissima, over 30 years ago. Just like now, it must have been about four o’clock in the sunny summer afternoon. I drove my old-banger VW beetle all the way from Oxford where I was a graduate student, parked it in Piazzale Roma, got on a vaporetto (water bus) line 1, travelled two and a half miles through Canal Grande, or Canalazzo as the Venetians call it, and like this time, went into euphoria, enjoying every Palazzo, bend, bridge, roof, chimney and campo (square) before reaching Piazza San Marco.

magari-yuku unga no hate ya natsu no umi

meandering
Canal Grande’s end
the summer sea

Thirty odd years on, basking in the same sort of hot and glorious sun, I was once again immediately transported to a different world: the world of heightened consciousness, sharpened sensibility, enriched imagination and increased creativity. Only this time, the season was autumn according to the haiku calendar. I was drunk without a single drop of alcohol, drunk with the beauty of the City where I had paid a visit half a dozen times since my first. Venice was pink and golden, looking as if on fire. Venice looked burning in its own beauty, bathed in the full, rich and bright afternoon sun.

aki-biyori yado karu mae ni e-gokoro ni

autumn sun
already in the mood to paint
before reaching my hotel

Venice was the centre, the legend goes, of the world, having a direct link with heaven. What a rise in status this was, compared with its low origin of displaced refugees settling in this god-forsaken place! Geopolitical accident, situated in a key position between East and West, and historical circumstances served to create this man-made miracle. Among many causes, the physical separation (until 1846 when the railway was opened on the causeway) must be one of the major ones which made this City not like any other. Today the whole of Venice is a living museum.

aki no umi watare-ba ima ya mukau-no-chi

autumn sea
crossing, I find myself
in a Utopia

EPISODE 2

Some ten hours after I left my home in Oxford, I was now sitting once again at Caffé Florian in Piazza San Marco, sipping my favourite beer after gulping down the first bottle. This grand café, though such a clichés, has remained my “rest room”, club, meeting place or even my bolt-hole in Venice. After abandoning all other somewhat vulgar places such as Harry’s Bar or the bar in Gritti Palace Hotel, Florian was the one I failed to jettison. This is not because of the ghosts of Goethe, Proust, Hemingway or Dickens but simply because I love it. As I took a corner table farthest from the arcade of Procuratie Nuove, I was sitting effectively at the centre of this famous square. This spot must have been just about where a canal called Rio Batario ran north to south right across the present square dividing the area into two until it was filled in about 900 years ago. The late afternoon sun was beating my back while I sat looking at the refulgent opulence and splendour of the Basilica, the Campanile and all other monuments the entirety of which was like the most dazzling of all Monet’s paintings.

natsu-kusa no hae-sokonai-shi oh-hiroba

the great square...
summer grasses have
failed to grow

My intoxication caused both by the expensive beer and by the sublimity of Piazza San Marco was promptly turned into dark and unexpected sobriety when at long last I arrived at my hotel having followed the setting sun. I chose it on the Internet only because of its proximity to La Fenice, the hapless opera house which has perished in fire three times and then resurrected literally from the ashes three times. Its last fire was in 1996 and after the long and careful reconstruction work it was reopened in 2004, waiting its first opera performance in November.

Hagure-bato hoh-oh to miyo aki no kure

autumn dusk –
look upon a stray pigeon
as the Phoenix

Having just seen the huge bulk of Teatro La Fenice, Chiesa San Fantin and Ateneo Veneto, my hotel looked a tiny military barrack. Its small size, however, was not the issue as I had deliberately chose it as fitting for an itinerant artist and poet, in preference to big hotels. There was no lift. Up the rather steep and dark stairs, I followed a surly young man whose inadequate English made him sound perhaps more abrupt than he might really be. He carried my large suitcase and I a hand luggage weighing twice as much with my painting kit and heavy books. The corridor was narrow and uneven and was as dark as a cave even after he awkwardly switched the light on. The rooms I passed looked somehow higgledy-piggledy and too close to each other with somewhat smaller doors than usual. The whole scenery was not for someone elated by the expectation of liking the little temporary base in Venice but for someone who might as well be incarcerated in a make-shift prison in war-torn parts of the world. What my room was like I will spare the reader the pain of knowing. It was a rip-off. My dream come true was cruelly turned into a nightmare. I heard a rustle and squeak.

