Pathway to Japanese Literature

Preface

More than twenty years ago—no, even before that—when I first began writing poetry, I made this vow: that within my lifetime, I would accumulate enough poetry collections to match my own height in stacked volumes.
In those days of youth, when what might be called life’s combustion burned fiercely within me, everything that met my eyes or touched my heart seemed destined to become poetry; I genuinely believed I could amass verse collections reaching my full stature.

Now, had that desire been fulfilled? With this latest collection added to my tally, it became my third volume as I reached forty-three years of age. The height of these poetry collections fell far short of my stature—they barely cleared my ankles. Though considered prolific among poets, I reckoned that at this rate my life's work would never even reach knee height. For this collection too, I could have made curated selections to present more respectable poems outwardly, but recognizing how misguided such selection would be, I resolved to include everything without exception.

This poetry collection was not created to have readers read selected good poems; rather, I did it this way because I believed it most proper for them to read all of them—the good and the bad alike—and thereby come to understand the human Oguma.

In this poetry collection, the works at the beginning were the most recent, while those further on became increasingly older.
They generally spanned from the beginning of Showa 12 to the present.

Therefore, I wanted young readers to read from the back so they might chronologically trace the development and transitions within their own hearts.
I believed there dwelled such things as the righteous fervor of youth, the missteps of youthful impetuosity, and all manner of other elements.

And I wanted elderly readers to proceed from the first page and come to understand how the nature of youth transforms.

And I myself was astonished at how my recent poems had become so docile and mild, and I reflected that it was by no means my aim henceforth to write violent poetry.

This was something I discovered myself: when I compiled this poetry collection, I noticed how frequently poems singing of "night" appeared within it, which made me reflect on how the reality of Japan had enveloped the fortress of my heart in what resembled a state of profound darkness.
Yet I do not believe I navigated through that darkness by means of self-assertion and egoism.
The fortress of my heart had collapsed.
Moreover, it seemed to have crumbled in the most natural manner possible.

(Transcriber's Note)

The base text includes Nakano Shigeharu’s “Preface.”
Here, we have independently included the preface by Oguma Hideo himself that was quoted there.

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Correspondence Poetry Collection

Horse Manure Mushroom

Dear horse manure mushroom

How are you faring now

The horse's sleeping breath sets my heart aquiver

In the corner of the stable
Strangely untrampled even by horses
Are you thriving there,
It’s spring, after all—everyone’s hearts must be trembling.
What has become of your friend the horsetail shoots
They were spindly fellows,
their nature so delicate even the wind could rend them
they were gentle fellows, but
Are the butterflies still flying as ever,
Dear horse manure mushroom
I came to the city
My heart has grown dull.
Polishing shoes and
Only learned to drink coffee
I became a person with no merits.

When leading the horse out from the stable
It let out a powerful snort
That collided against my chest.
In the city, they come snorting around my chest—
These things that come charging—
Always bad women.
This wretch clings to my chest
"—Eat your Chinese noodles already," it demands
Vulgar, vulgar powder-stench city
I long for the country soil's smell,
swell
My owl

In sorrow,

It was trapped and unable to sleep.

It flapped noisily from tree to tree,

And sang

—O— O, O, O,

I wish I’d never been born—

—O, O, O, O, O—i.

My swelling

loves terror,

delights in doubt.

She is night's priestess.

Once she was a prophet,

now she who prays

more than any other—

a priestess praying

with a heart that rends.

My swelling

Within every sleep
She sang hatred
amidst the dreams of all things
like scattering magic powder
It lingered even after waking
Scattered paralysis,

My swelling
holds things to scatter
It means singing through night,

Insomnia

My sun,
You dawdle at becoming dawn,
You’re dawdling!
My sleepless eyes

No less than the moonlight,
They shine all night long.

The things surrounding the night
Not a single one smiles.
My heart too doesn't even crack a faint smile.
I think every night
Never knowing weariness from thinking

On People's Misfortune

On My Misfortune

I have been thinking for a very long time

Long, long night,

A night without a single smile,

A night without voices raised,

Suffocating night,

A night when clock hands refuse to move,

A baby with soaked diaper wails,

The mother’s voice soothing it

Is heard only to fall silent,

While swaying white milk

At fixed hours,

The rattling milk cart passes.

Sun—now you finally begin

With pale peach-colored light

The sun began tinting the window curtains—
How excruciatingly slow dawn must be in coming!
The one waiting wasn't just me alone—
probably not.

Spring Song

The insects began to stir.
They formed a line on the parched earth.

When I saw that, my chest tightened.
Jealousy burned.
For a noble purpose—
The moment I realized these creatures were walking—
Spring had arrived.

The insects too were freed from the cold,

Tuberculosis bacteria multiplied,

The starlight too dimmed,

Violets also bloomed.

Spring arrived.

I tried blocking the small insects' path with my finger.

They detoured around my finger.

They were gentlemanly.

They were astonishingly composed,

Each focused on their own path ahead,

They did not break their procession.

There—amidst small things—

I found chains of the spirit.

Where do humans connect with whom?

We humans cannot savor spring.

We've surrendered our rights to insects and flowers.

The spirit can't even print crude matters—

Flimsy as cheap paper.

How can we possibly reflect the delicate spring—

How can we mirror it in our hearts?

Like some tinny trumpet blaring self-importantly,

Muttering complaints,

That’s all there is to it.

Spring too is ending.

Of course, summer too passes by.

New Don Quixote

Young prancing foals,

The courage of youth,

Who will take up that mantle, I wonder,

The outlet for courage

In the city there is none,

Despite their youth, they act lackadaisically

There is contemplation,

The young foals of the city

They struggle to find outlets for their vigor.

The female horse inserts strongly-scented mint into her mane and prances away.

inserts it into her mane and prances away

When the male horse approaches,
The female horse says it's too noisy
And kicks with her hind legs.
Ah, lately things grow increasingly—
Absurd events have multiplied.

So I put on theatrical airs,
Affecting Don Quixote,
In the midst of the turbulent city,
Brandish the spear.

The spear cuts through the sky.
My courage falls to the ground.

But I must believe,
that this is all theater
I must not forget,
Brandishing spears,
Charging at enemies,
Cutting down enemies,
Being cut down by enemies,

All things, after a thousand years,
it becomes clear that it was all an absurd story.

The young men of the 1940s

Struggling to find outlets for their courage,
getting drunk on jellyfish steeped in vinegar,
they say they bit into waitresses' calves.
Such tales too will remain preserved in records.

All proceeded smoothly.

