Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author's Preface

Ah, the pain of this twenty-five-year-old woman's heart!

The faint color of the sea showed through.

The twenty-five-year-old woman stood in the cornfield.

Corn, O corn!

How my heart aches so!

The twenty-five-year-old woman gazed at the sea.

She became utterly blank.

One, two, three, four.

The corn kernels were the twenty-five-year-old woman's lonely yet longing fragmented words.

The blue sea wind too,

the wind of the golden cornfield too,

the black earth’s sigh too,

O, they dampened the Twenty-Five-Year-Old Woman’s heart.

By the seaside cornfield

What wish was this?

The stiff leaves soughed and blew fiercely.

The twenty-five-year-old woman
She truly wished to cut her life short.
She truly wished to die.
Stretching upward, ever stretching upward—
Corn—how fleeting a single ear—
Having reached this point—

The Twenty-Five-Year-Old Woman's heart

Truly there are no men.

For they are but sorrowful and troublesome toys.

When I am truly wearied by household life,

Should I live or die?

What desolate resignation this is!

Truly, friends are dear, yet—

Because of each individual’s heart――

The corn leaves were all restless.
What reckless posturing!
The twenty-five-year-old woman's heart
throbbed with the urge to abandon everything and run.
She closed one eye.
She opened one eye.

Ah, there was no recourse.

I want a man; I long for travel.

Ah, perhaps that way,

Or perhaps this way,

With the spindle's thread in tedious monotony,
the twenty-five-year-old woman, who had lived in a daze until now,
lay down on the cornfield's ridge.

Ah, how I wish to sink into deep sleep instead.

Ah, to such an extent...

There is nothing to be done.

What confusion dwells in the Twenty-Five-Year-Old Woman’s heart!

——1928–9——

Table of Contents

Author’s Preface

Saw the Blue Horse

Saw the Blue Horse

Red Mari

Shadow of the Lantern

Lord Buddha

Homecoming

Agonizing Song

Weary Heart

Buying a Sea Bream

Buying a Sea Bream

Want to Talk Nonsense

Sobering Up

Love Lies Three Fingers' Breadth Deep

Her Majesty the Queen’s Return

Raw Gall Taking

Solitary Journey

Benevolent Demons and Malevolent Demons

Dwarf in the Ashes

Autumn’s Heart

Kiss

Romanticist’s Words

A Bright Landscape

Beloved Katyusha

Beloved Katyusha

A Town Where the Sea Cannot Be Seen

Lover

Passion Upon Snow

Drunken Woman

The Ship That Set Sail, But...

Red Slippers

The crimson sail set out to sea.

The crimson sail set out to sea.

Tranquil Heart

Burn!

Chain of Sparks

A Dream I Had After Losing My Job

Flower of the Moonlit Night

Afterword

I saw the Blue Horse.

I saw the Blue Horse.

The stable of my hometown receded into the distance.

A moonlit night when all the flowers bloomed.

It was I who kept running until reaching the port.

O hazy moonlight and red chronicle of wandering!

I wound a white scarf round and round my neck.

It was I who longed for the steamship.

But...

At the detention cell window with an aching arm,

I, who saw the blue horse of my distant hometown,

Father...
Mother...

She called out, "Please live well."

Amidst the nearly forgotten landscape

she walked on with faltering steps.

O single Blue Horse!

O, from my field of vision—

Now it had faded to such smallness—
O Blue Horse!
The stable of my hometown had receded into the distance.

And now,

Father’s face

Mother’s face

Father’s face and Mother’s face came vividly to mind.

After all，those who loved me were
in my hometown’s landscape—
my elderly parents living modestly
and within that dilapidated stable
the aged Blue Horse.

O dizzying clamor! Begone, all of you!
She threaded through trees surrounding a derelict house where nothing grew.
Shall I play with the Blue Horse!

In the richness of nostalgia

Idiot!
Idiot!
Idiot!

At the detention cell window I

I caught the scent of the distant stable.

Red Mari.

"I am the Red Mari thrown out into the field!"

If a powerful wind were to blow,

high into the vast sky,

I would soar up like a hawk.

O wind, strike!