nezumi ra to yadoru benisu no yonaga kana

long night in Venice
sharing a hotel with
sewer rats

To console my deflated heart, I decided to treat myself to good Venetian cuisine at one of the most celebrated restaurants in the city, which was located just round the corner. Munching in anger through an assortment of prosciutto, mortadella and some kind of meat I cannot remember, I was trying to calm myself down by saying almost audibly to other guests, “I would be out painting and writing poems all day long and the greater part of night. The hotel is just for sleeping. So, it shouldn’t matter”. Despite my reasoning with myself my anger and disappointment were getting out of control as I devoured the Primi of some delicious fungi and gulping Prosecco like water. I had broken my solemn vow of frugality in Venice on Day One already, after having exceeded my daily ration on the Florian beer. However, when my empty stomach began to feel better I realised that the Secondi dish of il branzino (sea bass) I was eating was of exceptional quality. I was also now downing half a bottle of excellent Veneto red wine. Alcohol and the good food were beginning to take me back to the initial euphoria. This was, I told myself, nothing other than a journey of painting and poetry. My mind was made up. I would change the hotel. With that decision of great magnitude conclusively reached, I was catapulted onto an even higher plane of stratosphere than I had been earlier in the day. I found myself till after midnight frantically drawing the moonlight landscapes of Santa Maria della Salute, Canal Grande and Bacino di San Marco beyond from Ponte dell’Accademia. It was warm. It was beautiful.

en-getsu wo utsushite hiroshi dai-unga

Canal Grande
spreads wide, reflecting
the full moon

EPISODE 3

“This is the fifth painting I did yesterday.” I was showing my paintings and drawings to the first Festival participant to arrive in Venice, having travelled all the way from Japan. For Mr. Shuichi Sakane this was the second time to attend the major bi-annual meeting of the World Haiku Club. Under the now familiar title of World Haiku Festival with relevant year and a subtitle attached, the meeting has been going very strongly since its inception in 2000. Thus, this year’s title was World Haiku Festival 2004 – La Fenice in Venice. Both Mr. Sakane and I were beginning to see that it was indeed possible to write haiku poems in and about Venice which, with all its grandiose ostentations, seemed at first sight to be the antithesis to the spirit of haiku.

a mosquito bites,
getting his share of
Venetian wine (Shuichi Sakane)

another alley
another quarter...
Venice (Shuichi Sakane)

Mr. Sakane is a high-powered computer systems engineer based in Tokyo. There are many good haijin in Japan among scientists and medical doctors, Terada Torahiko (1878-1935) among them. One of the discussions we had as part of WHF2004 was how to express in haiku what we want to say without using adjectives, abstract concepts, clichés, hackneyed phrases or ‘in so many words’. ‘Labyrinth’, for instance, is a clichés to describe Venice. Hence, his second poem to overcome this problem. When on a journey, anybody would enjoy a spot of wine, or large quantity of it for that matter. So, just to say one is enjoying wine is not good enough. Bringing in a mosquito, Mr. Sakane introduces a totally new way of saying the same thing, as in his first poem. Arriving two days before him, I was showing Mr. Sakane around as if I knew every nook and cranny of Venice, including the five spots where I did my paintings and drawing the previous day. This walk was part of the ginko designed for WHF2004. Thus he was led to back canals, obscure ramo (side street, often a dead end), sottoportego (small alleyway under a building) or hidden corte (courtyard) where tourists would never know. Even in such secret places, songs sung by fine tenors were heard from gondolas gliding the canals throughout the city:

the full moon
turns into splash lights
Santa Lucia (Shuichi Sakane)

aki no hi ya chiri to unga wo nagare-keri

on the back canal
autumn sun floating with
the rubbish

Mr. Sakane and I took the No. 1 vaporetto from Accademia down to San Toma, enjoying the magnificent facades of Palazzo Giustinian-Lolin, Palazzo Loredan, Palazzo Grassi and Palazzo Mocenigo (Lord Byron lived here and wrote Don Juan) among other buildings on the way. This journey took us to the very narrow Calle Saoneri near Chiesa San Polo, where there was a renowned fish restaurant. Having finished our ginko, we were to have a free discussion session of WHF2004 over an evening meal.