The plain stretches endlessly

The windmills mock.

Behold, ahead lies a great flock of white sheep
Don Quixote's
Ahead where the horse's muzzle points lies the path.
In Don Quixote's hand
As long as there are weapons, there are enemies.
Advance.
Advance.

Advance.

Expend the courage of youth.

Feigned Posture

Your youth
O your youthfulness
Do not grow impatient

To suppress a quivering heart
Take with lukewarm water
Calmotin
Veronal
Sleepiness makes even love forgotten
A man's truth is sold at the greengrocer's
Your desired selection

Please choose

Whether daikon or yatsugashira taro,

My words are full of lies.

The dazzling intricacies of words,

Just when I think I have it here,

It’s already over there.

My truth is ultimately never captured by you.
I am empty.
I have been branded a poet of feigned posture by you.
Ah, how pathetic!
How pathetic.

I am an individualist,

the act of saving myself

being for me—the primary task—

When that's done, I'll tell stories for others.

I have completed my primary task.

I was now in the midst of storytelling.

What might be considered pretense

People wore for others to peer through.

Specially tailored

It could be my cloak.

But that's excessive.

Please don't scrutinize private affairs,

Feigned postures—splendid—

Falsehoods—splendid—

I knew the path.

That was the path where I had been wounded.

Subway
The department store basement’s
Within the live fish tank
The listless movements of carp—
I watched while smoking a cigarette.
I was surrounded on all sides by
many people.
These people must certainly

Nor were they people who had come to shop.
They were watching the carp just like me,
or observing the rising water droplets of the fountain,
listlessly passing time.
If a canary couple were kissing,
a woman not wearing socks also passed by.

After that, I wandered unsteadily
I descended into the subway.

Under filthy smokestacks,

A discomfort like forced intrusion,

as if being pulverized

while emitting mechanical thunder,

Trains charging through,

laboratory-cold light beams piercing eyes

Blue descending light beams
A ghost pressed and tightened with hands
Door engines
Sirens wailing like infants
People stood vacantly

I seem to be very tired.

It must be the fatigue of the 1940s.

To warriors who do not fight,

At times fatigue too

Must come attacking.

Night's Crossroads

Eagerly conserving electricity

Rather than brightness

Growing accustomed to darkness

The people's mindset

Neon lights extinguished

Night city

People’s pleasures retreating into shadows

Only shadows deepening daily

What wanders

People or shadows?

A pit to fall into
subway train entrance
What suddenly shatters and pierces the eye is
the train’s spark
Blue suffices
the nihilist’s heart
I whistled sharply.

I called

My puppy,
The mass of my shadow—

Flower

The woman corners someone with words.

She drives men to suicide.

She has power.

However, men were not so easily—

They simply didn’t die.

To those nearing death
There exists such a thing as chaos
The sorrow of fate—I

Since I began knowing
love that always bends crookedly
in people with thorn-pierced faces and hearts
I reach out
though wounded easily
this heart heals slowly

Woman don't mock men
To stand apart and be despised
Time spent sitting face-to-face

I found it truly unbearable

Rain is falling.

She probably wouldn't come.

I watched through the rain

Through the glass door

The shadow of a coat-wearing person

Like a thin animal

Like a fat animal

Thinning and thickening,

Now approaching, now receding,

The shadow vanished completely.

I was neither waiting nor not waiting.

Inexpressible agitation.

On the desk lay a color that quieted the heart.

Erica, Aporelia flowers,

Ape

I cannot fully become human

There is the anguish of an ape.

I cannot fully become human.

No—I refuse to become human.

If even the environment were to change,

I would try to become human.

Until then, I—
I walk as if deranged—
Even while sleeping, I keep watch.
Even while screaming, I think.
Even while crying, I laugh.
Everything feels hypersensitive,
Only the environment
It will probably save me from the ape’s suffering.

What kind of environment—,

I can't quite say such things,

Until then, I cannot be saved.

I dash about

I love everything.
I possess a wicked woman's depth of affection.
And I am more active than humans.
And I take everything from nature.

What I took from nature
I do not return to nature.

Black Moon

I walked through the suburbs.

The moon shone too intensely.
The moon instead appeared black.

The surroundings appeared white.
Narrative-esque
Black Moon and such

He had found it.

The Light and Dark of Wealth and Poverty

Like a Beardsley drawing,

A World of White and Black

The world had come to find a Black Moon

Everything became inverted.

Love exists to be lost—
To desperately strive—
To truncate life—
To persist in living—

Because the black moon shines,

The surroundings turn white.
Indians wear white clothes.
If you wear black clothes
Yet the color appears white instead—

Because the Black Moon shines,
Everything in the world has become inverted

Today’s work—

When water wasn't added to the liquor
By the citizen called myself
When real liquor existed
I did not forget to drink.

Now, as a loyal citizen,

I am completely abstaining from alcohol.
The strange thing is,
compared to when I drank alcohol,
I have become far more numb.
The core of my head keeps burning,
the morning newspaper doesn't register.
Some political star

They seemed to be shouting,

but it was all just noise.

This morning too, civilian aircraft flew away.

Ah, life had grown doubly oppressive.

Stories existed only on the ground.

So many—

Now, today’s work—
Is it to go search for coal—
All youth matures through reflection.

My friend,

The day we reflect on our youth

How dark and sinking-prone it must be

But there is no need to fear this.

Just live.

Those who work and those who idle—

For we now dwell in perfectly equal misfortune—

What they call conscience and what they call justice

Now through mere endurance—

since this verifies it—

The thread of young reflection
Is not bound to death.

Only unreflective death
hastens Earth's destruction.
Unreflective death—the events in Europe exemplify this,
my friend—
turn the calendar each morning I bid you.

At times let your heart be stirred even by girls

I bid you occasionally gaze upon the beautiful sky

And then go eat a cutlet

All youth matures through reflection

Time is severed by young force

Wisdom will make its entrance anew

Life's callow youth

In the hardship of enduring

With a sorrowful heart

How troubled by thoughts one seems

My dearest friend,
I would rather beckon death
I resolve to survive the day

And when death comes to greet me
I’ll bluff that I never invited you.

O joyous life of ours,
Having had our spirits reduced to gravel like this,
And yet here you and I stand confronting each other—

Let us share in feeling what holds true significance
With the momentary courage of a calf that has gorged itself
Let us go pick fights like barbarians
We are still novices in life
For the sake of that unbearable second—
Take heart

The Power of the World

Wherever I went,

Even when I met people called new,

they appeared not the least bit new to my eyes,

nor did they seem like different entities.

