Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Koguma Hideo

Poems of Drifting

The Moon looks at the earth.

“Moon, you wicked cur—
You roar with your light!
You crave earthly food—
But we won’t let you devour earthly love!
The juice of honey peaches—
—we’re the ones who’ll suck it dry!
O Moon—”

“You try to wrap all earthly events—
everything—
in cellophane of light—
attempting to envelop
poverty, heartbreak, starvation—
struggle—
You try to beautify everything.
Stay silent—
just watch what humans do.”

A sumo ring where no contest was decided—
whether such a ring was being built somewhere—
rigged bouts
existed nowhere.

Victories and defeats that shattered bones
and spilled blood—
your hasty days’
referee fan must never be raised.

With those long luminous eyes

“Just calmly keep watching—steadily watch—the earthly battles.”

To the Young Rose

I sing.

My heart was filled with methane gas,
quivering at its magnificent ignition point.
I sing—relentlessly—
Japanese-style poverty—
I can’t uphold such traditions.
From the depths of Europeanized poverty—
clinging like a river frog—
I will keep singing.
The sun lashes like a whip,
whirling and shining,
piercing my conscience from on high.
The night became a jet-black peanut sack.
People carried fatigue and weariness into that void,
losing all sense of time and space.

“You suddenly sit up in bed.”

“And try thinking about something.”

In the place you cannot see, I am probably sitting.

Since the Earth began—long,

But the Earth I saw was entirely new,
The young man grew old—
Such nonsense could never be!

Young people, my friends, roses—
People with millstone-like teeth,
Grind your teeth loudly.

Time, hurry forward

In the midst of chaotic sounds,
the hearts of weak people
like an iron ring tightening—
stern, inescapable—
the murmur of gathered crowds and choruses
today too were heard—
No dawn, no sunset,
no time, no place,
and no age, no children, no property,

The roar of resounding voices,
A ribbon of white steam drawn out from a steel box.
The unreflective ones

They formed a line surrounding a single person.
Those with affection
were quietly seeing them off where people’s eyes did not notice.
Old phantoms departed from us.
The lurid hunt and new volcanic phantoms,
as the reality of the new century,
waited for those now departing.

Children and wives and parents

In a place so distant that even if they ran out, they could never catch up,

Iron pipes the size of thumbs

whistled shrilly and crisscrossed about—

air so thick even a demon would suffocate—

To live amidst turbulent air,

The men departed in droves.
Wisdom was buried in the ground.
Reason was launched toward the sky.
All trees closed their leaves to avoid the poison.
Livestock took shelter in a corner of the field.
The walls of city buildings could not bear the heavy bodies of those who leaned against them.
The walls could not support the heavy bodies.
The river water changed its color.

All of nature has been made into an arena for mankind.
Except for removing suitable shelter,
it has been rendered entirely visible.
What is conducted there

What a delightful feast had commenced
When knives were applied until fresh blood oozed forth
Through skillful preparation by high-paid cooks
Abundant meat was processed
There upon the dining tables existed no strife—
With stillness surpassing peace—no grinding of bone against flesh
The eaters and the eaten—
Was executed according to planned distribution
Only blood and meat and knives in endless succession
Were brought forth
Seeking soul-dissolving rapture
A procession advanced tirelessly toward the feast
On invitations issued by hosts

Imprinted with a mark of crossed sharp stone tools,
Those who refuse the invitation wield blunt weapons—
They are destined for the tragic fate of being struck down.
Time, hurry onward!

Time, move forward

Yet I could only picture it in dreams.

Time past is worth damning, but

But already, even that is gone.

Not the later Time, but the former Time—
without screams, without cries of anguish or songs of despair—
will wipe them away with hands like a beautiful girl's.
The decayed land—the new Time
will embrace anew.

After the procession heading toward the instinctive ugly feast had passed by—
The new mother would embrace the Earth
Not for the hen to hatch snakes
For hatching peace
Just believe in the new time
Not the later Time
the former Time—

Warriors of old，drunkards of now
“Get good and drunk，my friend，”
If getting drunk can make you that happy—
Crawl—in apparent agony
No matter how much you vomit

Even if you walk beneath night's neon signs,
Since you wouldn't soil the asphalt with your hundred meters,
When ideology had seized you,
You strode like a giant

You used to debate like giants.
Now you were like a rag,
sweeping the Ginza backstreets with your raincoat's hem.
You should splash liquor in your friend's face—
"Go on and cackle! Sniff up that snot!
Stuff sushi in your cheeks and cry from the spiciness!"

Ah, and there under the viaduct, drunk,

Former communists crawled away—

I do not grieve for you,

The children of Spain
When playing nurse,
No matter how violently you blew your alcohol-reeking breath—
Even when you blasted it in my face—
You handed your own ideology to night's darkness.

