Pathway to Japanese Literature

Stolen Soul

At some place near the earth's axis,

Buried
the Purple Diamond of extraordinary rarity
jagged and emaciated, nothing but bones
The demons formed a tight circle,
joining their parched hands together
grinning slyly
With weary footsteps,
Every time they danced, a dry clattering sound rang out.

◇

Just as they did,

Just as they did,

My soul that was once lost—
my soul that was once stolen—
softly smooth amber cheeks
and ripe pomegranate lips—
the beautiful demon—
my soul blazing blue and fierce—

With a supple white ring finger,
mercilessly somewhere,
he must be toying with it.

◇

But O beautiful Satan—
that small fragment of soul you once left behind on the dark green rug,
had quietly forgotten,
and let slip into the bronze jar—
The small fragment of soul
I am clutching it tight.

◇

You—that fragment of soul—

trying to snatch it back from me
Night after night, you steal into gray dreams,
now trying to return my wounded soul
With a soft kiss
You try to reel me in—
The fragment of your soul
Until I let it burn madly in my hand—
I will never return it.

◇

I—!
I—I—

The curse’s brand heated in the hearth’s flames—

Press it against the white flesh of your forehead

The sizzling stench of scorched drippings—

The burning smell of stray hairs—

Until you’ve drunk your fill—

Your

That soul-fragment—I’ll never return it.

January 12, 1923

The Man in the Attic

Our hearts dwelling beneath this crushed roof—

What a bunch of perverse creatures we all are.

This gray six-tatami room—

"I’m from over there!"
"Over here!"

How many times must we have repeated this very act?

Look.

It had come to this.

Frayed and threadbare,

damply filled with gloomy tears,

the dingy old tatami mats,

in the center of that room

the scrap cotton called ‘Hope’ that’s nothing but worthless trash,

packed in heaps

the reckless brute’s

the repulsion of the rice-cracker futon—

The work of keeping it firmly pressed beneath my buttocks wasn’t exactly easy either.

It was no easy task.

On the scar-covered desk,

Of hypocrites' ostentatious displays and bravado—

A brass pea-clock glared back through endless hours—

May white hairs multiply upon my head—

May Earth cool and wither all the sooner—

May this virtuous soul plummet straight to hell—

I am praying……

The Seafloor’s Gaze

What turbid depths!

It forcefully repels my gaze

Of the depths—

Who is the master of this gaze?

×

Buried in sand,

If it were a heavy bronze jar,

Release the blue-green phosphorescence.

Jet-black

If it were the witch’s shed hair—

limply

Rise to the surface.

×
Oh… I… your
thick murk of dusky water enthralls me—
the heart’s trembling will not cease

The heart’s trembling will not cease.

×

Oh… that was

the hushed, dim depths of the deep forest’s

twilight-blazing tree

where white beasts embraced each other in death—

their flowing red liquid

trailed through moss-clad valley floors to the sea,

became fine iron sand particles

that released allure’s phosphorescent gaze.

×

Ah… The moon rises and rises,

A distorted moon rose,

The ripples on the water’s surface

The ripples were smirking.
Bluish-white.

were laughing.

Breast Room

The walls, the ceiling, the round table—all flesh—quivered violently,
All oozed sluggish sweat,
As they walked, a squelching sound seeped out.

Bodies rose and fell.

The meat-made hyakume candle placed on the shelf

emitted an alluring fragrance,

sizzling like burning oil,

as the flame of love burned.

×

In the twilight of the Breast Room,
the crimson-robed dwarves, drenched in sweat,
prepared aphrodisiacs—
clattering as they lined up flasks and test tubes.
When medicine overflowed from crystal jars arranged throughout the room into sweet aphrodisiac honey,
robust termites gathered.

They were gathering, dancing, lamenting.

And spent their days in hideous conflict.

Bath

After the dazzlement of seven-colored rays came the detonation of darkness.

If a brisk fin de siècle were to arrive,

The two of us

We wore gray baggy clothes,
blew flutes of taunting laughter,
each holding amber bowls in hand—
from the artery of allure
of women called women,
the false wine
cupful by cupful we collected like this.
Cupful by cupful,
we gathered and carried on.

Come now, all of you!
Everyone, come!
Come now, everyone!
Everyone, come!

The muddy wine’s
thousand-person bath they soaked in—

And the men set out to wash
the wounds of their souls.

“To the children:
When walking through town,
wave your hands cheerfully
and walk properly.
When resting at night,
stretch your legs out good and long
and go to sleep.
You must not cower.”

Like flowers blooming in the shade,
miserably,
they wither away.

White snake

Ah

In the cloyingly sweet, oppressive night’s thicket
Two white snakes
They tangled and coiled.
They clung together and slept.

They were happy snakes.
They were enviable snakes.

Dangerous Hunter

This hunter, without prey,

This hunter was restless.

Whirling the lit fuse around and around—

He busily walked through the town.

He was a cowardly, reckless, timid, lazy young hunter.

Little by little,

Little by little,

when the fuse's flame spread and adhered to his thumb,

in a panic, he lit the fuse.

That, even amidst the theater crowd,
even to the unresisting clear blue sky,
even to his own throat—
wherever the muzzle of the fuse was pointed—
he haphazardly pulled the trigger.
Truly, truly,

He was a young dangerous hunter.

He was a whimsical hunter.

Dancing Doll

“Everyone.”

“Inside this glass-strewn box—”

“Behold!”

“Parched,”

“Emaciated—”

Please watch the pitiful doll’s dance.

This doll always wears the same clothes.
Hop-hop.
Hop-hop.

the same dance
the doll was dancing.

Ah, how agonizing!

The miserable doll is me.

Bar and Melancholy

The bar’s clock was a gloomy one.
I overturned this table.
The glass let out an outrageously cowardly shriek and shattered.
The white Western-style plate guffawed and shattered.

The color of the sauce in the sauce bottle

It is a color closely resembling my rotten blood.

×

Always... always...

Staring intently at my face.

The damn wood grain of the table irritates me.

"Well... well..."

"I steadied my temper."

"I’d make five-hued liquor."

Then I hung my head like a shy girl.

I’ll sip it quietly.

×

Oh dear.

The moon in this room
was strangely pale—

Turn my tongue
into beefsteak

With a blade-less Western sword
I would mince
and devour
every last shred

Moonlit Night

A moonless, bright moonlit night.

A pale blue-white moonlit night.

The woman of secret trysts lurked somewhere in the darkness.

A pale blue-white moonlit night

A flute sounded.

A flute sounded.

The massage therapist’s flute sounded.

The vanished moonlit night.

At Irumi-neeshon’s pine tree,
the hanged neck
stretched and shrank through the night.
A distressing moonlit night.
Hearth.

Thud thud thud×××chest

From this warm air, a woman was born.