Bearing air like burning,

O wind, quickly—

strike me, the Red Mari.

The lantern’s shadow.

“If you make me drink ten glasses of King of Kings,

“I shall give you one kiss.”

Oh poor waitress.

Outside the blue window were the rain’s glass beads.

Now the town, the people, the ××××—
Under the lantern’s light,
everyone had turned into liquor.
“Is revolution a wind blowing from the north...”
“I ended up spilling the liquor.”
Over the liquor on the table, opening a crimson mouth,
she spat fire.
“Shall I dance in a blue apron?”
“Golden wedding anniversary!”
“Or perhaps Caravan...”
“Tonight’s dance piece is—”

“Come on, three more cups to go!”

Am I staying resolute?

Yes, I’m fine.

I'm such a good girl, yet...
I'm truly such a good girl, yet...
I scatter my feelings—

To these dull, pig-like men.

Lavishly like cut flowers,
I scattered them.
Is revolution a wind blowing from the north...

Lord Buddha.

I fell in love with Lord Buddha.

If I kiss faintly cold lips,

O, overwhelmingly sacred—

My heart does grow numb.

From zenith to nadir,
In this sacrilege of mine,
Gentle blood does flow backward.
Seated upon a lotus,
With composure most vexing to behold—
In that masculine bearing of yours,

My soul was completely entranced.

Lord Buddha.

Aren’t you being too cold!

Like a honeycomb, shattered.

In my heart
Lord Buddha—
to perceive the mercilessness of Namu Amida Butsu
is no Noh play.

With that masculine bearing, come plunging into my flaming chest. This neck of a woman defiled by the mundane world—please embrace me to death.

Namu Amida Butsu’s

Lord Buddha!

Homecoming

I gaze at the mountains and sea of my hometown and weep.

The home in my hometown visited after so long.

Long ago, during the child’s meals,

The child who became my Omukosan
filled the small village with the sound of pounding.
They were fitting a hoop onto the large bath bucket.

He was already a young man like a great tree.

On the collapsed earthen bridge
The person with whom I once linked pinkies—
He’s gone to a country no one knows—or so they say.
Gazing at the sea from atop a low mandarin orange hill
Should I call out "Hey"?
The villagers and the village friends—
Everyone would come gathering at “Hey.”

Song of Anguish

Neighbors, or—
Blood kin, or—
Lovers, or—
What could it be――

If the act of eating in life remains unfulfilled—

The lovely flowers I painted have withered away.

Even if I long to work cheerfully,

Amidst abusive language

I crouch pitifully small.

I try raising both hands high, but
Are all humans just those who betray such a lovely woman and leave?!
I am not one to forever cling to a doll in silence.

Even if I'm hungry

Even without work

Rragh!
I mustn't scream out like that.

The fortunate ones frown in disapproval.

Even if I were to cough up blood and die in agony—

The earth doesn't so much as flinch.

Endlessly, relentlessly,

They had prepared sturdy shot puts.

In the display case
There was freshly steamed bread, but
The world I didn't know—how utterly
It must have been as light and beautiful as a piano.

There, for the first time,
I want to scream out "God damn it!"

Weary heart

That night――

On the café table
A face like a blooming bouquet wept.

What of it?

On the tree, a crow tries to caw.

The night is harsh――

Heaped upon both hands

My face—
Wearied by green face powder,
The hands of twelve o'clock stretched taut.

Buying sea bream.
Buying sea bream.

――To Taisan――

A kind of coffin might be medicine for us.

The two women were like kindergarten children.

They walked in step through a corner of the town.

Women who shared the same fate

In the same way, they locked eyes and laughed a lonely laugh.

Damn it all!

Laugh!
Laugh!
Laugh!

Even if just two women laughed—

There’s no need to hold back with this cold, indifferent world.

Let's not let ourselves be outdone by the townspeople.

Let's send a year-end gift to the folks back home.

Sea bream is good.

The sweet scent brings me joy.

My hometown lies on the distant shores of Shikoku.