Last night too, tonight too, you collapsed onto the city pavements,
the perishing Earth
tenderly warmed by your bodies,
However, even if your body had completely chilled—

The Earth probably won’t perish or anything like that.
Like starlight
Unimaginably,
Dark, dark, under the sky,

We are living,

Shall we call it darkness—

This night’s continuous depth—

But these stars in our sky—

You must not overlook their manner of light,

If the sky is dark,
Stars shine—that’s how,
Like our will
with delicate strength

With those of this sky
Let us commune with us earthly ones—
Of stars and people
In mutual joy
There was no one to witness,

But stars and humans know this,

They knew this truth—
In human skin’s color
gaining luster, flushing bright—
Just as youth shifts into age,
Stars too emerge from their youth
toward inevitable aging—
Yet stars never once
even for a breath
ceased their shining—
Ah—from our youth

In even a single shifting moment of battle—
We hold fast
Shall we arrest this combat-light?

The unforgivable thing――

all earthly things
is defilement.
The radiance of action
There was probably nothing to obstruct.
Young and free
the transmission of will
upon the earth—
let us swiftly carry out like starlight.

Let us act swiftly like starlight.
Rotten grapes.
The man with rotten intestines'
Novels flowing endlessly like sewage—

Composed for readers slumbering like comatose patients,
Published in magazines,
And what reading matter they give these readers—
Not through the mouth but through the eyes—
This tainted prose pours in—
Even doused in carbolic acid,
teeming with bacteria that refuse to perish—
From heads swollen with delusion,
they cobble together these lie-riddled tales—
All to inflict convulsive spasms upon the people.

“You artists who exist—
Works bound together with your vomit—
Presumptuously printed with golden stars sprinkled across their covers—
This damned truth stands utterly divorced—
from realms of reckless dissolution wholly unrelated—
where a pretentious libertine’s exploits
get swapped for tawdry affairs with plutocrats—
stories stretched interminably long.”

Into the clamor of the impoverished
exactly those posturing as allies of the wretched,
the sham moralists lumbering forth—
by crushing others
upon the very corpses
they rode their own coffins shouting victory.
Bearded men pantomiming infantile ecstasy,
literary racketeers,
minds that adore politicians and praise sofas,
the breed delivering sly table speeches—

They went out to watch others die.

Shameless bastards without end.

Commissioned to gather material,

They gleefully dashed off to the countryside.

The most policy-compliant errand-running literati.

Now was the time for what they called satire.

With a rag, diligently wipe these bastards' faces—

The hour had come to wipe them down.

With old rotten spinal cords

They barely propped up their works' entire bodies.

To those tenacious bastards with filthy vitality:

Inject them with the thickest needle.

It was not to resuscitate them -
we pierced through to swiftly dissolve falsehoods!

"My young comrades! You revolutionary youths!
You who were forged as iron sheep!
Green grass grows in your world!
The sun and moon - those twin eyes - belong wholly to you!"

The quietly rotating pupil of time
The strong gaze that pierces through all things is yours.
More than evil spirits or witches

Demonstrate greater divine power.
Rotten grapes became like filthy bells.

Let us wither the tree of old literature.

When the castle of the heart collapsed

Today the ramparts became an altar.

Overnight, a vivid red carpet was hung on the wall.

New white artificial flowers were offered.

When they yanked down hard on that heavy chain hanging mid-air,
everything here transformed all at once—

The scream departed; a peaceful night’s song drifted down from the ramparts.
Looking down, I saw a distant ailing garden—
holes dotted the landscape, smoke rising from them.

From here I mourn
Until the day Mars comes bringing salvation

All concealed ramparts everywhere had crumbled,
The road of freedom lay devastated,
Only the sutra-chanters' vocational

A voice came drifting from afar,

Here, without regret, people fought.

As though all would conclude through battle

With madness and intoxication,

The sun cast astigmatic rays of light.

The rays swept across the ground.

Black shadows swarmed the wall.

One shadow pushed the other shadow off behind the wall.

The game conducted in an instant,

Began with a somber song
With a dull cry, it announced the end,

Furthermore, the song began again,

The scream continued,

Towards the next wall, iron lifted voices of prayer.

They blink eyes of fire and curses.

When the castle of the heart collapses

The sky brightened all at once.
It was pulled into the brightness of earth.

Song of the Night Bed
Our hope was shattered to smithereens.
Sun, I can no longer believe in you,
Moon, you recklessly flee through the clouds.

All things were in the mad dog’s saliva—
They ate bread soaked through,
The restlessness did not subside,
Even strong liquor failed to intoxicate them—
Ah, they were to create splendid history—

They scrawled violently in vermilion across white paper,

In the story of thousands of years later,

As a single individual, I was crammed into a coffin.

Yet there I refused to close my eyes.