Thud thud thud×××chest

From this warm air, lust was born.

The iron kettle danced.

The lid revolved, steam…………a white ring.

Skin creeping up from the toes!

O cup filled with strong liquor!

Glide across table and come.
This wall of saint’s soul,
Capriciously carve
Chk... chk... carve.
Satan, begone.

Still… still, he—
“Don’t you melt butter on the hearth!”
Desire ferments.

I

Midnight lust shone blue like stars,
scattered here and there in the clumps of grass,
glittering like dew.
But this lust too—
when submerged in the winter landscape—
like dried-up clay
scuttled away with the wind.
Once, they were heavily yet gently entangled,
the vestiges of springtime passion too
here in lonely, futile torment
scattered far and wide—

They had scattered far and wide into utter dispersion.
That fragment was like cold ice.
There was no way to gather them now.

Unfortunate people of the northern lands,
Today too, bleached white by midwinter’s elements,
The blood’s warmth became one with the frozen outside air,
Youth too trembled futilely and groaned.

II

One day

The man drew too close to the stove.
Because he had overheated his lower back,
pathologically and unnaturally waving his limbs,
he violently, violently flailed his limbs,
[He] struck his knees and
[he] rubbed violently with both hands and,
like a fly bathed in midday rays often does,
He began his bizarre pantomime.
Emotions burned ever more fiercely and clung tenaciously.

The bizarre motions grew increasingly violent.
The man, with half-closed eyes,
Through the mist-like air,
Swam vigorously like a fish.
And upon the long-frozen ice sea,
He saw blue waves of springtime passion.
He saw blue water dancing playfully in turbulent agitation.

III

The man laughed bashfully through tears.

In the distant season of autumn’s end,
The town’s children sat on the cold earth
One, two, three, and four.

From the time they counted hail into their caps,
the gradually enclosed season of thick fog—
the men’s melancholy white-painted hospital ship
waved its crimson beacon ever higher,

The steam whistle roared on and on, a prolonged agony.

Ah, the sorrowful voyage ship that has lost its markers and wanders.

IV

The man earnestly cupped his own youth in his palms.
He held it up to the soft spring sunlight.
His chest swelled with joyful yet tormenting emotions.
Tears welled up like a spring, unbidden.
Just as the man resembled a deep-sea voyager,
he gazed at the red harbor lights and darted about.
He rang the bronze drum.
He rang the bronze drum.
Fiercely incited by the anchor’s bronze drum into springtime passion,
he swiftly dressed lightly like the wind.
Carrying a new basket of desire,
he scrambled ashore.

V

The man started walking with both hands dangling limply.
He began walking in a reptilian manner.
He dragged his feet raspingly like a lizard.
All across that area,
He crawled through the field burning with green grass.

The vast field was in the full throes of spring.

People sucked in the miasma rising from the earth.
They strolled listlessly.

VI

The woman wandered barefoot, trampling the green grass.

By the uncanny desire of external touch—
the feeble breath of footsteps grown weary
By the uncanny desire of internal tactile sensation—
The woman thudded against the earth,

She sank down into the depth of the thicket there.

VII

Ah, all that walk upon the earth were reptiles.

The lizards, snakes, alligators, turtles—the human species.

They all wandered together in lonely aimlessness.

All travelers were reptiles.

The woman now felt a nostalgic reptilian emotion revive within her.
Tormented by the smell of yellow clay, she flushed.
With her white supple fingers trembling,
she had gone mad and was plucking dandelion flowers.

VIII

The man was like a snake.

He stealthily crawled near.
He lightly and gently tried to tap the woman’s shoulder.
The woman was like electricity, like a cat,
With sparks crackling, she leapt away from the man.
The spring season had made its long-awaited circuit.
As if joy itself had been forgotten,
autumn-like blue and clear,
Her eyes took on a cold-hued gaze.

IX

The man—the woman’s eyes—

To change them into a peach-colored warm hue

How he must have struggled

The man directed a smile at the woman with all his might.

Next, gradually heavier and heavier,

He pressed against her chest area.
He synchronized perfectly with the rhythm of her breathing.
Until finally, he made her breathing grow gradually more labored and violent.

Painfully, violently, painfully.

Skillfully and earnestly repeating this,

Before one knew it,

The woman’s eyes had changed into a warm hue like burning.
With a swimming motion,
She was plucking the grass around there with her whip-like arm.

X

The thicket where the two were lined up—
In the unfathomable depth of a valley unnoticed by any eye,
Soon, a fire-like mist descended upon this valley.
The grasses, trees, and flowers—all
were densely enveloped in warmth.
They became tightly entwined like snakes.
Their bodies fermented.

Kamishibai

“What a fascinating world we live in!”

“Behold!”

Jerk.
...Clunk.

Jerk.
…Clunk.

×

Many dolls raised their right legs

They raised their left legs.

"Truly, truly,"

"Are they not walking with such skill!"

×

“Behold!”

From far across

A white funeral carriage
barreled headlong into the town.
In that carriage,
dolls with detached butterfly hinges
quietly, quietly
were taking their nap.

×

Ah.
When a toy moon rose over the town,
they went in and out of the matchbox.
The dolls squealed shrilly.
They sounded incomprehensible throat whistles.

×

Ah!

The female doll with peeling paint

was meticulously caked with thick powder.

Jerk.
...Clunk.

Jerk.
…Clunk.

They raised their right legs and left legs.

×

Ah, this tormenting kamishibai!

Nakedness

“Come out, everyone!”

“Come out naked!”

“And then—together with me—”
“Let’s put on a naked dance!”

×

In this town where the crimson moon had risen,
They danced their hearts out,
Danced on and on.

They slept in the night dew as if dead.

×

“Behold this enviable nakedness!”

“Look at this frenzied dance!”

×

They danced and danced and danced through

Heh heh

Beneath the base of the Penpan grass roots

Everyone slept amicably together…

Station.

An ill-natured soul thief

He entered the mint tower.

It was an unbearable rapture.

Hard and soft.

An abrupt embrace.

……

The country grandfather's
cheek wrinkles
stretched and contracted.

Boring!
Tedium.

A pinched-faced young woman

Traced wanton footsteps.

Hush!
Silent.

A pale station.

…………
The waiting room bench’s
velvet nap
within its fibers—
fragments of souls
left behind at this station where all things are forgotten.

Three-Legged Human

Limply.

Desiccated sticks.

In the space between haloed crutches

Eerily scattered.

Were scattered.

Its movement was forlorn, yet

Only the kimono was vibrant.

It was rags.

Behold.

On each of those tattered rags

Various altered colors

Are they not clinging?