The figure of a passing cat

Even if my eye swiftly caught something,

The faces of people making foolish expressions

not a trace remained anywhere in my mind.

Something awfully rare—

it had become the vanished Earth.

Morality had aged beyond repair.

What is love—,

That is all one can manage—fearing separation.

Truth is—
That’s everyone acting as they please—
Soak a handkerchief in it and call it quits.
A twelve-hued dye vat,

What is an ink bottle—,

It is a glass vessel,

And what is poetry—
If poetry is something made by broken-nosed people,
With every breath the heart must tremble.
Ah—a novelist more tedious than horses
A poet idly sniffling through his nose,
Preaching truth and moralizing—
This life multiplying friendships like breeding mice—
When hearts burn hot—drink ice cream
When hearts quake—I don my coat

Everything became convenient.

O terrifying power of a world that loves mediocrity,

Toast

To hock filthy phlegm a thousand miles ahead—

We must create a host of young fairies.

Do not agonize.

The leaves at dawn shed
The earth absorbed the spilled dew.
Though using no laundry soap,
Nature remains ever beautiful.
Humans lack hands to cleanse hearts,
Yet all should hold this purifying heart mutually—
As earth absorbs what leaves have spilled,
I want to wash my face with the beauty you gave me.
Let us bless humanity's power as nature's children
For something communal—
Today we toast.

Spirit of the Night

In the night of thick, viscous darkness

Drunkenness clarifies my heart and eyes.
In people's heart-depths drift
delicate tender things
merely veiled by moonlight's glare,

Are not reflected in my drunken heart
In every neighborhood,
Night as the honest conclusion to each day’s living—
of those who readily determined fate
A quiet murmur resembling sleeping breath
Only here in drunkenness and anger,
I believe in eternity, believe in the future,
the castle easily surrendered to tomorrow’s enemy
Nor do those who fiercely resist ever cease.

Believe—within night's darkness,
With eyes shining and minds keen,
That there exists the spirit of night awaiting tomorrow

Moonlit Wanderings

I traversed the road wet with night dew.
The moon had risen high
with its solitary roundness,
as it tried to create distance from the human world,
shining with desperate cunning.

The moon was like a coffin passed down through generations,
I feel not a hint of freshness.

At that moment, I thought to myself:
I know my own life best,
It is not sacred.
A life like a nest made of ugly straw.
Even when I gaze at the moon from the window,
I cannot see purely.
A calculating gaze had joined it.

There is no such thing as pure innocence in this world.
Even so, I am still yearning for a life close to that.

Days of Confusion and Pain

The moonlit night continues
I incessantly—
while continuing to ponder human death—
when night came, I wandered the suburbs.
O gleaming road

In my deep stupor—
Even the flat road
With mental anguish akin to climbing a slope—
At the moon illuminating the entire road—
I tried to vent my fill of curses at it:
"O moon! O gleaming road!"

Friend,
All things, forgive me.
The state of my instrument -
Having lost enough in half a lifetime to be satisfied,
I want to win enough in my remaining half a lifetime to be sated.

My boyhood in my hometown—
I spent whole days watching grass blades sway,
Humans told me nothing.
The waves whispered to me all day long.
I lived a lonely life.

You must understand why I'm so talkative.
Because I was starving for love too.
No—I didn't know the way to love.
I want to join the battle of revenge.

The Lamentations of the Defeated:

Like a bell ringing around me

Even when feeling pleasure, it was never pain.

How knowledge had been a trap for me!

How scholarship clamped my legs and knocked me forward—

Did it knock me forward?

I knew that.

What I desired――,

No matter how empty it may seem,

I sought something that would form the foundation of a new reality.
Others call my poems empty or,
or simplistic,
Those detractors, poets, and critics—
Now not a single one remained,
My poetry is precisely not poetry.
Especially within those people's understanding,

If it were poetry as they understand it, I couldn't bear it.

Both my cheerfulness and stubbornness,
My vivacity, my volubility,
In the basest sense,
I can only resolve to be essential,

I am waiting
I am not an old human
I am neither old knowledge nor old scholarship
What awaits are new people

I sing with conviction
I continue living

My poetry will be understood by new people.
Snivelers are merely like leaves on a momentary current—
they will pass away like leaves.
My instrument
doesn't harmonize with those of old people,

Night Stream

Ah, the taste of life—
How it must keep accumulating on the tongue—
I’ve lost count of how many times I gulped it down.

No matter how much I gulp it down,
Always, this bastard crawls up onto my tongue,
so much that I bite my own tongue—

While continuing this foolish existence,
As long as life endures,
That I must keep living—
What could this mean?

Have the primroses and pansies not yet bloomed,

From the color of winter's parched earth,
no signs of spring could be felt by any stretch of the imagination.
Only the clouds flowed swiftly
as people kept dying frequently.
When I saw the black-bordered frames in the morning newspaper,
I always found myself grinning involuntarily.
A dog that could do nothing but bark
kept barking in the empty lot that day too.
If this mutt, instead of barking,
had been a fire-breathing animal—
if I had kept a thousand of them—
if I could have set them loose toward the east...
According to the paper, a gambler jumped off a roof
and broke his hip bone getting caught.

Political upheavals—real or imagined—
Flower shop girls are invariably like flowers—
they tilt their heads while keeping shop,
Where quiet waves wash ashore,
small, uniformly shaped

Shells were washed up.

To buy rice, they visited ten shops.

To buy coal, they visited ten shops.

They grew thoroughly exhausted and slept soundly.

Socks developed holes and

collars got soiled and

books weren't publishing any decent works.

Horses were requisitioned and

the expulsion of university teachers and

students frequented cafés.

Ah, the multitude of vexing matters,

If the thing called sunset had never existed,

these things, these events too

with the salvation called night's sleep,

if we had not been able to fossilize some hours,

A fragile thing like human life—
by clashing against each other for a single day,
would shatter into dust

On earth without salvation,

The wind dashed about with a high,sorrowful voice.

The moon rose with the color of tear-swollen eyes,

Throughout the night,trees whistled ceaselessly.

These natural bastards alone

went along with every damn thing humans did,

A mean-spirited woman

Like a mean-spirited woman wearing a crepe scarf and gazing absently,

A towering black forest, a screen of darkness,
A night stream flowing sweetly like sugar water.
The natural bastards surrounding the human world,
With the callousness of those unburdened by dread of extinction,
Merely kept their silence.
Without any promise,
Winter arrived.
But with no charcoal, no briquettes,
The citizens all shivered from the cold.
But let us resign ourselves.