Even alive, I found no peaceful sleep,

Even in death, I would not dissolve.

People chose not old coffins,

selecting new ones,

and would at last find peaceful slumber.

The sun and moon were shrouded in smoke,

fire at the horizon

leaped like red fruit.

Ah—dreams do not depart—

drenched in sweat,

with irritated eyes,

He stared fixedly ahead.

Japan's Dreams and the Poem of Pillows

No one says they don't love you.

“Japan,”
“You—a child who’s bad at waking up—”

Who suddenly shook you awake,

Neither father nor mother—
The dream within you yourself kicked your pillow.
Because of this, you remained sullen all day long.
"Speak, infant, of the secrets in your heart—"
Neither servile nor cowardly, through deep canals
And currents you advanced unshaken, brimming with confidence—
At your small departure's forefront, what did you discover?
Declare it—what you lost, what you gained—
What have you gained, what have you lost?
Voices bursting forth, choked sobs, weighty moans—

In your departure, did you not hear behind you—
the ventures undertaken by growing things and
the adventure of probing the unknown world?
Your parents probably did not fear,
it was simply that your leaving came sudden,
that what you chase stays veiled in mystery.
Moreover, you never once turned to look back.

Like unstoppable roller skates,
Japan raced away as if forced into shoes of fire,
Clattering noisily across the road—
Swish, swish—into the river—

The father was filled with regret.

On the bed where you slept—the black dream within your heart—

that they had failed to notice how much he had grown.

The mother too was filled with regret.

whether she hadn’t pressed down firmly enough on that child’s pillow—

whether she hadn’t held it down tightly enough—

No one ever said they didn’t love you.

You suddenly cast off the moment of embrace

You merely broke free and departed on a distant journey.
The clouds veiled the stars.
[They] plunged the nighttime streets into utter darkness.
Having colluded with bad dreams, even the Moon faithfully waned.

Many brown owls descended and stood at the street corners.
They spread their wings to the fullest.

“Son! How this city stands since your leaving—”
It had shed every shred of former grace,
Wind abandoning seasons’ ancient pace,
Then sirens screamed and tore through blossom-snow.

All natural things and
Unnatural things fell like ash.
It was as though humanity itself were decaying.

Before long, the anxiety departed.

But the son did not return,

He would come back healthy even as soon as tomorrow,

Or perhaps “Eternity” would come back in your place.

The former was your lived flesh

If it were the latter—even were it the father’s—

It was not even the mother’s—it belonged to “nature,”

Because love would only drown in excessive sorrow,

People probably would not grieve forever,

Bitter fate was watched over by the people.

When life darted swiftly across people's paths,

Following that, a black cat dashed through faster than electricity.

Time attempted to seize life's shadow—

as if chasing after it—

Without history or freedom,

Only sleep and meals,

the act of starting to walk forward and

the act of suddenly breaking into a run and

a dull reverberating sound and human screams alone,

By shameless shrieks,

Dawn's flower awakened
By an eerie silence,
The mountain fell into slumber.
Beasts with their long claws—
in order to vie over whose fangs were sharpest

They wandered this area regardless of night or day.

The black dream carrying the son wandered too.

Whether revolting against people or revolting against nature,

or revolting against politics—through that equal black prayer,

The path ahead was filled with gray songs,

The morning had been heedlessly unveiled.

Here sat the father.

At that moment, the son was walking in the distance.

The mother was muttering unintelligible things.

Eventually—his son vigorous—

he kept imagining the day of return,

The attendant of history
together with the son wearing a black mantle
arrived at the parents' doorway.
And the attendant left,

“Ah, the son we had been waiting for has returned—”

The parents shouted thus and embraced.

But inside the mantle there was no son's body.

Not the son—even the dream pillow had been abandoned and left behind.

What stood dejectedly

was a black mantle.

The fleeting moment of peace and joy was carried off by the wind.

Anxiety and sorrow came alternating,

that distant fate—all too vividly—

they saw it near the people.

Dark shameless fate—
When did I forget how to cry?
Shameless fate
always circling the orbit of my life,
wandering about—

Occasionally like a bad dog,
Fate would appear and—

It bites me and runs away,

At that time I wept from genuine sorrow,

Gradually with bad fate

and this bastard's machinations,

Since coming to hate them,

I have ceased to grieve.

Now magnificently,

extravagantly resenting,

I have begun to take pleasure in it,

From the ceiling a chandelier with loud resonance

scattering glass fragments

like when it falls.

I want to be angry,
That was a beautiful moment -
Something blinding enough to steal sight.
O dark shameless Fate,
Against me you can no longer-

You cannot win.

I dwell within ideology,

the gravitational pull of descent,

for I've learned to add its mass—

The poor's ideology

eternally bears protracted sorrow,

compressing aeons into flare-like instants of rage,

then hammers them anew with methodical patience,

persistently reforging.