Ah... what a
Profoundly compassionate... profoundly divine
O Heavenly Sun!
A blue triangle and
A red square and

A black circle and a gray diamond
Chaotically
Now clinging tightly, now pulling apart
Now whirling wildly, now halting abruptly

Dizzyingly bizarre
city buildings—I suppose.
Now now，walk quietly
counting sighs while—
Now now，sleep quietly.

In the cold night dew of the city,
Your completely dead stick also

The half-dead stick too
stopped moving entirely.
And then, if the eyeballs hardened—
sit right there, flattened and still.

Your body
By the time it had flattened out,

There, something blood-like—
blood-like Benben grass would sprout there.

They mocked women's lust.

Women sang.

Before the rain,
Bathed in the morning sunlight,
In the vast expanse of the field,
Sniffing the scent of autumn grasses… sniffing…
Wrapped and wrapped in the autumn grasses’ warmth—that raku-fired—
Playing with yellow sticky clay,
Knead and knead.
The man sang.

He extended this ephemeral rake toward...
the woman's breasts...
would half-heartedly toy with them.
The woman slightly—
Her lips parted.
The woman gulped thickly.

She swallowed saliva.

She narrowed her eyes and shook her body.

The demon sings.

What was that absurd lust?

What was that tepid smile?

Come now, all together—

With a multitude of blue candles

Light them

Cast glare upon her flushed face.

Cast glare upon his flushed face.

Mock that absurd lust.

Grinding saltpeter

A tailless emaciated dog

In the straw hut, it endured quietly.

As it was,
with its tongue lolling out,
it lay dead curled up as it had been.
There was nothing in the corpse’s stomach.
×
"Oh… that’s nothing."
"That’s just how it goes."
×
Clang, clang, clang—
the hatless tottering

Illuminated **the man**

**The midsummer sun**

The midsummer sun gnawed at his empty stomach.
The man flipped over onto his back,
lay dead curled up as he was.
×
"Oh… that’s nothing."
"That’s just how it goes."
×
Glare, glare, glare.
A madly, fiercely gleaming hatchet—
even if they lay in wait for prey at the street corner,

Clatter, clatter, clatter

In a basement where no one could see

Quietly
Even if someone ground glass in a mortar
×

Oh… that’s nothing.
That’s just how it goes.
Lullaby

The disabled soldier exposed the ugly wound of his severed leg.
The gaunt woman from the outskirts thrust out her swollen belly.
The prisoner clanked his chains.
The sick man glared feverishly with sunken eyes.

Everyone... everyone... all together

Walk through the town.

Round and round the perimeter of that high wall they circled.

So that the wealthy gentlemen and ladies might sleep soundly,

They sang them a lullaby of death, poverty, and resignation.

The sailboat of reminiscence raced.

Rowed closer, trembling soul.

It drifted among the waves.

Gathered pearl fragments.

The sailboat of reminiscence—

The sailboat of reminiscence swelled with memory-laden winds—
Ah... wasn't it charging headlong toward the open sea?

That water stretched vast and boundless, yet at its farthest reaches ahead lay a pitch-dark abyss where—

swirled a vortex of naraku.

The boatman shed tears and gripped the sail ropes.

The passengers huddled together and wept themselves to sleep.

Quietly humming a little song of resignation.

Ah…

Today too, riding the gale and the swell of waves,

Like an arrow,

The destinationless sailboat races.

Northerners and April

April in the north was a joy.

Everyone was happy because the snow was melting away.

For within it, adonis flowers were alive.

The snow held nostalgic layers of varied strata,

forming winter’s strata.

The sun too was of course our ally,

and this morning as well, it sent down rain to melt the snow for us.

×

From the first layer: a child’s cap with its visor torn off.

From the second layer: a single white tabi sock and an empty pineapple can.

From the third layer: horse mackerel bones and short winter boots.

×

Each of them was both a welcomer of spring and a participant in the lantern procession.

1922 Work

Prose Poem: Oh, Women of Laurencin

Oh delicate, phantasmal Marie, art of Laurencin—lovely rebel clad in the mask of lyricism and grace, frail warrior—do you claim that the zebras, does, lions, and hounds symbolizing the men you depict, those beasts whose past lives were poets, become before women nothing but foolish conquerors of lust? Men bearing Spanish tambourines and six-stringed lutes to curry favor, playthings for young girls, servants who lick noblewomen’s feet and kiss their hair? I love Laurencin—and while I adore your frail rebellion that views men as sardonic captives of lust, I, as one half of mankind, dedicate this passage to all women dwelling on earth in retort to your ironic artistic vision.

Oh my dear Marie, women of Laurencin—where did you come from? Dressed in strange robes, when did you slip into our dance troupe? Blowing low whistles, feigning kisses, flaunting pale shoulders sideways—did you mean to disrupt our rhythm? Inscrutable serpentine enchantresses—you advanced like Antarctic expedition ships probing men across vast frontiers, frigid ice plains bearing sturdy watchtowers of reason; or like triumphal hymns where laughter slept obedient as the sea upon cushions of compliance. Oh my dear Marie, women of Laurencin—what was that red Persian fan in your hands? It must have been a wind-fan to scatter lust’s flames. Those black spectacles rimmed like sorceresses’, peering at erotic prints—false myopes! Nonchalant dancers pretending opium drunkenness! It must have been the morning’s drunken stupor, gently awaiting a nurse’s tender hand.

My dear Marie, women of Laurencin—keep your hair ornaments of mystery and illusion as they are, only discard that false Persian fan to the ground! Come with light, flying footsteps—I shall firmly embrace you all and dance! In the intervals between dances, if we grow weary, let us sniff at the scent of earth together—isn’t merely inhaling it the very happiness of youth? Laughing, laughing, I dedicate this clumsy prose poem to every fair-skinned, long-haired woman of Laurencin dwelling on earth—January 1924—

Newspaper.
Once again this morning I was in bed,
shifted my gaze with eyes heavy from insomnia and nervous fatigue,
hospital ship’s
settled like a patient,

I read the prescription for civilization’s maladies.

The various medicines heaped there—

The Carnival of Terror and Grotesquerie

All Effective

A report of those who multiplied beyond all bounds.

The robbery-murderer’s prison escape

The adulterous honorable wife

Suicide by Jumping onto Railway Tracks

Mr. X’s Poison Ingestion

Attempted Rape in the Mountain Forest.

In the monotony of a quiet morning,

A dash of pepper

The meal just sprinkled with pepper

My taste had grown weary of such overly

cloyingly sweet meals—

a tongue weary of tasting.

More. More.

Please hire a skilled cook—this modern taste was a withered tongue of affected-flavor enthusiasts! Sticky and greasy... quivering with emotion... I craved dishes! My beloved prescription—oh—I wanted to present even more unconventional ideas! I wanted to present my concepts and such.