bairon no jouji mo ari-shi aki no umi

witnessed
Byron’s love affairs, too
the autumn sea

Gobbling fine fish dish and downing Veneto Cabernet in the courtyard under vine and wisteria pergola, Mr. Sakane and I covered various topics, including how to deal with irregular and irresponsible conducts in the world haiku community. WHF2004 itself had fallen victim to such a conduct. It was once killed but thanks to the ingenuity of some dedicated poets, especially that of Moussia Fantoli, this important Festival was resurrected overnight from the ashes like the Phoenix and moved to Venice, the seat of La Fenice. To make it easier for any participant to arrive at the date of their convenience the duration of WHF2004 was made into a significantly extended period from 28 August to 15 September, with 12 September as the Phoenix Day, the highlight of the Festival. The theme was chosen as “What the Phoenix legend is telling us”. As the original programme would have started on 29 August, there was absolutely no time at all for any preparations. So, we just announced it and just started it, hoping that some people would come and that it would make a reasonable success. After the meal, Mr. Sakane and I walked back to Ponte dell’ Accademia and marvelled at the beauty of the full moon.

mangetsu ya atawazaru koto nakari-keri

nothing
under the full moon
is impossible

*

I climb up
a Renaissance bridge;
a cat coming down
yawns (Shuichi Sakane)


EPISODE 4

The following day, it was again hot and sunny. After walking around what felt to us like most of Sestiere San Marco, the time came for Mr. Sakane to depart. I escorted him to a spot beyond Teatro La Fenice in Campo San Fantin from where he could find his way on his own to San Marco Vallaresso vaporetto stop. He would then take a vaporetto to Stazione Maritima at San Basilio whence a hydrofoil boat would take him back to Rovinj in the Istra province of Croatia. Despite the very brief encounter, I hated the moment of his departure. Watching his back struggling with his heavy suitcase disappear into Calle delle Veste, I felt Japan herself disappearing from my sight. An incredible sense of forlornness assaulted me. At the height of the season, Venice was flooded not with the seawater but with tourists. Blocking the human traffic, I stood still, jostled by the human sea and sworn at in various languages. Mr. Sakane has infectious conviviality and unbelievable goodness of heart. My mind was numb and my heart void. I was all alone.

aki no hi mo todokanu ware no kodoku kana

not even
the autumn sun reaches
my loneliness

Before leaving England, I had prepared an action plan to be followed in all conceivable situations such as illness, going astray, plane crash or meeting a terrorist. According to that, in the unlikely event of experiencing loneliness, depression or melancholy there was only one action to be taken: paint, paint and paint. This should drive away such black mood in an instant. So, I hurried back to Ponte de la Malvasia Veghia from where to paint little canal landscapes of Rio della Verona. However, it would be too hot to paint on the bridge in the full sun. So, I set up my easel in the passageway underneath the adjacent building, which effectively formed a cool tunnel. In no time I was transported back to the world of Ruskin, Turner, Monet or Bellini, Carpaccio, Guardi or Canaletto.

shizumari-te efude no saki ya mizu sumeri

quiet now
in front of my paint brush
clear water

kazu are do kayumi usure-shi nagori-no-ka

despite many bites
no longer so itchy...
autumn mosquitoes

As an artist I have been a colourist. This is one of the reasons why I generally prefer Venetian style to other schools such as Florentine style, let alone northern European schools. However, it is not so simple as it may sound. For instance, I never cease to be amazed how colourful or how rich in colours when I do the suiboku-ga (black-ink paintings) or even Japanese calligraphy. What I was witnessing during those hours can best be described in the words of Goethe: “...The sunshine brought out the local colours with dazzling brilliancy, and the shades even were so luminous, that, comparatively, they in their turn might serve as lights.” (Italiensche Reise) I was remembering all these old masters in churches, Pallazi and museums in Venice which I had seen every time I visited the city. This time however, I made a stern resolution not to see even a single painting as the purpose of my visit here was solely to do my own paintings. Every drop of time must be devoted to it. I knew fully well that there was a good Turner exhibition at the Correr Museum, Tiepolo at Chiesa San Polo and Dali at Palazzo Grassi but I resisted the temptation to see any of them.