The Carriage’s Departure Song

Even if darkness

Even if darkness were to seize the earth forever,
rights would always
remain awake—
roses in the darkness
would only appear pitch black.
If the sun were to shine all at once,

it would prove that they were rosy

Grief and suffering are ours—
They are not theirs.
How could joy or emotion ever
Be claimed as theirs?

Because I know darkness,
beyond lies brightness—

I believe in the existence of brightness beyond.

"You there—slam your fist—"

Even to efforts akin to seeking fire—
Feel the great significance.
Thousands of voices were shouting in the darkness.
The air trembled.
They knew where the window was,
From there like a thread’s end,

They could draw out light and victory.

Don't linger idly by roses!

Never stay silent!

Action alone bears hope's name!

Your passion makes a worthy groom!

To greet the bride—

Ready the carriage!

Leave this instant!

Sound trumpets like battering rams!

Swing whips as though they pain you!

Make wheel-songs roar!

Velocity.

The common-sense grandfather clock’s

In the repetition of songs

Let us spit upon

It was still ringing.

Twelve o'clock

That clock showed no rebellion whatsoever.

It merely kept unwinding its mainspring,

The clock of the heart struck three thousand hours.

When the clock of the heart was being wound,

It unwound.

When it was unwinding,

It wound.

So fast the eye could not catch it,

It beat time rapidly.

When sand whispered,

When water roared

What are humans doing,

For love and hatred—

They were fighting.

Real time—

Do not let it flow as it is,

Attach the towline and pull.

The new time shall become yours.
The poor's ideology remains unbreakable.
Let us accelerate velocity.

Let us accelerate velocity.

The remaining work is
That is all that remains.

The Song of Women’s Sobs
The last women of Japan,
The last—
Perhaps, all the last women—
To old morals and old habits—farewell,
Nothing could be drawn from old dreams.
Upon the carpet of new love

“Go to sleep”

As though seeing new dreams—,

“Women of Japan,”

“O artists of cuisine,”
“O Michelangelos of the kitchen,”
“O you—even today,”
In the kitchen cutting onions,
Shedding tears from their eyes—
Over matters of livelihood,
Over matters of love, over matters of children,
Over matters of men—crying:
“You are truly busy.”
Eyes—a gushing spring of tears.

Sobbing that might never cease—
For the unfathomable kindness of the women of Japan,
All men were left dumbfounded.
In the twilight’s gloom forever—

“Do not grieve,”

“Enough with makeup and the home section,”

One hundred million handkerchiefs

“Stop drenching them,”

Direct your hostility toward men

Agitate and drive men’s lives

Restrain your affection,

Just that alone

It is dreary to spend a day wastefully,

“I shall give you a new handkerchief,”

With it wipe away life’s hardships

love’s anxieties and impatience

“and sacrifices to fate,”

With the final stroke of a handkerchief

I recommend the final sob,

The new era was already—
Fearing makeup smudging to an extreme degree was not beautiful,

Please join the struggle of life,

Please become female boxers in the tender arena of daily life,

And at times,

Smash into the man’s nose bridge—

Try to bite—

My mouth split open.

If a dragonfly’s wings are pressed down,

It cannot move,

If a human’s mouth is blocked,

It’s painful,

I am suffering in this way.

Searchlight’s

In the searchlight’s glare,

My heart and flesh were showered with their bullets to the fullest.
My mouth has split open.
My mouth has already surpassed a human mouth's size.
It has surpassed size.

It has engulfed heaven and earth

It has split to nature’s vastness.
There is no god who silences the devil’s mouth.
To muzzle a singing mouth—

There was no great hand anywhere.
It was not I who sang.
It was Nature that sang,

It is not I who am singing.
It is you all who are making me sing.
And it is not that I am walking upon the Earth.

It is I who am like a ball juggler spinning Earth into the dangerous acrobatic troupe I am throwing myself into—

Ah, get dead drunk—

O my words,

Eggshell Game

The poet possesses the joy of speaking openly.

The poet sings to share that joy,

A pallid face
wrapped in cloth scraps—
the sight of Japanese people affecting dignified airs as they walked
only struck me as absurdly comical.

Citizens were too busy,
They had no time to become stylists.

Only the literati put on airs and—

They made ordinary things appear difficult,
walked toward some destination to declare,
the obligation to read such interminable novels—
that imposition was what fascists did.
Where in your novel did truth reside—
novels they'd fumbled through writing,
they tried forcing weary-eyed readers...

How foolish this prolixity of form—
If I were to read novels,
I’d sooner play at rolling eggs
And learn truth through joy instead!

I cast a song into the wind—
"You there! Like me—
become a state poet!"
Ready or not—
should tomorrow’s roses
burst into bloom—
could I become their spectral singer?