Prose Poem: The Drunkard and the Dog

With drunken steps, I staggered out into a plain of half-pleasure and unease like spiraling stairs. The city, lost in midnight reverie, must have been mid-game with its trashy passions—trump cards of base desire. Every roof angle I tilted my head to bore triangular eyes spinning wildly in oddly composed, cold shadows, while rows of telegraph poles nearby began toppling one by one onto the snowy ground with dreadful boom-boom crashes. It was a quiet yet bustling cityscape. Determined to find some animal companion in the slumbering boulevard, I arched my back and sniffed around restlessly to steady my trembling legs in the road’s center, but my dilated pupils found not a single beloved friend. Like a survivor of Earth’s ruin longing for life itself, I wandered aimlessly in loneliness. The hushed midnight sky blazed only with moonlight—a northern moon’s blue roundness reflecting off the town’s pale azure whiteness, drowsing like a feverish hot-water bottle’s warmth. Just then, there on the vast winter-bright snow beneath my feet stood a black-rimmed dog—short-legged, Henri Rousseau’s dog—suddenly erect. Overjoyed at gaining this virtuous friend, I stared down at it. Then from afar came howls—“Oooh oooh oooh oooh”—and my dog too seemed to howl tearfully in reply. From shadows everywhere emerged its pack-mates—streaming out in droves—five or ten dogs in motley attire, flapping long ears and aligning forelegs neatly as they howled skyward in unison. Watching intently, I soon found myself howling “Oooh oooh oooh oooh” alongside their shared emotion. My dog, suddenly terrified by the moonlight, curled its tail and stood dumbstruck in the peacefully sleeping moonlit town—now one earnest hound amid the boundless strangeness of sky and earth, howling “Oooh oooh oooh oooh” under humanity’s curses—January 20, 1924—

Prose Poem: Idiot Henri Rousseau

Who would be fool enough to walk straight down this broad avenue? Likely none but that crowd of pallid gentlemen in romanticists’ covered wagons—limp-wristed souls passing by, ears tilted to roadside harmonicas! Could even a single evildoer mimic the gait of that dullard fool Henri Rousseau, France’s customs officer, or dare sniff the stench of his stride steeped in gray sincerity?

Is not the market value of praised humans mere cheap pottery—worth less than a single blade of shepherd’s purse sprouting in graveyards—dazzled by the shallow phosphorescence of electric flower-lanterns adorned with blue and red illuminations? Let every last one of you strip off your new Western suits and stand naked under the city’s scorching sun! Try sustaining a stride as earnest as Rousseau’s! Are we not all impure, desiccated flesh—bodies birthed beyond redemption—from whose soles tread on glass shards not even crimson blood flows? Truly, he may be a sincere fool, a dull-witted idiot—yet in his art I discover the reality of midnight’s profound gaze, primordial forests’ translucent contemplations, and silent meditations, sparing no praise for my boundless resonance and yearning. Rousseau’s art—rendered still as rainfall’s solitude yet storm-like in its calm—is to us perverse humans, these flimsy freaks, nothing less than a searing hammer-strike of revelation… and terror.

To consider him an idiot—one who forgets the distinction between memory and present, between reality and illusion—is a mistake. He is a laborer who knows life with the raw agony of a sperm cell grown naked, who sees reality’s form too pitifully; this man of hidden sensitive expression is heartbreakingly fragile, yet his dullness is the endurance of a grand emotion that walks ever straight down its path.

We offer hymns upon this earth, worship at the footsteps of great idiot-sages, kiss the brow of Rousseau’s vast self-portrait, and receive the baptism of eyes dulled yet purified by gazing upon some corner of nature—just as suffering is nurtured in weeds sprouting from roadside trees and found in the monochrome of black winter skies, so too do our thoughts lurk within Rousseau’s dull-witted idiocy and Henri Matisse’s simplicity. Rather than gathering these orchestral meditations of ours—so dazzling yet tormenting in their reality—go instead and gather the flute’s note echoing from some nearby alley’s gloom.

Ah, we young thinkers! Within this bronze jar hidden in the water’s depths—a lover gleaming like a purple diamond, a yearned-for savior awaiting us—it is precisely in mist-like contrasts, so easily forgotten, that our desired thoughts reside. And within Henri Rousseau’s tepid idiot-sage meditations lurks anguish: a pale flame of fervor burning like fire.

February 1924

Desire Takes Its First Steps

You all are the communal toilet’s

A grotesque musical score drawn on a white wall

Did they pore over the yellow hieroglyphs?

That is the chronicle of desire taking its first steps.

Passions are swift as the wind.

Tonight again, I stole in quietly—

I sneaked into bed.

My desire brimmed over

like chilled sake—

the heart disease patient who gazes deeply,
finding joy in objects of contemplation—

a deep blue drunkard.

He was a deep blue drunkard.

◇

I loved reckless lust.

Once again,

I mingled with the swarming desires taking their first steps.

In the crowd,

the young woman’s bosom—

I tried to take the wallet, but…

◇

The wallet I stole was empty.
The woman and I laughed and parted ways.

The Cigarette’s Sentimental Conjuring

Woman,

my now-beginning

This sentimental conjuring

Pray observe this from afar.

This, to you—
Let me make this my reply.

×
Now... this is a single cigarette.

Next, I held it in my mouth.
To that cigarette
The passionate match.
It was you who struck it.
×

Indeed, you lit the fire.

It was a magic trick without tricks or devices.

×

First off—my Tayuu-san
slowly smoked a cigarette,
slowly exhaled smoke from her nose—
thickening and thickening like mist—

In the thickening smoke,

Smirking.

Did she smoke while laughing?

You never noticed a thing.
That was masterful work.

×
Woman,
You pick up the cigarette butt.
Pick it up and go home.

Spring Passions—Trio—

Spring—April—…

Someone blowing a cigarette smoke ring

At the base of the bridge, someone gazed at the sky.

×

Through the city of thick fog,

guffawing and bluntly honest—

A woman passed by…… It’s spring, April—

Coal Miner and Moon—Yūbari Impression—

Ah, upon the earth above the inclined shaft that probes my fissure

It was dusk when I gathered many blue pine eyeballs.

The husband’s loincloth that had devoured magnesium and dynamite

At sunset, it hung faintly dried like cherry blossoms.

Gradually, the moon rose.

…………

From the small lattice of the brothel

My coal miner gazing at the sky

The scattered ultraviolet rays—
no matter how much he devoured—
a month where his lung ailment refuses to heal.

…………

Sludge-sludge.

Sludge-sludge, sludge-sludge.

Tomorrow was another day of hauling work.

Love-Slave Compassion

Ah, the more one looked—

Was it a sorrowful walk?

Astonishingly gigantic footprints on the sandy ground,

[They] dried silver-spotted masu trout at the riverbed

and amused themselves with char fish's strange red bellies

from that era when they crushed monkeys and crabs with stones in play—

The pride that once overflowed in the tribe has vanished,
My compassion falls upon your footprints

Like rain pouring down upon daylily flowers.