Anyway, like this,

Since the season brought winter to us,
in my hometown it was colder still.
In winter, the rooster's comb would stiffen from the cold.
There were times when it froze clean away.

Even so, when spring arrives,
because it does not forget to sing in a loud voice,
have courage,

O Rooster, my dear Ink Bottle,

O Contrary Neighboring Maid,

O all you humans of this vicinity,

Without any promise,

Since there are times when everything comes to pass,

What a wondrous thing it is!

Without any promise,

Unexpected things

that there are times when things come to pass -

Let us believe in the very act of saying.

To the pretentious poet

For you, life was like lying atop a Korean stove—always toasty warm. You all were born under fortunate stars, writing poetry from your privileged positions. Throughout life's journey, wherever there was a bed, you immediately found warm spots and burrowed into them. They called me a verbose game—reviled me as a prolific poet. Though truth be told, I wrote poetry even while eating. But you lot—you were far too minimalist in your output. Masked minstrels muttering indistinct words through clenched teeth—things hard to catch.

They produced about one a year.

In other words, like small birds,

they daintily partook a tiny morsel

and daintily deigned to deposit a tiny morsel.

"We are working poets,"

we ate a lot

and took thick shits.

"You—despite being men—"

you put on airs like female impersonators

They sat facing manuscript paper,
as if governed by menstruation—their so-called 'monthly matter'—
cycling through some biological rhythm,
until on the twenty-eighth day
they deigned to compose a single piece.

Pain was cherished.
Were they truly
thinking life was hard—
they put on grave faces—but
look! They were still walking around wearing shoes.
Polish children had fled barefoot—
yet their shoes made noise,
and feet were protected by this leather.
Look at the head.

A hat was perched.
Look at their chests.
The fluttering necktie
licked the wind like a tongue.
They still had everything.
And they still retained the right to cry out that it was painful,

Only those who have lost everything
could say things like reality being harsh
or life being painful—only they could voice such words,

However, they possessed everything.

Around them,

dubious suffering lingered,

and when he quietly sat down,

it would sneak up from below before one knew it,

climbing onto his lap to be doted on by its master.

Their suffering—

Quieter than a cat,
Deceitfully nestled on warm laps,
Their suffering became a cherished pet.
Moreover, it bore a two-faced nature like a cat's -
In daily life they wallowed in pleasure,
While preaching life's agony solely through pen and tongue.

What was so hard?
What was so painful?
All pain became noble intoxication.
Only those who recognized the blood they were losing
Could cry out true pain
And give it voice.

Prosthetic-legged Love

Love, no matter how frantically,
like running on a prosthetic leg,
even if mismatched,
as if moving with harmonized strides,
plunges through turmoil.
Love is
youth—
young age—
like ephemeral petals scattering in an instant
within desolate emptiness,

Even if only stems remained,

the obligation youth must pass through

they confronted with boldness like fulfillment.

How absurd it was,

the gravity of earnest speech,

the depth of significance

within love's words

for it was the greatest thing proven -

a zigzagging prosthetic-legged love.

City sidewalks,

Red buttons sparsely scattered,

Flowers arranged like,

A green cloak thrown over,

A field as if haphazardly draped.

In the depths of my eyes,
spring's earth remains nostalgic,
that memory too,
now chopped into pieces,

In the city's gray shadows,
Like a delinquent,
Sunlight crept furtively

Stealing glances between buildings,
With stiff shoes

When I walked on the hard sidewalk,
with each step,
my gentle heart was battered,
stirring up wicked schemes.
No farmers in sight,
no cattle in sight.
Do cows have horns below their ears?
I’d forgotten whether ears lie beneath horns,
forgotten even the shape of plows,
forgotten how to sharpen sickles.
The city—wherever I went—
was a rigid road repelling the heart,
lazily contemplating things while busily rushing,
sadly getting drunk on alcohol,
not like a village where yellow husks don’t rustle
but tattered hearts do.

Like a village,
Yellow ears do not rustle,
A place where hearts like tattered rags stir.

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Foolish Poetry Collection

Illness

When the great fool falls ill,
he lies in bed all day long.
Hands atrophy, legs atrophy,
he cannot get up.
Since his internal organs are relatively normal,
his appetite proceeds unchecked—
he does not waste away,
he does not gain weight.
He is neither healthy
nor truly ill.
The great fool, at any rate,
has survived up to this point.
He made rice gruel,
added eggs to it and ate.
Vainly, a single chick
refuses to be born.
He brewed tea leaves and drank,
and whenever he complained it was too hot, he flew into a rage,

He flings the tea bowl aside.

He shaved his beard with a razor.
His hands were most precarious.
When he tried to contemplate sublime philosophical truths,
A yawn emerged.
In the end, if one pulls out the Kilk plug in the flank,
Both you and I are bodies from which excrement flies out.
Ah, sublime—
All things—

No value.

Like rice gruel.

Wild drunkenness.

Like a wastrel,

He sang vulgar love songs.

Like a thief, like a villain,

He moved his fingers to grasp things.

He grasped only to immediately release.

When he seized something, he shattered it.

Ah, the great fool's wild drunkenness—
Loneliness without limit—
When he charged at a utility pole in anger,
The utility pole refused all compromise.
They pushed and crushed against each other until they stood locked in stalemate.

For a while under
the street lamp’s dim light
they glared at each other
Eventually roaring with laughter
the great fool turned toward
the utility pole

He pressed his cheek against it and parted ways.
He roamed the late-night streets.
A man who had forgotten the sack holding his shame
wandered through shadows from town to town, alley to alley
as if searching for it.
He forgot even shame and public dignity.
He unfastened his kimono at the chest and drifted aimlessly.

In search of light

No light there,

Soon, the oden shop’s clock
The hour hand points to twelve.
The minute hand clunks.
It spins thirty minutes all at once.

Ah, time—
The shame of youth—
Has the shame of youth been carried off to distant skies—

The great fool grieved and cried,
Yet not a single tear fell.
He tried to summon anger, but no anger would come.
He laughed, but nothing was funny.
In the darkness, a spiderweb staircase
Had been constructed.
In drunken swaying,
He ascended it toward heaven.

Heartbreak

The moon hungers for things

The moon illuminates the city.

I want nothing.

Through the middle of the temple, the cemetery, and the vacant lot

I made my way back utterly alone.

I loved the shadows of things

I began to intensely hate the substance of things.

I fell into a depravity unparalleled in history.