There,

There is Father,

There was Mother,
There was the house, the fence, the well, the trees…

“Hey, boy! The one with the Edo Nihonbashi mark—put up a large advertisement for me.” Parents without joy—how delighted they would be, walking about to spread the news in that distant-yet-close neighborhood. “Our daughter, you see, bought this from Edo Nihonbashi and sent it to us—do try one, here…” She possessed a hometown deep in the mountains of Shinshu. She too puffed up the brown mantle.

She shouted with her usual white teeth.

―Tomorrow will have tomorrow’s wind, so let’s buy and send them with every last copper we have……

In the wooden box held by the errand boy

Satsuma-age, sesame-coated salmon, glazed dried sea bream

The two shared the same kind of laughter.

They stood at Nihonbashi.

Nihonbashi!
Nihonbashi

Nihonbashi was a good place.

White seagulls flew.

The two walked holding hands in lonely silence without knowing why.

Let's break through this glass-hard air and charge forward.

As they sang from rock bottom,

In the frantic streets, they burst out laughing as if exploding.

I want to spout nonsense.

——To my parents back home——

I want to spout nonsense a thousand, ten thousand times...

I want to spew nonsense a thousand, ten thousand times over...

Just aimlessly...

To have such a lively trio of parent and child,

counting the days when we can buy one shō of rice—

what an agonizing way to live this must be.

It’s not that I’ve lived in a daze,

Like a workhorse from morning till night
straining four legs
desperately
just to eat
I've done nothing but live in a daze!
The three of us together—parent and child—
at least
a thousand times ten thousand times—a thousand times ten thousand times—

Wouldn’t it be fun to just spout nonsense?

drunken awakening

Nostalgic world!

I am drunk right now.
The boarding house wall is the color of rice crackers and
There are thirty sen in my wallet.

Since it's raining, I should go get my geta.

That person got me drunk and—

Because I don't say anything—because he tells me 'Love me'—

Even though I love you without saying a word,

How sad…

Tomorrow night I will go to the wedding banquet hall and—

I'll find a man—

My boarding house fee is thirty-five yen.

Ah, I feel like I'm going mad.

Even if I work diligently for a whole month,
my husband Inken is like a sea cucumber.
I want to try kissing with the same detachment as smoking a cigarette.

I don't need any lover.

If it were just one month—

I want to eat white rice in peace.

My mother has rheumatism,

I'm nearsighted though.

Alcohol is bad for the head—

I was sending Mother fifty sen each time, but...

Now I’ve parted with that man too—
I feel like my eyes are going numb.

Fifty sen and thirty-five yen!
If only it would fall from the sky—
Love dwells three sun-widths deep in the chest.
Maidenhood—how distant a memory that must be...

Having fully known men's passions,

In these filthy veins swims a frog.

There exists such a vast vacant lot,

Where do you claim to make the flower of truth bloom?

The whimsical girl always watches airplanes.

Even if ten million men and women gather without truth—

The war is on hiatus for now.

Turkey and raccoon dog!

What the hell!
Fly away, Earth!

Men and women who won’t let truths spark against truths—

Split wide open—break clean in two!

The Queen’s Return
I’ll break up with men!
Within my chest, children wave red flags.
Would they really rejoice like that for me?
I will go nowhere anymore.

Let's live waving flags with everyone.
Everyone, burst out like that!
Then carry stones for me.
Then hoist me up
And set me atop the stone castle.

Alright, time to part with men! Won't cry!

Steady now. Steady.

Wave the flag for me.

The return of the Impoverished Queen.

Gall-Snatching

Fireworks scattered across the chicken’s raw gall bladder as night fell.

East-West!

East-West!

The decisive reckoning with men drew near.

I made a clean break.

In the man’s intestines,

killifish darted about vigorously.

Stench-filled night.

If there's no one here—I'll become a burglar!

Because I am poor—

The man also ran away.

A pitch-dark, face-veiling night.

Solitary journey.

A white sky where the wind roars.

A winter's wonderfully cold sea.
Even a lunatic would whirl frantically in dance.
An open sea that seemed to awaken.
A straight-line shipping route stretching toward Shikoku.

A blanket cost twenty sen, sweets ten sen.

The third-class cabin was like a cracked earthenware loach pot on the verge of collapse.

It was a violent turbulence.

Spray.