kuruishi ka meiga mo mizaru tabi no aki

have I gone mad,
not seeing any old masters?
autumn journey

EPISODE 5

I had long forgotten that Gustav von Aschenbach in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice went to the Istra province of Croatia (Pula, or Pola) before realising that it was the wrong place and quickly decided to move on to Venice. ‘What a coincidence!’, I told myself loudly as I put down the English version of the book on a marble step during my lunch break. My lunch usually consisted of a few slices of prosciutto, cold roast beef, and/or mortadella, huge green olives, bread, some cheeses, fresh vegetables, a peach or banana and a large bottle of beer, all of which I bought from my favourite delicatessen near Ponte Duodo O Barbarigo. This is the bridge on which I did a lot of paintings. As I was working from morning till night I knew I had to look after myself well. So I ate well and exercised well, always conscious of the shadow of death by which Aschenbach was haunted as strongly as he was obsessed with the beautiful Polish boy. I decided then and there to visit Rovinj one day, a dream place I had so much been looking forward to seeing.

Rovinj ichii-taisui no tohsa kana

Rovinj...
so near and yet
so far

Luchino Visconti certainly succeeded in translating Mann’s Novelle into the excellent photographic version in his celebrated film (1971) and Dirk Bogarde almost fixed the image of how Aschenbach should look like. The success, I speculated, was probably significantly due to the all too precise and all too detailed description of everything by the author. I did not like this short story when I first read it in Japanese translation some forty years ago. Reading it again, alas, not in the original but in English, I still could not bring myself to like it. However, this time I was not reading it as a work of literature. It was the Venice connection that made me put this paperback in my travelling satchel. And the important point about it was to see if I could comb anything from the book that would inspire me in my search as an artist. I was taking notes and writing some excerpts for my own contemplation, one of which goes: ‘...and henceforth our pursuit is of Beauty alone, of Beauty which is simplicity, which is grandeur and a new kind of rigour and a second naivety, of Beauty which is Form.’

saba-gumo ya bi wo miru kokoro shiranu-ge ni

mackerel sky.. .
nonchalant in the face
of Beauty

Is the aesthetics of Phaedrus still relevant to our 21st century? Aschenbach declares, ‘...we artists cannot tread the path of Beauty without Eros keeping company with us and appointing himself as our guide.’ Here Thomas Mann plays with fire. In this fire (i.e. creative chaos) well-constructed order would crumble before the urge for artistic creation. In other words, the dynamism of chaos is the necessary condition of art. Reading these lines of Death in Venice coincided with all those tremors and quakes which were happening within myself in the quest for new style in my art. The new style was stirring to be born. I was excited. All I needed to do, I prayed, was paint, paint and paint, and it would be born.

aki no ka ni kuware kawareru gakyo kana

bitten
by autumn mosquitoes, I see
the style of my paintings
change


EPISODE 6

Another important participant of World Haiku Festival 2004 La Fenice in Venice emerged on the scene in no time from the opposite side of the globe. Her tall and graceful figure was recognizable from a distance. She was accompanied by her affable husband and her ‘little sister’ who was another beauty and, it transpired, was a successful business lady. She was Peggy Willis Lyles from America, the first prize winner of WHF2000 London Oxford world haiku competition. Our meeting place was of course Caffé Florian in Piazza San Marco. As I had been avoiding any obvious tourist traps including this square, which were not the theme of my paintings, it was in fact quite a welcome change. I went to this ever-delightful rendezvous point straight from the nearby canal where I had been painting all day long. I must therefore looked somewhat like a mad artist, with the easel and stool bound together and hung from my shoulder, dragging the odd-looking painting kit, still wearing a large artist’s blue apron and a disheveled panama hat with the decoration of enormous amount of bird feathers.

kyuukatsu wo josuru kuyu no zansho kana

haiku friends
meeting after a long interval,
the lingering heat

While the magic atmosphere was turning slowly and imperceptibly from the late afternoon heat and glitter to the evening sereneness, we talked and talked not just about haiku, which was compulsory, but all sorts of things about Venice, ranging from Titian’s Assumption and other old masters of Santa Maria Gloriosa Dei Frari which they visited earlier in the day to the Church of La Pieta, commonly known as Vivaldi’s church, near where my friends were staying. By this time, I had amassed more than a dozen paintings of various spots of Venice. So, in one of the most ideal lights to see paintings, we had an impromptu sneak preview over a drink right in the middle of Piazza San Marco. As I was explaining the incredible variations of blue of the Venetian sky, Peggy’s ‘little sister’ drew our attention to the changing blue colours which were manifesting themselves in front of our very eyes as we moved them from the Basilica to the sky.