Today, as the Sun’s court poet,
I sing chiefly of sunspots,
By these solar blemishes,
Earth lies frozen in bitter cold—
There I stand swaddled in winter garb,
With all my voice—a burning voice—I sing,
I am Revolution’s court poet,

I am poetry's foot soldier,
To frozen spirits
I do not present arms,
I raise a burning mind's salute,

Commander,
Inspect my song!

Amidst wilderness winds,

My soprano soared high,
It faded into the distance,
Very well—Fate’s tailwind—

Even if my song were scattered to fragments,
Even if it had been utterly extinguished,
Into nature's winds
I hold the joy of having cast that song,

I tapped my desk’s corner with my finger—
the fact that I went tap-tap—
as if tapping a corner of your heart—
my song drifts ever onward until one day
pierces through
the eardrums of allies and enemies...

I am convinced that it will strike.

The Dawn Hen

What a splendidly
depressing dark dawn,
This is how it must be.

Dawn is certain—
Dawn is not necessarily bright and beautiful.
The fools are probably still asleep.

The sensible ones were probably asleep too,
Both were probably sleeping soundly,

Only we,
Without being asked by anyone,
All night long keeping our eyes open,
We are suffering,
Don't you think it pitiful—
Along history's unfolding path,
Sleepless men.

――Don't you find it pitiful,

That is at your discretion,

Oh, chickens,

Have you too awakened now?
Shaking winged insects from your wings,
Hurry and patrol
Clack-clack sounding your feet,
Engage in your labors from dawn—
Like bell tower guardians protecting their tower
Like a rooster shielding his hen,

For the sake of loved ones,
Devotion and service are beautiful.
My bell tower guardian,

Rebuild the tower.

Tower, tower, tower,

My beloved Hen,

Rebuild your nest.
Will you keep warming Setmono’s egg forever?
Set’s egg will never hatch.

Hen,
You will wound your own belly anew—
You will wound anew.

The Song of My Journey with the Wind

The strong wind collided head-on with the mountain.
The wind whistled through tens of millions of grass blades,
The grass clumps clamored,
Grass whistles and grasses,
And then the wind detoured around the valley.

Still shaking the flowers
while sounding grass whistles
it passed through countless valleys

Now they were battling against the wind,

And then those various

Passing through the valley
At that place where seas converged radially in the gorge,
The Wind would surely roar high and fierce once more—
For the sake of one gentle little bird
I poured out every last ounce of my vitality,
To the small delicate quivering of chest down
I bent my ear;
To even the tremor of a single petal’s grace
I stared wide-eyed;
To the despairing shudder of one lone leaf
I joined in suffering—
Rise up, O sluggish bull of the field!
Thrust your willful brow forward,
With forelegs begin fiercely scraping stone—

Lark, soar into the sky singing,
Snake, uncoil your coils and take the offensive,
Butterfly, cross the sea.
Ah—if you were to fall into that sea,
I would bury you myself,

From fields, from valleys, to where humans dwell—
I welcomed the wind that had come,
My heated head
grew even hotter with your wind's kiss,
People with frozen heads—
O heated Wind,
melt them through your ardent embrace,
People would begin raising high voices.
Begin raising fiercely vehement voices,

O Wind coming from afar,

When you race through the valley

like a pipe organ, majestically

You sang a song of truth,

Orchestrated the strength of human will,

I will accompany your fierce wind

through whatever bends in the valley—

even if some valley—

all the way to where it meets that final sea.

even if it's some valley
until reaching the final sea
Your fierce wind's
companion I will become.

I sing for windows and dogs
From the hardening of spirit
Be liberated,
My friends
For good mornings and evenings
Open the windows
Sing songs.

There were many sad things—
In life's fiercely waged battles,
Friends who had been brave
Descended into banditry,
Drank awamori
And banged their heads against walls,
Writhed like acrobatic dancers
Penning what looked like agonizing novels...
But life—
Life shouldn't be that brand of realism!
Love was meant to spread like wildfire—
Wasn't it supposed to burn everything it touched?
In daily life steeped in unreliable, dark sorrow—
Though I myself had nothing to lean upon—
People kept straining to find support,
As if they could no longer stand upright...
Pitiful creatures—
Did they crave rest?
Didn't they know collapsing to earth
Would become their only respite?
For my window and your dog
I kept singing these songs—
My window gaped open
Like an empty ampoule of narcotics...

For me, there was nowhere—
nothing to lean on,
yet people kept
trying to lean on something.
Already standing—
Couldn’t they even do that?

How pitiful,

Do they want rest—
merely collapsing onto the ground
That counts as rest for you—
Do they not know what to say—
I for my window and
For your dog
This is how I sing my songs—
My window was opened
Like a vial of anesthetic—
Your head gradually
Drooping ever lower
Because I cannot bear to watch
I sing.