It was spray like rain.
I gazed at the vast white sky.
I gripped a wallet containing eleven sen.
Ah, I want to smoke even a Batto.
Gah!
Even if I were to shout,

The wind blows it all away.

In the vast white sky,

The face of the man who made me drink vinegar

So big, so big.

Ah, after all, it's a lonely solitary journey.

Benevolent Demon and Devil

Well then, let us celebrate this encounter with you regardless.

"Isn't this a lonely existence?"

This act of living itself—

I even think it might be an illusion.

That may well be true...

Lately I've grown thoroughly detached from sexual desire.

Like my heart were a locomotive,

I want to fall in love.

Sexual Desire Anarchism.

Chastity Communism had started to grate on me too.

After all, even in my heart—

There was a Benevolent Demon.

—I was startled.

As if the Devil were making me dance naked,

the Benevolent Demon kept egging me on.

Please wait!
I intend to invent a human life-and-death drug before long.
Truly, it’s something I always think—
A single dash across the wide sea.

I want a walking machine.

―Well, let's talk slowly.

I suppose I’m still alive…
Both you and I still have twenty or thirty years left.
On this small earth, unexpectedly,

That I encountered you
There’s no need for me to explain causality—it’s only natural.
*The Human Affairs Windfall Doctrine*
If you were to resolve to count them, there are innumerable doctrines.

All those too are battles between the Benevolent Demon and the Devil.
In the end, it's just a gaping mouthful of void.
How about a ten-pack for six sen?
I won't even smoke a pale bat.

And cheerfully,
Let us celebrate today’s encounter with laughter.

The Tiny Figure in the Ashes

Another day ended at dusk.

In the pale gloom,

When I stared at the ashes in the brazier

Over the uneven ashes,
a tiny figure carried poppy seed-like luggage
and waddled along.

The tiny figure waddled along.

“Sis, ’s not like you to fret like this.”

“The poor are blessed, they say… heh heh.”

Ah, I was tired.

I was so unbearably lonely that tears welled up.

As plop plop, large teardrops fell into the ashes,

The tiny figure shrank bit by bit until it vanished completely.

Autumn Heart

Autumn sky!
Trees and air and water
Cold and pure like a mountain’s skin.

The night sky, dewy like a woman's skin,
was unbearably beautiful.
The morning sky too,
the night sky too,
autumn was lovely.
Inside the blue medicine bottle,
the light of crimson lanterns
swayed gently.
The town's lovers walking while swinging their walking sticks—
I put it into the old match case.
I twirled round and round like a young girl.
Let me wind the yellow cotton thread.

When I see the colors of the forest near dawn and hear the birds’ voices,

My heart is about to burst crimson.

Walking along the late-night country road,

when I heard the insects' cries,

that aching love turned to salt-stung tears,

blown by the wind.

Autumn is lovely.

Day and night,

my life stretches out like rails.

*Kiss*

The Night I First Experienced a Kiss

The cherry blossoms bloomed wildly,

The moon was red――

At the man’s lips that seemed to suck blood,

Above all,

Above all,

The moon was spinning round and round.

*Romanticist’s Words*

—Is that all you’ve got?!

—Still not enough…
—Still not beaten down?!
—Still not enough…

The God of Poverty nodded and tapped my shoulder.
Laughing there, I headed to the pawnshop’s gate.
“Weak one—thy name is woman!” I inscribed in bold letters.

A Bright Landscape

Set sail!
The department store’s mouth seemed to groan.
She spat onto that flat mouth.
It kicked me like a pebble.

Under mismatched fashionable flags, a great many unfortunate people marched on.

When pressed by the sounds of the dusk-wrapped city,

I thought of the white rice of the suburbs.

When I imagined a glossy, healthy dwelling,

Whistling high in the sky, I began to long for the sound of copper coins.

But I lay nothing but eggs of error.

When I thought I was a defective hen, I ended up crying.
But I put those small, soiled eggs into an American cloth sack,
look—to the department store entrance—
and hurled them at the crowd’s heads.
With a swift spin of the revolving machine, I became like the wind,

I blew refreshingly through the suburban flower fields.

The joy of truth taking root—

It’s being able to eat white rice every day without telling lies.