September 3rd
the sky beyond San Marco
becoming indigo (Peggy Lyles)

Venice is also a living music concert hall. Opera, though started in Florence in the 16th century, developed and prospered in Venice the following century, with the first public performance done in 1637 when Teatro di San Cassiano was opened. At its height in the 18th century there were as many as 19 opera houses as this musicodramatic form suited the social system of Venice led by a few nobilities and followed by the general public. Some churches in the city are now used as concert halls. One such, ex-church of San Vidal, was my favourite but only in the sense that every time I passed its entrance after dark on the way back from my painting at Ponte dell’ Accademia I stopped for a moment to listen to one divine piece of music or another pouring out from the unclosed doorway. Another performance which sent me into raptures was when one day I turned a corner in Dorsoduro and listened to Scarlatti coming from an open window of an invisible private house all along an alley until I turned another corner. As was already mentioned, the ubiquitous songs sung by tenors on gondolas were heard more or less all the time. In campi (squares) and riva (quayside promenade) guitarists, flautists and violinists played Monteverdi, Stravinsky and theme music from famous films. However, the one I became obsessed with, just like Aschenbach did with Tadzio (the Polish boy), was a young soprano who seemed to me to be deliberately choosing the street or square which I was bound to pass when going back to my hotel at dusk from my painting.

mushi no ne wa nakeredo bisei kiku yo kana

no cricket
but this exquisite voice
for tonight


EPISODE 7

One evening, after my punishing hours of painting during the day and a rare restaurant dinner and a bottle of fine wine as a self-conferred award, I sat on the base stone of the magnificent marble facade of Chiesa Santa Maria del Giglio, listening to Margherita, the soprano, singing ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’ from Handel’s Rinaldo. She went on to sing ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ from Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore before thanking the crowd and saluting ‘Buona sera’ I was in my seventh heaven, cherishing the angelic voice still ringing in my ears, wrapped up in the warmth of the gathering dusk and silently watching the beautiful shadow collect her CD player and other belongings and with barely-visible smile walk away back into her own privacy. Then I was suddenly jolted out of my sweet reverie when I heard a semi-Japanese voice alarmingly close to me. ‘Takiguchi-san’ I jumped back like a startled rabbit and saw through the deepening darkness a shy-looking face politely smiling at me, a face which looked as if it had been lifted straight out of a painting by El Greco. It was Giorgio Gazzolo. He had braved a five-hour train journey from Genova to attend World Haiku Festival 2004 La Fenice in Venice.

uta-hime wo kimi mo kiki-shi-ka aki-no-kure

the singing princes...
were you listening to her too?
autumn evening

I invited Giorgio to the bar of my hotel opposite to the church. He was a retired medical doctor and his Japanese had a ring of intellectual intonation with its soft tone like an autumn mosquito. He told me about a Japanese journalist friend of his who lives in Rapallo a little bit more east along the coast from Genova. The friend, Giorgio said, wrote about cooking and this piece of knowledge gave me a fleeting thought that perhaps I might just be able to live in Venice doing something or anything to scratch a living. We drank a toast to our encounter and to WHF2004. He looked a sensitive and contemplative haiku poet who would not churn up haiku like sausages but take a long time to craft haiku like a lovingly created jewellery. I liked Giorgio very much and soon fostered deep respect for him.

notte a Venezia
di ombre laboriose
e pigre luci

night in Venice
of industrious shadows
and lazy lights　　　　　　　(Giorgio Gazzolo)

Giorgio is a member of WHCitalian which is a bi-lingual Italian/English online haiku forum. Director of WHCitalian is Moussia Fantoli who is a classicist living in Rome. The forum is of modest size but steadily developing, with members sharing haiku poems which are distinct from haiku in English or other languages. One such distinction is that haiku they write often reflect the rich and long history of the country, especially allusions to her classic tradition. I really looked forward to reading haiku poems Italian participants would write in Venice. Added interest emanated from the differences of perceptions, dialects and sensibilities from region to region in Italy. My Venetian friends alluded to me that Italians outside Venice were “foreigners”. Considering Venice’s independence lasting a millennium and her supremacy in everything (in their eyes) for many centuries, it is only natural that the Venetians should retain their sense of superiority and differentiation, even if their decline began several centuries ago. Venice still boasts of her isolation not merely in physical sense but in spiritual sense.