Let me cease pursuing all things.

When I immersed myself in the pleasure of chasing elusive shadows

Ill fate was sure to come.

Gun, roar—fiercely, loudly,

Fire a shot somewhere.

I—my standing position—

Because I would be able to know my position by that gun’s report—

In the direction the gun fired

I ran toward Itsu-san
To be shot
Like a deer running—
My feet light and effortless
With my heart leaping
Mocking **the** moon
While ignoring **the** city
I ran toward **the**
hunter’s place

Cane

If there's a knot in the heart, it's heart disease.

If there's stagnation in the head, it's brain disease.

If the ground shakes, it's an earthquake.

If the heavens rage, it's a tempest.

—Humanity, transcending nature

Is there indeed any ideal? Hah,

Ah, sickness and pleasure—

In my crucible

Repel each other like mercury and water

If mercury tries to go right,

Water blocks it.

If water tries to go left,

Mercury mocks this.

Ah, to my buttonhole-sized

Diminutive life perspective

She threaded the thread through,

Now there is absolutely nothing that passes through me.

Once through this single buttonhole-sized
Through the small spyglass of life
Various phenomena used to be reflected there.
One day a fierce sunset—
Redder than salmon entrails' blood
Had passed over the sea.
Now it was completely dark,
Now I absently gazed at city streetlights
Muttering to myself,
Adding and subtracting and multiplying,
Spent time partitioning my own fate
Shuttled between distraction and truth.
The moment of drunkenness was delightful,
The cane in hand

Striking pavement until shattering
Swing cane earthward—no peril
Cast heavenward—greater peril
Held aloft through space grows weary
"Enough!" I hurl away my cane
Sit down on midnight asphalt
Then—cane
Draws itself upright
Abandons drunken master

Along the midnight pavement

Click-clacking its feet, it walks away.

Graveyard

Into the Great Fool Graveyard

It wandered in.

On one grave

Was carved the cross of Jesus.

One grave was crumbling.

Another grave—its marble sharply polished—

Reflected the Great Fool's face.

There, shadow-like,

A woman's face was also reflected.

Graves were chipped in places, crumbled in others,

Gradually sinking into the soil of oblivion.

Before the new graves,

They inserted shikimi leaves

And incense smoke rose.

The Great Fool took a walk through the forest of graves with a woman,

His heart remained not the least bit free from its demonic nature.

Like a prodigal of youth,

He kicked dead leaves while

For the new fate

Like a blind man’s stroll groping his way forward.

If he pried up a gravestone,

There may be a path leading to happiness there,

Ah, but now—

Standing at the boundary between happiness and unhappiness,
he simply waited in silence for time's arrival.
The clouds scudded swiftly,
the wind blew coldly.
Beside the stone wall bordering the graveyard,

the fire of the charcoal bales that the vagrants were burning
He was allowed to join their group.
He shielded his hands and kicked at the flames with his shoes.

—What brings warmth to life—is it fire?
Where love exhausts itself, there stands a grave.

At the place where graves ended, was there fire?
The Great Fool exited the Great Fool Graveyard,
That feeling ran deep.

Station concourse

No matter how much one hurries,
The path cannot be hurried.
First comes composure.
Walk slowly.
My walk attends more to what's around me than the path ahead.

Busily observing my surroundings

This is indeed an oppressive journey.

When evening falls,

A bell tolls.

Centered around a single bell

Six bell sounds intermingle.

Clang clang

Clang clang

Ah, I can't bear hearing that bell's sound.

He looked down from the cliff top

The dimly lit station concourse.
Workers carried sacks of grain.
A freight train rushed into the tracks.
In the freight train,
Ah, how nostalgic—those pigs.
They pushed and shoved against each other.
They arrived.

Sketch

Great Fool joined the company of painters,

He attempted to sketch something called a dessin.

A woman stood naked.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

She faced front, turned back, looked sideways,

Raised her knee.

Lowered her knee.

Constantly changed her posture.

This was what they called a croquis.

The painters raised their eyes.

Swallowed their saliva.

Hurriedly rustled their paper.

Rustled it,

Great Fool intently—

Gazed at the center of the woman's body.

There lay the navel.

The navel was the body's

Eternal flaw.

In childhood,
he took out what they called sesame here and chewed,
"I faintly came to know the taste of my own body for the first time."
Great Fool intently—
gazing at the model's unraveling,
he was overwhelmed.

The painters narrowed their eyes intently.
They bit their pencils
Busily.
Thus hundreds of women,
He draws them,
Heaven—
Heaven never arrives.

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

Pathos Poetry Collection

Black Western-style Umbrella

The day passed without conflict.

Night was in the rain.

He went out into the street holding a black Western-style umbrella.

Over the water on the road,
The flickering and darting city lights too alluringly sensual,

At his feet in the flowing water there flickered,
He wandered fervently through the rainy city with no aim.

I found my pitiable self within the black Western-style umbrella.

He hunched his shoulders tightly against the rain's assault.
While casting an unyielding gaze into the distance,

When I tried to seek happiness from darkness,

What fierce intensity in the momentary sound of rain,

Has the ship of my heart still not sunk?

Those who resist, the things that lie beyond me

You waves—you merely carry my ship,

You—in the end—could not sink me,

Whether rainy days, stormy days, or sunny days,

My ship fervently drifts

The wandering of my heart—

No adversary can sink it—

My quiet breath,

Rain falling to Earth,

A large Western-style umbrella warding off a small heart,

In the torrential rain

For a while he stood frozen in bewilderment,
I was surrounded by threads of rain—
warm flesh,
of living beings, this place of wandering—
what infinite expanse this must be!
Behind the dark sky's back
there must be a forest of trees bearing stars.
To believe in that—that is mine.
Inside the black Western-style umbrella—is mine.

Crossroads

I grow anxious for others and for myself,

All people stand at the crossroads where life extends

And death approaches.

With this single body,

This torment of fulfilling two purposes—

Anxiety that will not leave,

It is life itself that will not depart,

With sorrows that have yet to arrive,
I grow restless for joy's sake,

people's bodies and the external world surrounding them
the malicious contention of physical pressures

Today too I saw it in the city—
I saw it and was stricken with a headache, wandering through the city.
A pump with strong suction
scooped out every last drop of moisture from people’s bodies and hearts.
That intense, high-pitched reverberation

Beside the government railway overpass,

Night and day without cease,

It sounded like a steam hammer,

Now all that remains is life itself,
The thing that carried it was flesh,
The unremovable concretion of life,
Farewell, myself—perish someday.
O bastard born of time,
O human flesh and life,
Within the Earth exists another Earth of my own.
I have fallen into hell—or so they say
I am being whispered about by people.
It's true—I'm an irredeemable wretch,
I plunge headlong even into places beyond saving.
I have rough, strange emotions.