By the way, Fumiko-san is happy, you know.
I want to call out to someone just once, you know.

Beloved Katyusha

Beloved Katyusha

1

The sunflowers stretched upward vigorously.
It was August of scorching sunshine!
I carried a rat-gray cloth bundle on my back.

How many times have I crossed that tunnel?

Around that time
In Naogata Town, like the bottom of a pot,
Katyusha’s lovely song had begun to spread.

The coal miners and
even the wives pushing trolleys
loved this lovely song.

2

I was full of vigor, like a sturdy onion.

With the mountain range where the moon had set at her back,

If only before the light snow melted...

The distance from the coal mine to town measured just under one *ri*.

Those white ten-sen fans decorated with carp and Mount Fuji

Sold day after day in lockstep with my persistence.

When she passed blue-painted company housing like shipwrecks,

A thousand miners' rooms lay lined like caterpillars—

And there they waited for me, every last wife.

3

When lunchtime came,

The copper gong resounded throughout the coal mine,
As if they had been lying in wait,
From the ground, people who looked just like stones came bursting out.

“Hey! Katyusha, get the food ready!”

Sunflowers bloomed across even the most desolate soil.

Miners who had gulped their fill of free air—
stuffing mouths with rice or
pinching wives’ noses—
exchanged brisk laughter.

August of scorching sunshine!

4

Naogata Town was desolate as a sea slug. After putting away the meal and going out to buy kerosene, the unfettered night breeze skimmed past a moon pale as jellyfish. The paper lanterns of brothels catering to miners too began glowing whitely like seashells.

My stepfather and mother

My stepfather and mother passed through countless towns and villages,
to pottery factories and geta workshops
they went peddling, hauling handcarts.
When I stood on the road, waiting anxiously,

I could see my stepfather’s lantern as he pulled a handcart that looked light.
Then I ran like a dog,
and clung to Mother pushing the cart.

5

When the rain continued for many days,
on the second floor of a sweltering wooden boardinghouse,
how we, parent and child, must have longed for a permanent dwelling place.

When I went out into the town,

At the station where snow was falling,
I saw a signboard of a lovely foreign girl knocking on a train window.

At that time, my notebook—
Every page was filled with Katyusha’s face.

6

“Today we’re going to smash up the office.”

One day,
when I went to the coal mine, whistling over and over,
the windows of the miners' quarters that had been so quiet
all seething with tension,
empty coal carts floated on the rails like spools.

When I crossed the tunnel with a heavy load on my back,

Miners with cloths over their cheeks
“Hey! Katyusha! If ya don’t get back quick, it’ll be dangerous!”
I was a twelve-year-old girl.
Being called Katyusha
made me happier than being called “Princess.”
“Hang in there, you hear!”

7

To the innocent girl,

From those straightforward, bright, and free faces of the miners
I did not overlook the smiles of justice.
When I returned to the boardinghouse,
I parted my hair in two and tried to style it like Katyusha’s.

Beloved Katyusha!
Katyusha, the serf's daughter, had fallen into such misfortune.
Blizzard, Siberia, prison, vodka, Nekhlyudov.
But I was a poor girl who knew nothing,
like onions in a vegetable crate embracing boundless hopes,
growing plump and ever larger.

The city where the sea could not be seen

What resonated in the frozen sky was

the sound of a solid copper gong.

When winter came to the street trees,

human stomachs grew tainted.

Worn-out.

Worn-out.

Robots swarming in the metropolitan abyss

The platinum chains fastened to the robots' legs

were electric currents expended on gold.

Imagine the day when waves crash—zazaza—through timeworn city cement unbound by past or future!

Smash both marble and domes to build a tunnel!

Build a liberating tunnel leading to the sea!

The sea and its waves

The waves raised foam like a newly staged play,
swayed their hips and puffed out their shoulders,
puffed out their chests,
and flung their heartrending truths into the sky.
Tearing down the contaminated soil offered no solace.
Tear off the large cold roof—
Shall I scatter the sea’s foam upon them!

Or into the long dark tunnel—
the centipede clutching the chain’s key—
shall I cram it in like trembling agar!
O wretched electric dolls teeming in the abyss!
Witness the wild eagle’s wings battering the waves as it soars!
O sea, O sea!