Ah, year after year your cherished salmon spawned dead.

The riverbed sand’s colossal newborn infant.

The worn salmon-skin bootprints glistened like gold dust.

Seascape

O cherry-craving sea color! O blue hue!
O midsummer sea’s wind’s hue!

Standing in the quiet seascape that stung all eyes,

Because I bit into the flesh of a woman’s thigh,

my dentures

melted away, flowed off, and flew away.

In such shallows,

two appetite-stirring red fish—

letting them swim entangled was dangerous.

Throw the stone into the water.

Cool sailing ships floated and sank.

They swelled greatly.
They shrank small.

The yellow cargo glinted brilliantly.

Across warships spread over the sea,

white gun barrels stood in rows,

dully lined up left and right.

If they fired the cannon with a boom...

the soldiers would leap like bouncing balls.

In the midsummer seascape where the sun spun round and round,
Even my poverty wanted to bathe.
It flew out of the mouth and demanded white eyes.
Vanish, this extravagant seascape!
To me, it is a useless landscape.

Ezo

My Ezo lay writhing.
All around was a wild sea.
It froze stiff in cold’s pallid whiteness.
Misery through the four seasons—

[It] came circling more tenderly than a loving mother,
The whole body seemed about to burn away.
He stood in the twilight of anguish,

A Man Who Loves the Seasons

Touching his emaciated pale cheek

Laughing heartily while being fully hated by God

The sea ceaselessly drifted a new scent.
If you dug into the sand dunes,
you would find spring and autumn’s noctilucent pearls.

Northerners

The Azure Vault of the Four Seasons

The eye in the grand visage.
The man battling there was blood.
The brain held weight like a club,
The heart became the glint of a stone axe.
Ah, above us Northerners' heads
There existed an azure vault clear as polished stone.
One day brought storms laced with gold dust.
One day brought frost blossoms and heavy fog.
One day saw wildfire vegetation blaze up.
One day became a crystal-clear blizzard of summer blossoms.

Ourselves!

The March of Stone Axes and Clubs

Those who had long battled against nature’s flesh,

Living in the azure vault of four seasons,

Swelled through breathing in seasonal hardships.

Pregnant Stone

The moon indeed rose high.

Above the shadow-outlined silver forest.

In the white, great open space,
a stone quieter than death,
like a newborn ablaze,
writhed and wailed in violent labor pains.

Upright emotions churn relentlessly.

Spring,

Come,
From the season of oppression and cold that quivers at conception,
Between stones and stones,
The day when blue life burns,

Godless Horse

My nothingness

I heaped strawberries of regret into a basket.

I ate while laughing, crying, grieving, and raging.

When the morning sun rose, everything cleared away completely.

The beloved clings like a seashell
It clings to the back and will not let go.
Love is an eternal and joyous burden.

A horse was set loose in the town.

Ah, that was my Godless Horse.

The hide, worn with fatigue, grew thick and ugly.
It stood unperturbed in the lightless grassland.

Tree of Sunset

The soft golden tree

All at once, soundlessly, it began to collapse.

The people revived amidst the dust.

Shadows overlapped and dashed out in countless numbers.

Like a wildfire,

what stood amidst the brilliance were eyes of livestock exhausted from their toil—yearning for a new disease.

The fire burned.
The entire expanse of the town’s black polygonal sky.
The cradle of extinction swayed.
And the big child began to dream.

Crystallized substance.

Desire.

That was the fruit of my tree.

It was a beautiful thing surging like waves.

It was the cargo given to my horse.

The folly of trying to escape and

I attempted to take a detour.

Abandon hollow efforts.

My limbs were children on infinite earth.

You who ceaselessly move and laugh!

The god who had not even a dwelling on the earth

called out with a white-eyed glare.

I am crystallized blood.

I do not desire easy sleep.

Evening Repast in the Snow

From behind, purple once more—
A wind layered with many crimson rings
Rushes like a child.

The snow-covered town at dusk

Faintly grilling the fish’s belly.

The smell of the evening repast drifted smokily through.

My illness sank with true grace
into a northern white marshland,
like deep-hued snow lost away,
pinned down by the weight of thick fur.
The darkness of night struck me first—
the violent, ghastly beast’s
bed among withered trees
was enclosed in lonely frost.

The man guarding the window

That high window—for what purpose?
Does it ring all day with a rounded voice?
If that window rings

The man stood beside that window.
The tall man too brightened up cheerfully.

The man had thin cheeks and a strong Adam’s apple.
Glistening like a guardian deity,
he guarded the high window burning green day after day.

Grass sprouts in my palm,
Lives within a breath of wind,
Never struck upon its face.

The seat I occupy—

Is this space I inhabit no larger than a needle’s eye?

Yet how fiercely verdant this grass—

How vibrant this vitality is!
I have never once seen the grass take its meal, yet...
In a corner of my dwelling

Before I knew it, the vegetation had come walking.
A being without a stomach—
How can it be so healthy?
Now in the palm of my hand—
I shudder at feeling the grass grow.
Truly, he could even upon my head—
he could sprout across my shoulders.

On the morning of the first snow
As if a woman steeped in shame had slipped into the valley,
Overnight it cleansed my field of vision.
O serene white world—
I, in this chilled winter season,
After the thunder ceased,
Found solace in a loneliness akin to standing beside an abyss.
Blow upon these parched lips.
Blow upon this hoarse throat too.
Buffeted by a soft wind that tickled my nose hairs,
Caressed by your wise wind,
I would scatter these oppressive feelings.

Mournful dawn.

I stood within the fissure.

Was this place dawn?

What a mournful dawn this was.

There was also a single remaining star.

The river wind struck my chest.

The things I had forgotten—

I just kept recalling them one after another.

Welcoming the dim light once more,

Leaping over this quiet cliff,

I went out to town trembling.

The Life of Two

From within a supple existence,

something like clustered grapes

I discovered something connected to fish's eyes.

And after hating each other for so long,

there was a woman living with me.

Ah, already you and I—

we held hands in inertia's depths.

Your will lay in the distant field

my will rested upon this tree here

And so there was a strangely gentle distance—
A lovely pair coming and going.
What connected us was not some dry hemp rope like ash—
It walked across bell-like crystals instead.
We would place our hands on chins that tended to droop
and look into each other’s eyes
or sit facing one another like crabs all day long.

The man was not idle.

Woman, do not blame that indolence.

The brain was merely like a celebration.

It was filled with innocent happiness.

Seriously considering moving his body,

undulating, shining, resplendently,

if he was sitting there,

he would soon vanish without a trace.

You and I would both end up scattered.

Ah, outside the window—
A dark cold curtain hung down.
Dusk closed in on the flowers as well.
On the glossy sea’s surface,
a mere momentary glimmer
hoisted a sail like a cluster of grapes.