Ginza—
Night city—
Neon signs—
Nothing but obscene,
You’re utterly lacking in beauty.

You’re not beautiful at all

O urban public toilet,

What splendid construction.

Oil glided and flowed across the water of the canal.

O beauty of another man’s wife,

What met the eye

Not a single one impressed me.

From Ginza 1-chome to Shimbashi—

Ginza was wide open to hell—

Where splendor ended lay utter darkness,

“Pitiful citizens,

how many times will you pace this place?”

Japanese melancholy

"Friend, let's go out."

“Let’s wander through the city streets—”

To the library under the pretense of study

To the woods on some days

To curse beneath the trees

To buy eggs for sickness—
To buy books for ideology's sake—

Let’s go out walking.

Let’s go out walking.

Things to be grateful for—

In some corner of a city

It might have fallen somewhere.

the clink from kicking with one’s foot

By the metallic sound—
Awaken your nerves.
Alright—the metal fittings of geta—
Even if you were to kick them away—
Buy bread? Or coffee—
Let that sound remind you of money needed to drink.
Gather everything—anything.

Seize everything—anything.

Spit out the bloody phlegm
Swallow the gall.

Ah, our Japan—
Now emerald-green—

It was steeped in Japanese melancholy.

Rise up.

My kneecap

Your kneecap

To jolt the stagnant into motion

Behind us

Reality spun

With a thud around the waist—

Even though that one kicked me

I could only tremble violently

I could not stand up.

Let’s walk out.

Let’s walk out.
For Japan’s melancholy,
We thought, worried, suffered.
The friend bustled about,

They walked through the city.
Looking busy,
For what purpose was that?

Looking sad,

For what purpose does that exist?

Life—

The people—

What on earth is it?

Indeed, even the Japanese—

Making bored-looking faces

Even though there exists no race making such bored-looking faces,

Even more so, Tosca—
Tosca makes Japanese brows grow dull.
Who has crushed our
Who has crushed our character and stifled our expressions?
For the dragon of yester-century
All the people—
Hold up!

And fear—
Fear rendered life deathly pale.
For deep sighs
For the long line—
What the people had acquired
Was the technique of crying.
Only laborers'
The thick belt inside their torsos
Hadn't lost the power to laugh.

Trudge onward, walk on—
To wear down fate’s boots

Through the city streets

Pitiful petty bourgeois, off to the suburbs you go.

As though remembered,

Suddenly cherry blossoms bloomed

They must have been announcing spring.

And this stubborn flower—

This flower wasn't even beautiful for three days.

Fate

Ah, how absurd this thing called fate—

Together with singers,

Having brought you this far—
Fate, I shall thank you.
I have sung of you from various standpoints.
I have doted on you from various angles,
I have hated you.
In a pampered life
When accursed sparks were scattered over me
How I must have hated you.
But now, I am not resenting you.

Like a priest who has completely forgotten how to pray [＊「祷」is 示 (altar) radical plus 壽]

I have become utterly lazy

I have made the devil my ally,

Fate, I’ll drag you into my very grave—

I think I’ll drag you in—

Though I do not fear dying,

To commit suicide

If I make the effort to move my body,

It takes less effort to move for living.

Dreary, detestable day,

As if my head were bound with an iron headband,

I can't forget about class—my head throbs.

What gangster of a fate

How far will you keep hauling this?

Crimson sofa-shaped clouds

Drifting empty-eyed as they race through sky,

I too slowly sit down on those clouds
I dreamed of flight to my beloved country
I engage in aimless singing—
my Fate shifts through variations—
my Fate merely endures being loved or hated

Politics was my lover.

Even though I doted on politics so much,

They are all being so malicious.

I am still thinking about that matter late into the night.

I, even with just a single word,

The ability to affirm life—

It was all political training that made me this way,
All friends are damaged by politics.
Like hating the woman I abandoned,
All I do is hate her.
She speaks no love over reality.
That's right—she has us—
How she made me ecstatic at Uchōten,
How she must have beaten me into despair.
That and reality must be connected.
Now that it has come to this, O eternal lover—
At that time we did not whisper quietly,

We openly shouted for freedom and stamped our feet in frustration.

Now, such ways of breaking open this love—

For the sadness of having no one to share it with

My heart is filled with agonizing sand,

I pour bitter liquid into my mouth every morning,
I pour it in and live on,
But I alone do not forget what deserves gratitude.
The me who was a coward -
The one who tempered me this thoroughly -

Politics, I believe I am you.

I was passionately in love with you,

Now I have become, even for you,

eternally unforgettable—

As reality, I have been rejected by you,

I have come to affirm life so actively—
I have come to affirm it in this way.