kao-tsuki mo namari mo tagau aki aware

facial differences
and different dialect...
autumn’s melancholy


EPISODE 8

It was somewhat surprising to find how easy it was for me to tell Venetians from the throng of people who filled alleys and squares. Of course there was no difficulty in identifying tourists not only with what they wore: shorts, walking sandals on bare feet, sunglasses, colourful holiday shirts, newly acquired suntan and the dead giveaway, a tourist map of Venice, but also because of their behaviour: looking at unnecessary places and literally poking their nose into everything, not walking purposefully or at a normal speed, talking and laughing loudly and, most manifestly, asking me the way in broken Italian, apparently mistaking me for a resident artist. This was more or less the same with Italian holidaymakers or other Italians on business trip. It was easy to distinguish Venetians from them because there were no Venetians. They avoided tourists.

tochi no mono koto-toi mo sede ase hiyuru

local people
nowhere even to ask the way...
sweat feeling coldish

Throughout history Venetians have fought against enemies gallantly, cunningly, ruthlessly and tenaciously. Doge Pietro Orseolo, Doge Ziani, Doge Enrico Dandolo, Doge Francesco Foscari, Doge Francesco Morosini, Daniele Manin － all courageous war heroes. However, this new enemy, wave after wave of tourists, is the only one they can neither defeat nor parley with. Venice is permanently invaded, occupied and under siege. There is no longer any wealth, fire power or strategic or diplomatic prowess at the Venetians’ disposal to bribe, bargain, barter, beguile, bully or beat this strongest-ever enemy into evacuating from Venice and returning her to the rightful owner.

kyuden mo akiya to narinu aki-no-kure

autumn dusk
spreading over palazzi
no one lives

There are as many as 12 million visitors every year the Venetians have to contend with. Those living in what is called historic Venice (i.e. where tourists have invaded) number only 60,000. Others live in the mainland, typically in Mestre, and commute daily across the water for work. Over a third of Venice’s population rely their livelihood on tourism. The strange but miraculous system of government, neither monarchy, nor democracy, nor republic but a bit of all of them, which brought Venice unrivaled stability, wealth, glory and pride, has long gone. The last Doge, Lodovico Manin, elected in the year of the French Revolution of 1789, ended the long line of 120 Doges by abdicating, faced with Napoleon in 1797 who swore to be an ‘Attila to the Venetian State’. Nobilities, impoverished, have long lost power. Now, it is the tourists that are Venice’s new Doges and rule this once proud ‘Queen of the Seas’ Little wonder Venetians hate tourists.

sono-kami no homare fuki-kesu aki-no-kaze

autumn wind
blowing away the glory...
long time past


EPISODE 9

I have often wondered why Doges of Venice looked rather miserable despite their dignified and resplendent appearances in their portrait. However, the more I learned about them the less surprising this became. For all the importance of the office, Doge is the last thing I would wish to become in millions of years. Doges were the least privileged, least free and least powerful people in Venice, especially compared with their counterparts in different kingdoms and empires in Europe, let alone in the Orient. Obviously this is an exaggeration but, Doges being the primary suspect for despotic, dictatorial or tyrannical ruler, the wisdom of the Venetian republic was to whittle down their powers constantly over centuries to almost nothing. So much so that they became more or less a glorious but powerless figure head. However, these peculiarities have helped to prevent Venice from plunging into tyranny or dictatorship. Japan’s Tokugawa Shogunate was one of the most successful authoritarian regimes in the history of human kind. However, Venice’s long stability makes it pale into insignificance.

sen-nen no eyo mo kusaki aki no mizu

now sunk,
the glory of a thousand years
in stinking water

What appears to be the most complicated and convoluted system of balloting in human history was contrived in Venice to choose the Doge whose tenure was lifetime but not hereditary. Compared with this system, even the US presidential election procedures would look like a child’s play. Introduced in the 12th century, the system was designed to realise the maximum degree of agreement among the patrician members of the Maggior Consiglio (Great Council) on the successful candidate, almost excessive checks and balances and the prevention of any rise of family dynasty or a despot, while at the same time establishing an authoritative figure for the unity and integrity of the Republic. The well-known quote from the chroniclers talks about surprising facts: the first 25 Doges met gruesome ends, each more bizarre than the one before, with three of them murdered, one executed for treason, three were sentenced to be made blind, four deposed, one exiled, four abdicated, one killed fighting the battle with pirates. The only lucky one became a saint.