The sea was full of free and nimble sailing ships.

Lover

From aboard the ship
I dove straight in――

When I tried to rise skillfully,
a sea cucumber crawled up my calf.

I was ashamed,
I covered my breasts with both hands.
As the waves grew rougher

I undid my hair.
I had already become a steel trough.
If it thudded against me,
thudding passion that repelled.
Ah—how I longed for kisses
struck by powerful waves!
I was atop blue waves like velvet.
I drenched my naked body in water,

I simply drowned dazedly in the waves.

Now I am a mermaid.
Hold me tight,
O my new lover.
Left on the ship—
There were also dreams of a lovely sailor, but
My message is entrusted to the white seagull.
―A good lover has come into my life.
Ah, I am a downcast mermaid.
Oh seagull that flew far, far away!
Come back, come back with your fluttering wings!
―Still, I am lonesome, doth it seem.
―Sorrowful doth it be.

―The blue mermaid hath died, doth it be.

Ardor in the Snow

In the boundless blizzard-swept wilderness

I have become a single wild eagle
Wings full.
A soul full.

Passion at its fullest spread out.

A single beat!

With a whoosh，I crossed the fields――

Screech screech.

A beautiful snow cannonball

I wore a bright red hat

Hands full.

A heart full.

With eyes opened to their fullest.

I tumbled and rolled，covered in snow.

That deep blue snow!

Fractured clouds surged up from the snow.

Ah，the oozing-up Sphinx of my face.

I swallowed the fields，the mountains，the snow，the houses.

The Sphinx on the snow

I tore off my tears and breathed into the vast sky.

A mouth full.

A breath full.

Full of vigor, I shake my chest.

Upon the Earth that burst into bloom with Ranman

Ranman and the flying snow cannonball

Now, with all my strength!

I plant my feet with full force.

I will draw the bow with utmost vigor!

Drunken Woman

Leaves rusted like scrap iron.

They fluttered down one after another and scattered away.

The street trees stood like a forest of masts.

Every day, it's the wind's song.

"Miss in your purple haori with a black boa shimmering!"

"I burn with feeling for that haori and boa."

Beautiful woman

Beautiful city.

This stomach of mine is utterly empty.

I can't fathom it—

Me working and working yet unable to eat meals,

And your beautiful autumn attire—

Your cheeks plump with nourishment,

The firm roundness of those cheeks—

Is there truly hundreds of miles between us?—

Out of sheer boredom I stole a man.

Then drowned myself in drink—

Society—all of you—

Slammed me down to the dirt—

Wanting to trample me completely.

Miss!

“You grow ever more beautiful and resplendent.”

Ah, this lonely drunken woman—
If I don't shed tears of blood, I'll go mad.
I climb into the phonograph,
Even when I want to retch and howl,
Cold moonlit nights are shameful.

“You men and women of Yowamiso who laughed in scorn!”
“Carry this Drunken Woman’s coffin or whatever,”
Under the forest of masts in the lined-up city
Thud-thud-thud
“Let me liven things up with a thud-thud-thud for you.”

The ship set sail, but

It was a street thick with grime.

Like a broken-down car, I stood frozen.

This time I'll prostitute myself and raise money.

I resolved to make everyone happy,

This morning, having come all the way—
Hadn't I finally made my way to Tokyo after all these days?
No matter where I searched, there was no one who would buy me—
He'd said that if he could watch a moving picture and eat a fifty-sen eel bowl, he'd be content to die right after.
Remembering those words from this morning's man,
I spilled tears that fell like summer rain.
The man stayed at a boardinghouse, and
My staying there would only make his rent cost more.

Sniffing the stench like a pig,
I walked from café to café.
Love, family ties, society, husbands—things like that—
to my decaying brain,
I felt as though they had grown distant.
Because I lacked even the courage to scream,
even if I wanted to die, I didn’t have the energy for that.

The kitten that used to cling playfully to my hem—
I left it behind in Shikoku.
What’s become of little Oteku-san…
At the watchmaker’s display window, I thought to try putting on a female thief’s gaze.
How they swarm—these people all surface and no substance!
They say tuberculosis gets cured by drinking horse dung juice.