White Night

“Sister, do you still remember?
The winter nights in Karafuto.
The night when a pale light illuminated the town.
She suddenly sat bolt upright,
and sat on the futon.
She stared fixedly at my face, Father’s, and Mother’s for a while.”

She stared fixedly for a while.

Mother said to me,

“Ah, it’s started again,

She’s in a sleepwalking daze, you know,

You—how far will she walk?”

“Go follow her.”

At that moment, under the bright electric light,
I was intently reading Shōnen Sekai,
I placed the magazine face down on the tatami mat,
And then, as I had been ordered by Mother,
Sister, I followed your sleepwalking episodes,
The outdoors was bright as day,
Nowhere was the Moon out.

And yet the brightness on the ground—

From the shadow of the horizon,

A mercury-like light rose up,

Illuminating every corner of the small town uniformly.

The road froze; my younger sister made her geta clatter—

While their wooden soles rang out cheerfully

Toward some unknown place,

As though guiding me toward happiness,

She walked ahead of me,

The town holding its breath in stillness,

Her eyes gaping vacant,

Like hollow caverns

Fixed on some distant point,

Feet moving reflexively one after another,

Never once glancing back.

When we came to the street corner where the post office stood,

A wave of sadness surged up within me.

I couldn't endure it anymore—

"What's wrong?

Won't you wake up?"

I shook my younger sister's shoulders violently—

With a start, she returned to her senses.

"Oh, how awful!"

—and clung desperately to my body.

The younger sister looked around her surroundings.
She stood there all at once.
She must have felt self-consciousness and shame.
——Oh—it's cold—so cold—
The two of them, saying this,
held each other's hands
and dashed home at breakneck speed.

Mother was in a bad mood,

And Father was laughing,

Sister,

“Do you remember that white night?”
At that time, when you were a girl,
Now you have become a mother of three.

When I went to borrow money yesterday,
you momentarily made a reluctant face,
but once she had lent me the money,
she returned to her nostalgic expression.
As I was putting on my shoes in the entryway,

You sat down beside me

She said this in a decidedly formal tone.

“Brother.”

“Why did you”

“Why did you become a socialist of all things?”

“I—I don’t understand any of it, so...”

“I’m not saying you should abandon it—”

“Don’t go getting yourself too involved with the police and such,”

“Take care not to ruin your health, okay?”

I let out a dry chuckle while—
“Why did I become this way, I wonder…”
I muttered to the sky.
The younger brother brought out sweets from the cupboard—
wrapped them in paper and handed them over—
“Brother, do you know how old I am—
Do you know how old I am?”

"Sister,"
In the white night taking each other's hands—
from when we'd dash out and return—
you must still think us those little siblings then.
"Don't fret now—you needn't know socialism's 'sha' radical."
"Can't read its character? Fine."
"Be happy serving your husband."
"Raise children."

You must forever

"Do not forget the cold white night."

Bag of Sadness

I am alone.
It is not that I sing.
We are singing in chorus.
And through your eyes—

I must look brave—

You misunderstand to your heart's content.

I exist to be misunderstood.

I write poetry.

That you misunderstand reality

is both logical and skillful.

When I sing
The echoes will return.

That's why I don't feel lonely.

Your shriek

Never once has it returned to me—

Never once has it returned.

You've become a bag stuffed with sorrow.

A magnificent bag indeed.

It's fine while the sorrow lasts.

But once emptied,

This bag will be trampled under sturdy feet.

My mouth is battered

Like sails battered by winds

In the swift speed of waves and wind,

I nearly suffocate.

The ship creaks loudly.

That is my scream.

High—the scream, that very one reaches your ears
The song of mine that sounds brave,
From my eyes—you who don’t even know battle—

You drift away.
You seem so much braver.

------------------------------------------------------------

Love Poetry Collection

Let us awaken from paralysis

Do you think me pitiable—
Do you consider me—
And will you embrace me—

Good Understanding and Dear Love,

of the youth stripped of politics

The blood-drenched desperation of

O comforting love of you women,

Women buried men’s suffering

Trying to bury it with love,

The days drunk on literature’s political nature had passed.

The morphine patients of literature

The drug was nearly depleted.

Incessantly—wailing and weariness,

Emptiness, paralysis, and an unbroken chain of yawns,

I knew,

The opponent’s club delivered measured blows

blows sufficient to induce paralysis

to the back of our heads

the fact that they were being administered,

Come now, we must wake up quickly,

Even if politics quickly vanish

It would be good to become a child of literature who doesn't know loneliness,
Non-combat members were expelled from politics,
And they fiercely sought women's love,
Love began to bestow a new paralysis,
The conceited literary person's
Than the poison of political love,
Women's true love was far more delightful,

But even here there was dread.
There was wavering.