The Luster of the Countryside

O village, my village, shining village. When I was in the city and thought of you, you always appeared wearing glittering clothes. No glossy object clung—I did not think anything clung to you—yet trees, uneven mountain paths, thatched roofs, village children’s heads and such, all like noctiluca, made your skin swell and appear with the luster of countless creatures. Even as I lived in the city then, I did not forget your precise visage. I fiercely recollected you—you who remain an unceasing radiance of longing.

You are yearning’s eternal radiance that never fades.

The Roar of the Tide

Japan’s burden was
Two waves—
The Pacific and the Sea of Japan,
Where a violent ebb and flow raged.
The waves heaved with labored breath,
Upon these narrow islands
Drawing their white faces near.
But what an intimate,
Mother-like sea it must have been.
When evening came,
While wetting my feet,
I picked up shells to play with—
Dried-up fish,
Sometimes European ship gear
And discolored grains of sand—
On the waves, a newspaper drifted.

In fact—Japan,

I wonder if Japan possesses magnetism.

O friends of Europe,
The migratory bird that came from your country
landed in Japan, the sole resting place,
And left a beautiful single strand of shed hair as my memento.
Eventually, on the soles of its feet,
It departed with Japanese sand clinging tightly.
On which day will it alight in your garden, I wonder.
The inlet’s beauty
speaks of the violent mingling of waves,

The sturdiness of pine trees comes from fierce winds.
O friends, friends of Europe.
Cease your unequal praise of Japan.
The true substance of Japan’s rhythm—
like the sea’s roaring tide—

Know that it is a solemn and grave thing.

Ancestors’ Descent from the Mountain

The gentle feudal lord

The gentle feudal lord descended the mountain while carrying a long sword.

Cheerfully, while conversing with his companion beside him,

The fog was deep; the clouds roiled.

There, *The Mysterious Life of Japan*’s

[He] planted *The Mysterious Life of Japan*’s deep roots into the earth.

Still, Japan’s strangeness persists even now—

The floating bridge of the spirit connects to the bridge of the world.

Amidst bewilderment, make flowers of astonishment bloom,

Let us rebuild our dwelling time and again,

Let us descend to new land,

To new land.

While laughing and talking brightly like our ancestors.

The mountain’s spiritual energy wrapped my cloak,

With that luminous pollen

Decorating like luminous plankton,

Commune with the world’s ideologies.

The woodcutter stood beneath the canopy of a tall tree.

With a thunderous roar, he felled it.

The branches swept the putrid sky.

All of Japan’s sacred rites,

Let us preside over them with our own hands.

The flower of the race—
Your spirit and body—
Slept long in a larch cradle,
Lived on storm's ice fragments as sustenance.

The pine's fine roots were buried in mud.

The surrounding area was an expanse of moss-covered earth like the sea.

The damp flames burned.

Wasted away like a wildcat.

Withered from the season’s toxins, the flower of the race,

Ainu Ainu

Today too, sitting in the rowan tree on the high peak,

the breath of lung ailment made his beard tremble.

Urban Hunger

O bustle, O urban bustle!
I spent the day writhing from beautiful convulsions,

Without any destination in mind,
I let my feet lead me,
walked until exhausted,
and rested at every street corner,

Dazedly, the roadway and sidewalk lay in chaos,
At the crossroads built from dust,
I stared with a hatred almost like a beast’s.

O city, I caught your tail.
Am I rolling about with your tail?

The noise above my hat—
Ah, it screeched like a brown cicada.
Even the beloved cloud
plummeted vertically down and covered my path.
On the street, someone kept dragging their feet,

I saw a person restlessly wandering.

Those shoes gleamed like greedy claws,

They seemed to scratch the ground incessantly with them.

When I saw this, I was doubly tormented,

I was made to board a vehicle,

From the city to an uninhabited realm, just like that

How happy I would be if cast away...
No—here I remain within humanity’s whirlpool—
This existence suits me best.
A sudden horror seized me.
Cold fingers brushed my shoulder—
That fleeting touch vanished

It swiftly vanished into the crowd.
I looked around; I cowered,
I shuddered like a child.
I was there—amidst the city’s great bustle—

I saw an uncanny instant.
With terrifying momentum crushing,
As if it had suddenly departed skyward,
I felt my body
plummeting into a vacuum gorge.

I involuntarily clenched my teeth,

I was nailed to a tightly constricted space.

At that moment, the crowd was already feeling the same thing as I.

My shoulders too—people’s shoulders too—heaved with waves of sighs,

that which oppressively severed a moment,

it was hazy and misted white,

something like a large-winged bird,

descending upon a corner of the city’s visage,

then suddenly taking flight again, startling those around—

What was it? What was this thing that had kicked my forehead?

Could it be that this thing which I and others equally felt—

Could this be the true nature of what we call urban hunger?

Karafuto-bushi

Here in Primorye where waves roll on unbroken—DON, DON, DON,

The rock’s droplets—oh those purple droplets—

Suddenly casting down a gaze—the indigo abyss,
For whom to brew, gathering medicinal herbs,
DON, climb this rock.

Here in Primorye where waves roll on unbroken—DON, DON, DON,
Oh that charmer afloat on the sea,
Lined-up seals, umibōzu,
Entangled in love, diving through water,
DON, Hup, five-shot revolver.

Here in Primorye where waves roll on unbroken—DON, DON, DON,
Drifting endlessly, ho! this seafaring work,
With a spyglass, probing the depths,
A wheel-oar handled with practiced arms,
DON, take this kelp.

Here in Primorye where waves roll on unbroken—DON, DON, DON,
Fields stretching wide, a haze of blossoms,
Though I tried to live forgetting women,

The black lilies on the hill—how they torment!

DON, Hup, spring wind.

(Note) The DON, DON, DON are chant syllables (hayashi kotoba), or alternatively, evoke the sound of waves with a drum.

Baraban-bushi

Let’s strike the broken gong.

Baraban’s BAN

The rifled gun on the wall—what does it shoot?

I’m a villain; mere bloodshed won’t suffice.

In the mountain’s rugged crags, prayer-strikes.

Baraban’s BAN

Let’s strike the broken gong.

Baraban’s BAN

The moon hangs dim over the city,

Reckless ne’er-do-wells, the bar’s door,
Drunkenly they lean against it—creaks open.
Baraban’s BAN
Let’s strike the broken gong.

Baraban’s BAN

The waves were the Pacific’s festering waves

This fleeting world's rotgut—this world is hell,
To commit love suicide, there's no partner.
Baraban's BAN
Let's strike the broken gong.

Baraban’s BAN

13,000 shaku, Mount Fuji

Narrow Japan can be seen in a single glance,

In the flower field, Calmotin.