tsuyu-samu ya doje no hitomi utsuro nite

cold dews...
the hollow looks
on the Doges

When he arrived at one of the two most northern destinations, Hiraizumi, Basho marvelled at the splendour of the Hikari-do (shining hall) which was covered with gold and encased with a second building. This is the symbol of the power, wealth and prosperity of the Fujiwara Clan. His famous haiku indicates that the gorgeous hall was so well preserved because even the summer rain avoided falling there. The Hikari-do, together with the Kinkaku-ji (Golden Temple) in Kyoto, is one of the very few historical relics in expensive gold in Japan. What would Basho have thought of it, if he had visited the Basilica di San Marco, or Palazzo Ducale? The wealth of any significant scale of a nation cannot have been built only upon honest business and trade alone. War trophies and booty, or stolen goods under these names, treasures and all sorts of goods robbed by piracy – all added to the accumulation of national wealth. In the most cynical sense, the British Museum is nothing but a warehouse of stolen goods. Similarly, the whole Venice is in a sense a city of theft and robbery. Generation after generation of the Venetians have contrived to display these stolen goods in the most spectacular, sensational and outlandish manner. The most important of all these stolen goods in Venice is the relics of St Mark the Evangelist which two merchants of Venice stole from Alexandria in 828 and which became everything Venice stands for, including the most famous basilica in the world.

nusu-bito no isao nokori-shi kuni no aki

autumn...
the city state where exploits
of thieves remain


EPISODE 10

Francesco da Mosto is a flamboyant Venetian aristocrat. He has just completed a four-part BBC TV series on the history of Venice, which captivated the British nation. It is a story about this complex city told by an insider who himself is a small replica of the whole of its history itself. With various theories about his ancestors’ arrival in Venice, his family, as one of the ‘new families’, was chosen to be included in the Serrata del Major Consiglio (Locking of the Great Council) in late 13th century, thus becoming part of the patrician elite. His ancestral palace still stands at the waterfront of Canal Grande but vacant. Here his forebears flourished as merchants, import and export businessmen, traders of all sorts of merchandise. One of them, Alvise da Mosto, was a famous explorer, the discoverer of the Cape Verde islands in 1456.

karashiro mo utsushite haenu aki no mizu

empty palace...
still a glorious reflection
on autumn water

Da Mosto was not just showing off the proud history of Venice or wallowing in the self-pity over the decay of this once glorious republic. He is a living Venice. Venice lives in him. Seven hundred years ago his was a new family but now it is one of the oldest. Nine out of ten of these old families have left Venice. Da Mosto looks at his small children and wonders what will become of them as he wonders the future of Venice. Will they stay in Venice? Will Venice stay with them? He visits his family cemetery on the island of San Michele and talks about his ancestors who either died a glorious death or were perished by plague or war. The family nevertheless has survived. He is not so sure about the future. Venice herself has survived all vicissitude. What is its future without industry, trade or commerce, dominated by tourists and threatened by floods? Death in Venice has occurred. Will death of Venice occur?

shi no toshi to kasuka benisu no aki no kure

is it going to be
a ghost town? autumn evening
in Venice

How can da Mosto, one of the most convivial and optimistic-looking Venetians, even in a split second entertain any melancholic thoughts about his beloved city state? In fact, he embodies everything: optimism and pessimism, beauty and decay, life and death, humour and tristesse, realism and idealism, particularity and universality, ephemerality and eternity. Within him live all human factors. His journey through the story of Venice ends with prophetic words: ‘...It is not difficult to imagine where Venice could be in the distant future, in a non-industrial world where the fuel supplies have run out and all the cars have rusted away, when mankind has been forced to live on the terms dictated by the natural environment. Even if the city itself no longer exists, by that time the idea of Venice will always endure.’

kuni yabure shiro waka-kusa no kokoro ari

though nations fall
new grasses in ruined castles
such is our idea!