Making that bitter, bitter man drink—

What might a love suicide be like...

Behold! Money here!

They keep chanting 'money, money,' but—

Even if I work myself raw, it never comes back.

They say money circulates through the world, yet...

Won't some miracle manifest?

Can't I do something—anything?

Where does all the money I slave for vanish?

Until I end up heartless

And ragged

Toiling till death in cafés, as a maid, a factory girl—

A ragged husk—

Must I work myself to death?!

The man warped by illness

He said, “You are a red pig.”
Let arrows and bullets come flying!
Before the disgusting men and women—
I want to show them Ms. Fumiko’s intestines.

Red slippers.

I sat on Earth’s rotating chair.
If it clattered and made one full rotation,
the trailing red slippers—
one red slipper went flying off.

How lonely…

Even if I call out “Hey”—

No one will retrieve the flown-off slipper.

Summoning my courage, I jumped down from the rotating chair.

Should I go retrieve the other slipper?

Ah, my cowardly hand—

I clung tightly to the rotating chair.

Hey! Anyone will do—

Slap my cheek as hard as you can
And knock off even the one slipper I'm still wearing!
I want to sleep peacefully.

Shuho went out to sea.

Shuho went out to sea.

Did you hear the roar of the tide!

Did you hear the vast, boundless cry of the sea!

Entrusting the sooty lamplight to their wives,
the island workers scattered shore pebbles with their kicks
and gathered at the sunset-drenched beach.

Did you hear the distant roar of the tide!
Did you hear the voices of thousands swarming together?!

This was the quiet shipbuilding port of the inland sea.

Like a shellfish that had tightly shut its lid,

In the narrow townscape of Inno Island,

Oil-stained pants and work-cloth flags fluttered,

The sound of the factory gate being shattered bone against bone.

That sound went boom... boom...

The roar resounded throughout the entire island.

Thud… thud… Thud… thud…

When the blue-painted service gate was pressed by the mass of shoulders,

Nimble chameleons

Clutching ledgers stained with blood and oil by the workers,

Like foxes on a snowy night slipped furtively,

They jumped aboard the launch and made their escape.

From the rigid, twisted faces of the workers,

tears of rage gushed out.

Weren’t the tears crackling as they fell?

The fleeing launch—
When intercepted by the ○○○’s ship spread out like a cast net—
The space between this small island’s clustered workers and the escaped launch
Was erased by nothing but a single streak of white spray.
Even as they clenched their teeth and pressed foreheads to earth—
The sky—

Yesterday and today, no different—

The ordinary drift of clouds.

And then—!
The workers, turned into madmen on the verge of tearing off their own heads,
called out to the waves and howled at the sea—
they swirled into the vortex of the wrecked dock and crashed down.

Did you hear the tide's roar!
Did you hear the distant waves' cry!
Wave the flag!
Wave it high - skyward with all your might!

Energetic young men
bared their glittering skin,
creak... creak... creak...
As they strained the ropes of the torn red sail with all their might,
bursting through the seawater barrier,
the vermilion ship ventured forth into the howling sea!
Now!
Wave the flag!
Sing the ○○ Song!

Though decaying,
the vermilion ship, swollen full with wind's vigor,
kicked up white spray as it plunged seaward!
It shot like an arrow into the very heart of the waters.

But…

Hey! Hey!

On Mount Kōjin where cold winds blew, they called out.

Listen—to that wave-like surge of voices!

The pitiful wives and children

stretched upward desperately—

weren’t they crying toward the sky’s very heights!

Did you hear the distant tide’s roar!

Did you hear the waves’ furious howl!

…………

Under the withered tree on the mountain top,
In the depths of the eyes of wives and children waving both hands alongside the withered tree,
It dashed away like scattered sparks.
The red sail remained visible for so long.

Quiet heart

Night deepened.

A chicken crowed in the distance.

Tomorrow I’ll buy rice with this.
At a desk made from an orange crate,
I wrote a richly fragrant children’s story.
If this were to make money,
My fantasies fade away in the stark electric light of late night.