And then I breathe like a rough wind.
But no one knows my wandering heart.
I walk through the field,
Within nature's wilderness I hold another wilderness of my own,
I walk through the town,
Outside people's town I have another town of my own,
Ah, within the earth I carry another earth of my own,
People call my loneliness my hell.
With difficult-to-approach aloofness
I stand at a distance that has been pulled apart,

People detest me like a demon.
Within the earth there exists another earth of my own,
Not within people's love,
Outside people's love there lies my love,

Song of the Sickbed

What it means to live—

I pondered it again and again

But in the end I never found an answer.

The present—that alone must be living,

The past—such a thing I don’t want to believe,

My past—I trampled it

and let others trample it too,

The future—there’s no such thing,

Only the word ‘future’ lingers on—

Even while asleep I kept living

That brings me no joy at all.

From sleep to death—,

Even if it continues as it is, I do not feel anything about it.

Suddenly I awaken.

A refreshing morning,

Everything was new—as if freshly born,
lazily infant-like,
becoming instinctual and willful,

And then night arrived.
I had only just settled onto my sickbed,

My desire wants to live through an entire emotional lifespan—from infancy to old age—in a single day.
I want to get my emotional life over with

And that would end everything.

Even if tomorrow's window never brightens, I wouldn't care.

My sickbed,

Won't you drop straight from sleep into death?

But the dawn's sickbed clattered its four legs noisily, clamorously making noise, and would likely awaken me again.

Carpet of the Heart

Even now, a trunk filled with curses and insults

Lugging a trunk filled to the brim with curses and insults,

I escape the sickbed and

I ran out into the morning streets.

The crimson stain of death intruded into life.

My eyes gleamed with death

at passersby with dulled sensitivity to being alive

and the dull-eyed people in train cars,

that gaze of mine came coldly wrapped around them.

Reviving their eyes was futile.

And I spent the whole day running through the city,

exhausted, returned to the sickbed and burrowed into it.

"Act freely, my life,

since there's no such thing between morning and night.

If I grow hungry, I'll bite my own tongue,

I, a wandering spirit,
passed through the spaces between buildings,

I passed through while mourning natural shadows,

The heart's carpet raced all day,

Torn to shreds upon returning,

Blood-stained banner,

Clattered down, my countless corpses,

Youth in the Barn

Ah, I hated winter.

Youth had been smeared with coal tar.

Our life clad in soiled white shirts

In a poor house like one inside a barn

Each other's hearts and bodies

We lived clattering noisily,

Now at last spring had come,
Moreover, by force of habit—
From offshore, a salt-laden wind had come sweeping to the shore,
Our bodies grew damp from it,
We finally felt human again,

In life, the only cold things were winter and tombstones.
I had thought human hearts were warm,
Yet through winter—it was human hearts that had chilled.
Colder than graves, colder than winter,
More desolate than the moon, lonelier than autumn—you there, life—
When spring came and granted me this slight forgiveness that brought happiness,

A tepid wind carried the sick to their deaths in the city.

Night's Crowd

Must humans love even those beyond saving?

The absurd fellow who snapped his fingers in rhythm with foolish movements,

The woman who bared gold teeth while laughing merrily,

Those who gorged themselves spectacularly,

The man who undid his tailcoat's front to urinate standing,

The drunken man with a white rose pinned to his chest,

The ones toddling along while being led by a child's hand,

Professional beggars singing lewd songs as they wandered,

Left-wing fans and literary youths,

Dilettante students and miserly old men—

glassy-eyed sodomites too—

The obligation to love all these people and

Who possesses power?

These sad, foolish crowds wandered the streets every night.

Moreover, they feared nothing—

They did not even beg for alms of the heart.

They found satisfaction in their forceful soliloquies.

These foolish masses increasingly overflowed the streets,

like the Earth that had quietly subsided into night’s

dim stairs they came trooping down—

lofty idealists, moralists, politicians too—

For some time now—dazedly—these masses’

Letting them do as they pleased, they watched on
the night laid out like a carpet
Footsteps raucous, minds adrift
They descended the slanted city
Now even morality lacked persuasive power
Who would save this unsalvageable crowd?

Windowpane

In the cold night room where there was no fire,

only the body that clung firmly to the living heart

sat there supporting it.

It pressed accursed eyes fixedly against the glass window,

watching the city where dusk too pressed close.

There was no clamor, no prize-laden commotions, no decorations.

Relentlessly it gnawed its way into the new year.

The war still had not stopped.

"What cannot be avoided must not be avoided—"

A strong voice blared from the radio.

A gentle cat came to the windowsill.

From the opposite side，it pressed its body against the glass door.
It struck a pose as if fawning toward me inside.
It didn’t know I wasn’t pleased at all.

Even as she laughed earnestly in that manner,
with its tail, the cat kept tapping against the glass.
It kept tapping away with a pattering sound.
As if suddenly comprehending everything,
it slipped off its docile hide once more,
showing a glimpse of its beast-like nature,

It fell below the window in a flash and vanished.
The unlit daytime neon
visible from the back alley's side
this back alley’s cluttered second-floor dwelling of mine
If I hadn't made the freedom to write scathing poetry my own,
I could never have endured living in such a place.
Freedom always keeps its watchful eyes gleaming amidst the dust and debris, no matter the circumstance.
For several unfortunate ones
it must be granting freedom between life and death.
I too am wandering in that space.

Against the chilly frozen windowpane

I pressed my face close and looked down at the December city.

Happiness and Boredom

What a strange era we were born into together.

Let me feel this happiness seeping deep into my bones.
Let us give thanks for this age where humans drown themselves with maggots.
With those silent expressions we've learned through living,
let's pass our days wearing sly grins.
I can only keep surviving through sheer stubborn filth.

To keep living is what I'm striving to do.

This heart that would plunge into flaming gears -

Steadfastly enduring, I watch the city.

A thousand white boxes - none meets the eye without tears.

The bored ones - to the full measure of their boredom -

They surrounded the Cinema Hall.

The urban melancholy sank quietly into the evening mist and drifted.

Those whose hearts didn't leap should have rolled the red and white balls on the billiard hall's table

they should have just rolled them around and passed the time in play

Without power to overthrow the century

Only the mahjong tiles fell gallantly.