Train and crossing guard
Of turmoil and suffering
The path of love knows no end.
You and I who began wandering—
By desolation’s decree
Out of timidity—
Without clinging to me
Without being held within any chest
In this haze of anguish
Let us trace love’s course
And go forth to discover.
Come now—when weary: taste salt—
Suckle sweetness when faint—
Not as beasts
But as humans
Let us march love’s iron path.
The road beneath your feet runs straight to joy—

When you became the train moving ahead
I became the crossing guard,
When you became the crossing guard this time
I became the train moving ahead,
The two of us becoming passengers of love.

If we get drunk—if life’s fierce flow remains unblocked—
if left unblocked—
surely their lives will overturn.

Love forever slips through our fingers,
Drinking itself into oblivion while spurning time’s passage.
One side must possess what unfailingly shields the other—
To arrive at our destination unscarred,

Let’s become trains and crossing guards and press onward.
Let us make it a proud love.
When the heart hung its head
I lifted you up in my arms.
When my heart hung its head

You supported my face,

What sort of love—
How could it ever become prone to hanging its head?
What is unbearable is your delicate
woman’s pure heart within the flesh—
The rebounding spring mechanism
was the masculine will within my limbs.

The man’s will within my limbs,

Let us stay calm,
For love is a grand undertaking,
Let us laugh and speak,
Love droops its head as private drunkenness,

When we had fallen asleep on the lawn,

The spiderweb of societal subjugation
smoothly wove itself over the two of them.
We fought against instinct
with the sword of reason—
we should've flipped up that net in one swift motion!
Culture was by no means
cruel to love;
it nurtured love—

Love prone to hanging its head

Let us forge it into something unyielding,
with paupers' reason and cultivation,
the happiness we'd never before built

Purified desires—how they would cleanse the love of the young!
Affectionate human smiles—
it would be good to live exchanging them with each other.
To your new love—
so we might abandon old forms of recompense—
let us dedicate a new spirit.
"I've grown tired of seeing women, tired of knowing them"—
there being so many men who brazenly declare—

I was surprised,
The re-examination of beauty
After approaching it theoretically,
They tried to rediscover the beauty of women.
There were quite a few patient men.
Before long, old age came.
At young people's rendezvous,
They hissed and spat at them,
They meddled and dampened in pitiable ways,

They’ll turn into resentful old cranks.

I will answer youth—

While imparting velocity to love,

I want to take the time spent in physical entanglements

and bring it into life’s struggle—

that people never built before—

the density of spirit—

into the world of spirit's materialization――
we strive to elevate this life of love with you,
amidst love's adventure――

Accomplishing the adventure of two sexes while,
As life’s companion
We moved toward a singular union.
I am succumbing to weak love.
I who fight against the strong
need only immerse myself wholeheartedly—
What room could there be for employing any technique?
To the weak—
The act of speaking truth—
How painful it is—
Do you know that—
When attempting to elucidate an ineffable love—
What attitude must I adopt—

I must elevate the other's weakness
Because I must forcefully elevate it
I truly become drenched in sweat,
I, toward weak counterparts—

Time—the sole savior’s

There was no other way but to borrow its power—

Time resolved all—

Time set everything in its rightful place—

Unnaturalness, contradiction, artifice, and lies—

Drunkenness, songs, rituals, humility—

These things unnecessary for love—

Now was the time when all was required.

The strong didn’t need technique,

To the weak I had to explain—

Depart without incident, Night—

O Time of love’s explanation,
O Time of pain,
My strong love
is succumbing to your weak love.

I am succumbing to your weak love.

Such naturalness is beautiful.

With a robust heart steadfastly
you who guard life—

The regulated beat of the working woman’s pulse could be heard,

no matter how instinctively within my chest

even when my body trembled

from the surge of an animalistic heartbeat

I returned to human calm,

They faced each other and sighed.

Ah—safely—no mistakes had occurred—

What exactly had been safe—

What errors had been evaded?

The river flowing before them

Had not reversed its course,

The sun is in nature’s rightful position

The sun smiled calmly,

They thanked each other for remaining calm,

By loving you physically—

the right to rob you of your livelihood—

Not granted by anyone—

the fact of being physical—

I am not afraid in the least,

I merely do not give what is not asked for—

I merely do not give—
Such naturalness is beautiful.

Love and Training

Your strong characters,

I gaze favorably upon,

You love life and do not despise occupation,

Because you are producers.

With profound emotion

I can love you all,

Love wants to simplify everything.

Things that must remain complex—
Even those that must not—
Therefore loving
Is painful and terrifying,
As they scrutinize whether they lose mutual social consciousness,
And while scrutinizing,
They struggle to love each other—
That too must be a new type of class instinct.

The ecstasy of love utterly forgets life,

Only those who can firmly endure it
are those qualified for new love,

“Working women,

They possess a beautiful cruelty,

That must be a trained subjectivity.”