Baraban’s BAN

White Sparrow

On granite there was a tree,

That was a beautiful cherry blossom.

This kind of miracle exists everywhere.
Curse those who laugh at miracles!
The guns lined up in the square
would probably soar into the heavens.
The revolutionary flag would probably hang in windows.

I believe in

I believed in the miracles of the Mikado’s country, in the emergence of blinding Japan—Japan was Noah’s ark bearing tranquil joy. The kinship’s skin pressed close to this small place.

It would soon arrive at a new peak.

“Have you seen the white sparrow?!”

“I do not see the white sparrow!”

I saw.
Through rusted trees,
The White Sparrow that flew away.

The feathers gleamed.
While drenched in gentle phantom mist,
having flown gracefully from the past.

Offering

We held fast to our comrade -
the blurred shrine god -
observing him clear at arm's length -
passing judgment - while brittle relics

We returned them to their homeland—to their native soil. We wielded new iron. We built a new spiritual temple.

We extended new faith and
as our beauty, as our illusion,

We summoned spring anew to the waning seas and mountains. Our Mikado sat enshrined above our spirits—blazing reeds, silvery mist—for divine traces existed everywhere, and there we made offerings. At dawn, flames rose solemnly beneath that solar radiance.

Let our stronghold shine.
Let our young spirits be the offering.

**Tokyo Dondoro Song**

Ginza backstreets—raccoon dog dens

Shape-shifting and shape-shifted

Shift forms to your heart’s content

Cunning hands, scheming hands

Doled out in meager portions

When the coffers empty—bid farewell

Thump-thump, paper lanterns, midday delusion.

Asakusa district—rattlesnake coiling

Showering offering coins

Futile invocations

The hall’s Kannon-sama

Kannon-sama condescends to chuckle

The philanderer’s earnest mask

Thump-thump, paper lanterns, midday delusion.

Maru Building’s prime plot—cactus thicket

Young maiden’s

place of toil

The barbed executive

Greasy seduction

Refuse compliance—face dismissal

Thump-thump, paper lanterns, midday delusion.

If you don’t say yes, you’ll be dismissed.

Thump-thump, paper lanterns, midday reverie.

He is ill-mannered.

America, first let me praise you—
the crude emotionality laid bare upon your lustrous visage,
those polished features of yours,

then for your sake—you who whenever possible
concoct slipshod schemes regarding China and Japan,
who strive to transform Japan into rogues,

for the sake of your grandiose campaign plans
dragging cultivators across the seas—

let us revere America's magnificent endeavors.

Indeed throughout Japan's every corner
you sowed coarse carnal fires.

You skilled cultivators,
You even created edible cacti.
From the home of selective breeding
You seasoned ones who came all the way from afar.
Distorted American-style Japan,
Drive your plows into mountains and fields as tomorrow’s harvest.
And eventually Japan’s castles and mountain ranges,
the cultivated land of Eastern thought with its terribly unstable footing—
you will realize that what you’ve spread open has terribly unstable footing.
If you wish to dwell in a corner of Japanese thought,
If you say you wish to dwell there,
First and foremost, you must learn to behave better.

Your tour groups clamor pointlessly,
then lodge one night in houses of bamboo blinds and paper,
only to catch colds and return home.

To the New Formalist Poets

“You’re quite the schemer yourself. When the sun rose, you opened your fan, didn’t you? When free verse was anguishing, you insisted on the prose poem form, didn’t you? But you fanned that fan just a bit too hard, you know. Taira no Kiyomori had contracted a fever—this time, it’s free verse’s turn to fan you and cool your flushed excitement. Circling round and round until you finally arrive,”

Your zabuton remained in its original position,

So there you sat sinking into deep contemplation—

So there you opened your fan,

So there you performed a little dance—

Or else at Nagara River

manipulated twelve cormorants with twelve strings,

You wept at the cormorant keeper’s expertise,

Will you stubbornly insist on twelve-line fixed-form poetry to the bitter end,

Let that be fine,

The prose poem form contains intellectuals’ whining,

Because it was a good straw bag,

This time’s fixed-form poetry also became quite new,

It would make a fine sack for holding melancholy,

From cormorant fishing’s inspiration,

Demonstrate that genius of yours that establishes twelve-line fixed forms—
They imitated cormorants and drowned.
Lest you become crows,
Those doctrines you once proclaimed and swallowed whole—
Don’t disgrace yourselves by vomiting them up again.

All of this was what you proclaimed before the public,
As an eternal free verse advocate,

As the overseer of your claims,
I stood forth as witness.
Fixed-form poetry—what a concept they had conceived.
For someone as unworthy and dim-witted as myself,
no matter where I looked,
no fixed-form poetic reality could be found—
that, for someone like myself,
was a lamentable thing.
How much more so you with your fixed-form poetry,
pressing both verse and truth
like chocolate or jelly
into confectionery molds—
so that was your grand scheme—to pop them out one after another?

I merely dazedly held your claims,
I merely held them aloft and paid homage to their fading glow.

Golf Links

Friday saw a terrible storm rage.

Saturday cleared up.
With the noblewoman’s peony bucket,
As if meticulously patting skin,
The ground was nicely moistened by the rain.
Sunday brought no wind, no dust was stirred up.
A custom-ordered perfect day for golf,

――The sky was preternaturally clear,
How pleasant it must have been,
Heaven bestows blessings for our sake,
Heaven saves those who are saved.

The golf gentlemen seemed happy,

The railway dispatcher
Ten cars bound for the golf course were coupled.
The special train was dispatched.

×

In the tattered farmhouse, the mother yelled,

Kichiya,

“Today the gentlemen are off to golf—

they’re off to golf,

“Hurry and run to the station!”

The train arrived,

The mother from the dark closet

She dragged out the sooty trunk.
The sole reserved one.
She took out a dark indigo-checked kimono and dressed the child in it.
The child stood dazedly.

“Kichiya,”
“Just say yes to everything,”
“Bow your head an’ say ‘Yes ma’am,’”
“Don’tcha dare sass back even if you mess up,”
“A peasant brat like you,”
“Bank gentlemen an’ picture-show ladies an’,”
“You’ll be standin’ before high-up honored gentlemen,”
“Don’tcha go makin’ no blunders,”
“‘Yes ma’am’ to whatever they say,”
“Don’tcha go talkin’ outta turn,”
Then the child nodded repeatedly.

“Mother,”

“I’ll go.”

“Mother, again—”

“Can I get some chocol—”

“You idiot brat!”

“You peasant brat—”

“All you ever think about is getting things,”

“Don’tcha go starin’ even if the gentlemen are eatin’,”

“Don’tcha go gawkin’,”

“the gentlemen with tens of thousands of yen in credit and”

“us water-drinking peasants and”

“Don’tcha go actin’ like we’re equals, I tell ya,”

“You got that? Understood?”