An anxiety akin to the discomfort of a pulled tooth

As long as it lasted forever

As long as this sake's mild intoxication remained pleasant,

I truly had nothing to resent,

I still barely retained the capacity to resent dentists.

Random Thoughts on Fate

I am not yet worn out.

O my fate,

But you won't stay new forever.

For the succession of the next fate,

The spirit left behind
becoming like coal cinders here
I fear
The past was full of blows
It was a life full of suffering
They filled fate to satiety
I thank you for your actions
And the foolishness of the people I love
I pay homage to the flow of wise time

Poet and Secret

There are many secrets—leave them to the prose writers!

The more secrets they keep,

The greater works they can produce—

I am a poet; secrets I hate.

To discover secrets from reality

I want to reveal them and make people grimace.

But all poets are damned liars,

The exposure of secrets remains woefully insufficient.

You never lay bare truthful songs.

I'll grant prose writers their grand lies.
I'll laugh off their petty ones.
But poets' lies—great or small—shall never be acknowledged.
To wage war against these petty deceivers—

In life too—
In thought I suffer so—
You ridiculous stylist poets!
The reason Japan has had no good poetry until now:
like glue you've bound with lies,
they splendidly cement their concepts.

What will you do with my trembling heart?
Why do others try to suppress this?
Now is the time to show them.

How absurd a poet's life was!
The act of speaking turned comically absurd!
Show them what jesters they are!

Now go on and talk about a poet's life for a mere two hours.
At first, those bastards listened with amusement,
they'll probably grow increasingly gloomy-faced because
the nature of poets who expose secrets
they are either hated by all or resented as a nuisance.

Do not fear that.
Discover great secrets.
Reveal them beneath grand conceptions.

Song of Tinnitus

In my ears:
like buckwheat husks rustling,
completely parched without any moisture,
I heard sounds like guns firing endlessly.
I whispered in my heart: Ah, the war still continues.

The monstrously huge sound of cannons resounded.

More intense than real war.
There are those who battle poverty.

And then night arrived,

Thudding—the window was struck by something

Being pounded upon, they could not sleep all night.

Not a single tender autumn leaf was visible.

Life inside the windows of the city's back alleys

At times the moon between buildings'

The narrow space between the roofs,

As if exposing things that must never be shown,

Soaked through with light, it rushed past.

The lives of people amidst soot, phlegm, and dust too

Could this go on any longer?

The word called love has been worn out through overuse.

The word called hatred fell into disuse.
The fact of being alive,
the fact of dying were also forgotten.
Yet people under gentle clouds
lived in a frenzied whirl.

Only my poet self

must not claim the right to sleep at night.

must not seek undue happiness.

Curse the night, laugh in the day.

The dry rattle of buckwheat husks—

With this ringing in my ears,

Ah, I think the war still continues—in the fields, in daily life—

I think it still continues.

I do not fear that.
For the people, 'time' stands as an ally.
People and time will doubtless solve everything.

Foggy Night

The thick fog—
The thick fog had left me dazed.

Not even six feet ahead was visible.
So there I walked forward step by step.
Bit by bit, what lay ahead became visible.

Here and there,

There came the restless commotion of people stirring.

But the fog remained thick,

Human figures remained stubbornly absent.
How lonely I felt.
The fog that had gradually closed in
had completely surrounded me,
leaving only a scant space.

I properly consider matters.
The place to see through things clearly.
If this space were being methodically constricted by another's hand,
if it were being systematically narrowed,
that would undoubtedly become something terrifying.

My mental connection with people had also been severed.

And in the fog,
they ended up vainly passing each other by.

Now I stand frozen,
waiting for it to clear.
O fog,
clear away.
The distant roar and rumble of a passing train
makes me even more anxious.
What does it mean to be an adult?
My age has reached respectability.
My height has reached its limit.
Terrifying things and

Painful things—

Just like all people, that which had been allocated to me too—

But I did not understand.

What on earth adulthood was—I wondered—

If my nose would be pleased,

I want to try growing a beard.

If my lips would permit,
I want to always speak reservedly without telling everything.

I cannot do that -
Feigned voices, strategic dealings with others, and instruments of authority -
The act of keeping them stored under one’s nose -
If that were the qualification for dwelling in the adult world -
I would never be admitted into the ranks of adults -
I am an adult, yet

I stood bewildered within the ranks of adults.
There were so many things I didn't understand the workings of,
The ripening of thought and such things—
If what held value in life,
I would bend my waist as soon as tomorrow,
I put on a cough—cough—cough,
I could even age myself overnight.

Young friends,
They always welcomed me into their company.

Therefore I
I cannot create artificial wrinkles on my forehead.
With sagging eyes and a sagging voice,
I cannot speak of a youthful spirit.
What on earth is an adult,

I shall likely remain unable to understand this even at the moment of my death.

Traveler

The young man has only his eyes remaining youthful
His body, through living, has been thoroughly soiled.

O traveler of young life.

I stood together with you,
the workings of our young limbs -
how much had we accomplished,
and how much were we still accomplishing? Let us reflect.
The wind scattered the clouds,

But still the clouds welled up,

The clouds showed no sign of ceasing from the sky.

The clouds were challenging the wind.

You—nature’s contending ways,

Had you forgotten even the timeless order?

If you were to bring out your pillow upon night's tombstone

If you were to try counting stars throughout the night,

Tomorrow—you would surely think it fine to become a kite.

Here and now, I stake the full measure of my youth

I intend to serve the spirit of eternal youth and immortality,

The young traveler,
From where did you set out yesterday,
How far did you come today,
With the strides of youth
You must answer to the steadfast steps of sun and moon.

O young traveler,

With those sturdy legs of yours,

Advance your ideology.

A wretched night
The wind rustled noisily
The hanging lamp swayed ceaselessly
A dog barked in the distance
A restless unease stirred
Composed, having utterly forgotten calamities
An obese person was probably drinking alcohol
Timidly and earnestly
There were probably people hurriedly walking along the road
Like yanking off bedding
If one were to rip night from Earth's surface
Attempting to ambush gentle hearts under cover of darkness
A wolf pack was likely howling at mountain peaks
The indolent schemer was likely soaking his affected pen in ink

He was probably dipping his pen in ink.

What dreadful nights must persist.

Literature, politics, film—
All were concocted in the wretched night—
They were brought out into the bright daytime hours.
Restless and unsettled,
Like sleeping while standing in trenches,
All people endured this wretched night.
They continued a sleep too troubled to even count as rest.
Sleep that melts anger—
If accepting it—
I would be better off going mad without sleeping a wink until I die.