EPISODE 11

Such was the backdrop against which the Big Day for haiku arrived at long last. The Phoenix Day － Sunday 12 September 2004 was so christened by Moussia Fantoli as the day was symbolically dedicated to World Haiku Festival 2004 － La Fenice. It was a cold, wintry and windy day. I had a sore throat after a day-long exposure to cold wind a few days previously when I did my major painting of Canal Grande on Ponte dell’ Accademia. However, by that day I had written many haiku poems about my life in Venice and done over fifty paintings, drawings and studies of every nook and cranny of what by then had become my most beloved place on earth.

shuurei ni yomi-gaeri-keru kukai kana

autumn chill...
resurrected from ashes
this kukai


On the Phoenix Day itself, Moussia Fantoli has penned a vivid chronicle. Our meeting at Caffe Florian was special and lunch at a small local bar in Cannaregio hidden from tourists delightful. The main event at the garden of my hotel along Canal Grande was rich in content and inspirational in presentation. The dinner session at a fish restaurant opposite to the famous fish market in San Polo went on and on until the waiters lost patience and decided to get rid of us. In the Venetian labyrinth, we had lost some participants including Gabriel Rosenstock and his wife Eithne who wandered narrow streets, canal banks and gondola stations in search of us, writing senryu instead of haiku to express the irony.

nan-oku no uwo wo kuishi-ka aki-shigure

how many millions
of fish have been consumed?
autumn rain

In many ways Venice is an antithesis of haiku. The worship of the most extravagant and grandiose, complicated and convoluted minds and cunning wit, blatant display of materialism, most elaborate and decorative feature of her architecture and interior designs and indulgence in gluttony, opulence and decadence or Epicureanism/hedonism are all so far away from the world of Basho or Santoka. However, Venice has pathos which singularly makes it compatible with haiku poets, not least because of her oft-mentioned decaying side of things. The Phoenix Day was a cold and rainy day. The whole look of Venice changed in my artist’s and poet’s eye spectacularly from the world of Veronese to the world of Buson. Venice has these two sides. Coincidentally perhaps, the City is called La Serenissima (the most serene). Serenity is the essence of haiku as it is the spirit of Venice.

shizuka-sa ya mizu-no-miyako no hada-samu-shi

quietness...
the City of Water, cold
to my skin


EPISODE 12

During my nineteen days’ stay in Venice, I frequently passed by my first and unmentionable hotel simply because it was situated right in the area where I set my artist’s easel most of the time. I was hoping not to meet the lady who owned the hotel but inevitably I bumped into her more than once to my acute embarrassment. However, contrary to my fear she was nice and pleasant to me. In fact, her hotel is quite an important house in the history of Venice and she seemed to maintain the family’s pride, poise and dignity. Basho would have loved the hotel. Issa would have played with all the animals, insects and rodent. Santoka would have kept copious diary about this interesting hotel. Hosai would have cast a cynical and lonely look at everything found there.

kotsujiki ni nare-zu yado toru aki no mizu

short of a beggar,
I became a chooser of the hotel…
autumn waterfront

Gone are the days when I was a guest of the Italian government, taking part in an international meeting of financial services regulators. The whole of Isola di S. Giorgio Maggiore opposite to Piazza San Marco across Canale di San Marco was commandeered for this meeting for a week. I was asked to choose one of the best hotels in Venice. I still remember hopping in high spirit from Danieli to Gritti Palace, from Bauer Grunwald to Monaco & Grand Canal, from Londra Palace to Luna Baglioni and Excelsior, inspecting which would suit me best during the following seven days. I did all this research from the bar of each hotel. Drinks were as pleasurable as looking at rooms and décor. I ended up in choosing the hotel of the last bar I managed to crawl to. By then I was overwhelmed by the power of cocktail of drinks I had to sample at each hotel to disguise my true purpose, and could not move any more.

ichigyo no shi mo enu mama ni natsu no yado

not even a line…
I have failed to write a poem,
summer’s hotel

Life too is like staying at a hotel, or more precisely, moving from one hotel to another. Even making Danieli one’s temporal accommodation, one cannot take it to one’s grave. Luxury is but an illusion. If so, talking to a rat or playing with a stray cat would at least give one a sense of reality and modest feeling of contentment. Night after night, together with financial regulators I was entertained with the best Venice could offer, special private view of important exhibitions, concerts and art treasures of the City, followed by the best drinks and food Italy could provide. It was beyond imagination – a parade of luxuries never to be repeated. It would be false to say I did not enjoy it. However, in my latest journey to Venice as a semi-wanderer artist and poet, I experienced the same intensity of fulfillment from frugal food, drink and lodging because I was able to create paintings and poems.

shi to e nite suru zeitaku ya aki no sora

poems and paintings…
they are my luxuries
autumn sky

[END]