I was tired and bent my fingers to look at them.
Because I hadn’t eaten a proper meal in two days,
I was terribly cold—
Look, my stomach’s like a bell—
Gurgle gurgle, roaring away.
I placed a pot on the hibachi.
I’ll put in the udon dough and eat.
The wind outside seems bitterly cold, though...

It was a splendid moonlit night.

As I watched this steam rising like white threads,

I felt as joyful as a baby.

The children's story was done too,
the udon had been simmering away...
The narcissus I arranged over a week ago - now withered and dry -
stirred up such desperately sad feelings,
but thinking of tomorrow,
I held back my tears.
I looked at white hands.
Ah... there had been someone who once wrote me love letters...

Burn!
Burn!
Burn!
That's fire! Those are sparks!
Burn the gloom!
The true heart is a spark! A heart!
Don't mock me.
Don't mock me.
Even if I am poor,
I will live!
Perched atop a large tree,
my child-like heart
oh I want to scream like a madman this much.
chain of sparks

A morning when the radish field lay frozen white.
I was washing rice.
I wanted a red shawl.
In the faintly soundlessly falling snow

Wearing a red shawl
If I were to set out on a journey with my lover……
I redden my face and fold my trembling heart
Quietly tearing up.

This morning’s fantasy of mine while cooking rice
piled fantasy toys inside the express train
burning like a chain of sparks
ran on.
A dream I had after losing my job
A night dark as burning
The moon slipped into the tunnel
Offshore, white sails were gliding along.
And so I, who had been made to leave the soap factory,
hands roughened by soda like brittle toffee
was crying with my hands immersed in perfume.

I didn't know how far I'd walked, but there was fire visible in the dark regardless. My stomach growled right on cue,

That place was a Chinese restaurant.

Freshly grilled pork heaped full on plates

One plate eight sen.

To the Chinese cook with gleaming eyes,

I felt a burning intensity.

On the arm that remains steadily in contact

The Chinese cook made a snake coil around—heh heh…

When I swept back my long hair,
It was my dear lover.
The magic snake flew away!
Blue bubbles turned into hard soap.

My lover and I fell in the field, linked our pinkies, and kissed, but
my lover said he couldn't make a living in this world,
he tried to pierce through my small chest
Red sparks turned into hard soap.

I wanted to eat Chinese food and
fled across the sea in a headlong rush.
Bang! Gone in a flash!
My chastity had flown away.

Moonlit Flower

Returning from visiting a prostitute

I walked along the snowy path

I saw a fox running.

That person was kicking the frozen road like a child.
I walked through the suburban town.

I went to buy red flowers with that person.

It was a wonder of the heart unlike any in years.

Tomorrow I'll paint a still life of flowers perhaps...

Is that person trying to hook something on the moon?

He swayed his mantle in the wind.

On the snowy path, I saw a fox running.
Twisting its body exactly like a wave, it ran off—you know.
While picturing that person's mountain-country brothel,
I felt desolate like a kitchen vegetable box.
In the damp vegetable box—whitish pale flowers—
I had been one who made them bloom only to weep...
Hey... Oi!
The daphne flowers are fragrant, you know.
From within the dark mansion
A faint lonesome scent of flowers lingers.
I held the red flowers up to the moon.
The flowers bought by the poor painter

With a pattering sound, they open to the moon.
Snow isn’t falling either.
Foxes aren’t passing through either.

It was a moonlit suburban country road.

Afterword

I have gathered only my favorite works from ten years of writing.
Somehow it feels like preparing for my bridal procession, and I blush with embarrassment.

The poems in this collection are all previously published works.
Since I wrote them while everyone was working, this manuscript has yellowed deeply and shared in my wandering hardships over the years.

Let us not say anything and simply shout banzai.

The prefaces were kindly written by Mr. Ishikawa Sanshirō and Mr. Tsuji Jun, whom I respect most.

Though no one in the poetry world would engage with me, receiving such gracious prefaces makes me feel my decade-plus of poetic trials was not in vain.

I wish to present this collection filled with my utmost effort to my many female friends who loved me more than anyone else, and repay the friendship they showed me day after day.

—Shōwa 4・May・Hayashi Fumiko—