“If ya get it, then get movin’!”

Then the child nodded repeatedly.

And then he dashed off.

×

When he gazed out, there lay an expansive golf course—
The green grass stretched far off,
Continuing beyond the gentle hills—
—Why had such a
Vast area been preserved
Been preserved—one might wonder—
Those who saw from train windows—
To such an extent that anyone would doubt—
Without deference or courtesy to anyone—
For the health of these people
The land was spread out far and wide.
——A fine Sunday for these people.
——For these people, the sky cleared.
——For these people, trains were dispatched.

——For these people, the air cleared,

——For these people, the ball soared far,

Beautiful striped golf trousers,

A cluster of jaunty flat caps,

Resounding, carefree laughter of men and women,

On the trimmed lawn

he placed a small white ball.

The golf gentleman pulled back his left foot and stood.

With full composure,

he struck it with a clang using a long-handled paddle,

That—the brat’s ball—

Kichiya, as if his own head had been struck,

startled in surprise and dashed out at full speed to retrieve that ball.

×

The Bible is not my mother.

I am in a fierce rage

When I begin to tremble,
That becomes the path to seizing all “freedom”—
It marks my embarkation upon the campaign.

At that time, I must be imprudent.
Immoral as well,
and must also be greedy.

I welcome these bad criticisms.
The servants tried to adhere to their master’s regulations.
They loved all existing harmony and morality.

“All wrongs that humans can commit—

“Are all wrongs humans can commit not merely those openly recorded in the Bible?”

—William Blake—

The Bible too is insufficient.
The wrongs I commit
are not written in the Bible.
The Bible is not my mother.
He cannot embrace me tightly.

History would commit—through our hands—great wrongs not yet written in scripture,
those great unwritten wrongs
we would commit through our hands.
Moreover, those wrongs would be
—through and through original—
those of the proletariat.

Whimsical Poem: On Filial Piety

There was a wicked kamishibai man.
He gathered children.
The things he said were old-fashioned.
“Everyone,
My dear children.
Your father and mother—”

“They’re husband and wife—”

Even among the children, there were know-it-alls.

“Of course! When you’re husband and wife, you have marital fights—”

“My prudent young audience!” The kamishibai man adjusted his picture cards. “Now then—what do you suppose constitutes filial piety? Do you know?”

“We know,
’cause times are hard now,
’cause wanting to eat three bowls of rice—
putting up with just two bowls
that’s filial piety for ya—.”

“My dear children, most prudent proletarian children.”

“Proletarian children.”

The kamishibai man

“I’ll give you a reward.”

“If you want it，raise your hands.”

“—Very well.”

“Very well—I’ll hand out the candy right away.”

“Run home，get one sen，and come back.”

Prose Poem: The Crows Are Not to Be Hated

I love the morning crows. Their figures—like a young gentleman strolling in an English-style frock coat—wander carefree through the somewhat damp morning brightness of the road, their pace brisk and nearly airborne, a sight most pleasing. Especially when flying in from the distant sky, arriving at the pointed tip of my roof, tracing swift circles once or twice before stretching their thick legs fully into midair and alighting upon their target—my roof—then rocking their glossy black bodies up and down two or three times before settling into place.

He always came to perch at a fixed time in the morning, and at the appointed hour flew off to who knows where—so to speak, the roof of my house served as the sole landmark on his journey, perhaps having established a habit of respite along the way.

When he alighted upon this not-too-spacious promenade, his figure—as though having departed from the distant rose-hued predawn sky, abandoned a covered wagon mid-journey, and now stood upon this roof with the affected air of one leisurely smoking a cigar—strolled here and there across the rooftop, evoking a young lord of democratic nobility.

He sang solo from the rooftop toward the pristine morning town; people heard this solo as a hymn of happiness, as a crisply clear song of blessing. No doubt he himself, with a clear, empty stomach fully expanded, offered sincere morning blessings.
I knew he was a notorious glutton; thus I did not care to hear his impure song after meals, and now I found myself delighting in the morning crow’s empty-stomach song before feeding.

Of the three crows, I liked the morning crow best.

Before I knew it, the crows' eyes turned melancholy.
The daytime crows, bearing no resemblance to those of the morning in their utterly exhausted appearance, gathered in great numbers on a meager expanse of vacant land spread with the town's brown soil. There they would furiously dig into sunken earth, pull out reddish things, and fight over them.

Some came flying from the distant sky and, without the slightest hesitation, descended upon this squabbling flock. But those crows immediately hid and vanished from sight amidst the wave-like tumult.

Some, having strayed some distance from the flock, walked through the grass. Their gait showed an uncannily faltering crisscross—like city addicts glutted on black smoke and clamor—while others walked with necks erect and hips lifted as if keeping rhythm, resembling delinquent youths in black coats.

The crows darting through the afternoon city skies—as sunset approached, their emotions began to gleam with an uncanny blue.
Their emotions shifted into increasingly mysterious and complex sentiments—descending from skies as distant as typhoons—until they transformed into passions of reckless abandon fierce enough to alight upon an executioner’s nape.
And from utility pole to utility pole, from roof to roof, they repeated a flight that never alighted.

Among them, a crow that had alighted on the parched, dust-covered ground at a bustling intersection’s crossroads vigorously swung its threadbare, meager tail in the dirt, performing a languid composition—a figure that harmonized all too well with the twilight air.
It became a distressingly decadent scene.

I knew nothing of the night crows' lives, but I once looked up at a flock perched like fruit upon a tall bare tree that stood black and upright in the vague brightness of sunset skies—each crow maintaining its precise interval of distance in silent contemplation, their forms profoundly suggestive and strangely endearing.

Crows possess three distinct personalities and emotions across morning, noon, and night.

These personalities and emotions transform in countless ways through each hour's changing atmosphere and landscapes.
They shift into endless intricate variations.

I did not see this enigmatic friend merely as a bird of vice and indolence.
Just as humans who indulge in much pleasure and know much decadence are said to know many lives, I did not see this gluttonous friend as a mere bird. Though I found endearing the innocent forms of other various birds—spreading their gentle, beautiful wings to soar through open skies in pure-hearted flight—all things emitted the phosphorescence of ugliness and decay.
Coming to the soil of alleyways most intimately connected to our human society, living lives akin to our own—I could not bring myself to hate the endearing emotions of these crows.

Especially since he possesses eyes of firm reason akin to humans, and simultaneously, when he engages in fierce combat with friends, he exudes a terrifying masculinity of storm-like passion.

I could not hate him.
As I stared at him dragging his black mantle—adorned with blue patterns—across the ground, hopping on one leg with a pit-a-pat rhythm, I found myself helplessly drawn into the suggestive allure of that blackness, my emotions slipping inexorably into its grasp.