For the sake of wakeful daytime hours,
If only night were like a kind younger sister.

But like either a vicious woman or a ferocious cat,
to sink its teeth into people's hearts,
it rages and stirs turmoil within their hearts.
Night, have you ceased to be that pure-hearted darkness
that once awaited dawn?
Around the time I circled the trunk of a white birch tree,
someone just now told me to cry.

Under the white birch tree
A young heart circled the base of the trunk
From the third time I circled it, I remembered
In the meadow were cattle and lambs
Huddled close together like clouds
They had always been busily going in and out of the fence, yet
The door of my cabin
Remained closed all day long

Neither father nor mother came home.
The evening glow herded the lambs into the cabin as if adorning them with its beautiful curtain,
Yet in my cabin where no lamp burned,
The terrifying darkness welcomed little me.
In peasant life's
Loneliness was cast the child

By circling the trunk of the birch tree,
he accumulated sorrows born of hating loneliness.
Even now, I think love is when all things—
like lambs—
draw close to one another.
Even now, I keep thinking that humans are like lambs—
warm-bodied creatures after all.
That one can still cry even as an adult
is all because we circled the birch tree long ago.
Iron witch—
Through quiet lies or calculated passion,
the car carrying her runs with muffled footsteps.

Shadowy figures stretched long across the earth, the creaking of carts

The procession continued endlessly, endlessly.

Without scanning their surroundings,

As if gliding along the law of tragedy—,

Here was once peaceful;

It had been a pleasant cushion.

Now the bed's spring mechanism had broken.

Along the uneven road,

Here and there were holes where water had pooled.

Overnight, the field became a bedcover,

With violent wind and fire sending the warp threads whirling upward,

Only red weft threads remained afterward,

Here at night, the car stopped, people slept,

The backs of those who slept on the ground ached

Every time they tossed in their sleep,

The wind whispered the voice of anger beside the ear.

When the earth coolly sheltered those who slept

The heart passionately loved those who slept,

Here the exiles made their sleeping sounds,

By the hollow shouts,

The people again greeted the dawn and set out,

the car carrying the Iron Witch

The people guarded while

sweating as they advanced,

The Iron Witch stamped her feet atop the car,

Trying to steer the carriage in her pointed direction,
With pitiful retainers in tow,
To shoot freedom into the mud,
Raising inky-black passionate cries,
They advanced toward the hill before their eyes.
The dog and I had waited,
Listening for approaching reverberations—
To hear them was a joy.
Night at the ticket gate:
I listened to rails clanging
While vacantly watching people board and alight.
A small dog stood there,
Pacing restlessly
As if waiting for its descending owner.

A long time had passed,
Neither I nor the dog left that place.
I was certainly waiting for something,
It seemed I was waiting for something to arrive,
The blue signal light would turn red,
the red one would turn white,
repeating.

But what I'm waiting for does not come.
It doesn't arrive by train—
Probably why.

Perhaps when a/the train had stopped,
It might have arrived.

――Well, let’s go home and sleep.

I turned to look beside me

Strangely enough,
the small dog's eyes were bright red,
and because the owner it had been waiting for hadn't arrived, it was crying.

For what the dog sought as well,
For this comically earnest creature as well,
May misfortune quickly depart,
May happiness come quickly,
I made the wish.

Nature Ephemera

The wind relentlessly beats against the glass door.

Clouds raced over people's lives, circling overhead. The flowers bloomed because they were angry. She did not open her blossoms to hand sweet nectar to butterflies. Butterfly!—the butterfly was nothing but a thief. Water rushed downstream, churning white froth like joy itself—its traces swift and elusive. O passing things! O opening things! O things swept away! O closing things!

People crowded into the city,

They murmured in hushed tones.

The forest clamored.

Flowers blooming in anger,

Water’s flowing joy,

Eternal truth—

it rushed forward with clamorous, elusive speed.

Pillars of Life

Dawn spread tinted clouds between the mountains.
It dyed them crimson.
From within the fierce life of you and me—
unbearable suffering—
I stripped them off one by one.
The dawn of the spirit—
I now saw before my eyes.
I felt a crimson-strength joy.

O beloved
The wise colors of spring grow more beautiful each day
They rise from life's valleys.
To systematize suffering so thoroughly
The methods of agonizing and enduring
Where did we learn these?
The new suffering of transitional love
Awaits us ahead—
The nature of that new suffering
Along life's path we will have exhaustively grasped
Love would hold great advantage.
I want to crawl inside a horse's body and think.

O horse of my hometown!

In the cradle beside you

I learned words.

The same measure of words as all the villagers.

Having left the village, I became a poet.

Now words became necessary in great quantity.

The people could not express.

I came to know so many, so many words.

I sought to become a spokesperson for the people's will.

From words like sluggish tanks

to magnificent lightning-like words

The freedom of words is mine.

Belonged to no one.
I was suddenly confronted by that damned master thief,

“Shut up―”
“Don’t make a sound―”
And I had a short dagger thrust before my nose,
I, who had once spoken so forcefully,
having lost courage and strength,
was gradually trying to become more silent.

That I was not born mute—
I had come to consider it rather a misfortune.

I've grown sick of even the human form.

O horse of my hometown!
Inside your body
I came to want to sit still and think deeply!
Even the two words “freedom”
If they won’t let me speak properly—

Frozen night,

O horse, like you

Exhaling white breath from my nose,

I wanted to return to my cold hometown.

Galaxy

I opened the window and looked at the night sky.

And then I shouted within my heart

――O sky, save me――

O beautiful luster of my distant galaxy

I want to ride upon you

A heart heavy, dull, immobile

I want to place this unsaved sad heart upon you
Yesterday you heard my wish.
Yesterday you came to where I was
and brought me light.

It was night.

I touched your light.

How soft your hand must have been.

Starlight

You merely reached me
You wouldn't lift me to higher places,
Though my heart walked alongside you,
How heavy—heavier than lead—this body's weight clung to earth,
The screaming pain wasn't of the heart
Left forgotten within the heart
It became a plea as if the body would perish
Galaxy,
At last—
Won't you carry me off to distant realms?
Sorrowful freedom remains
Is this earth's sole freedom?
Are there other wishes better fulfilled?

Is there such a thing as a happy life?

Is freedom ultimately something that exists on earth?

Days filled with doubt about this continued,

The body steadily grew heavier

The heart strives ceaselessly to melt and flow away.

O life,

O band of earthly suffering